Galleries

GALLERIES OPENING TIMES:
MON - SAT: 10am-5pm
SUN: 11.30am-5pm. Entry is Free.

phoenix gallery

Mind Over Matter

15 Jan–28 Feb

This exhibition brings together the work of four artists who, through a variety of mechanical means, transform inanimate materials into artworks that have a life of their own. By bringing the ‘spark of life’ to their work in an apparent process of transformative alchemy, each could be seen to employ the magician’s or ‘thaumaturgist’s’ – tools of spectacle, illusion and the power of wonder.

Through a potent and creative mix of motion, engineering, technology & mathematics these artists explore relationships between art & science, man & machine, chaos & order.

Ivan Black uses repetition of form to create mathematical and geometric sculptures which use movement to explore his fascination with fluid geometry.

Bálint Bolygó creates mechanisms animated by natural universal forces and the unpredictability of the human touch, resulting in an independent act of creation.

Tim Lewis’ automated sculptures react to people and the environment, exploring and questioning perceptions of the world around us.

Nik Ramage’s absurd, paradoxical and at times completely comical work foregoes utilitarian functionality in favour of futility, uncertainty and fragility.

Eyeopener

Wed 5 Feb, 10.45am, FREE- please book place in advance

Finding out about the current exhibition through a sociable half hour
talk in the galleries.

a kinetica museum/phoenix gallery exhibition in association
with animated exeter

phoenix gallery

Sovay Berriman

12 Mar–2 May

Sovay Berriman’s practice has a strong theme of exploration, through academic and scientific, as well as imaginative endeavours. Despite romantic and cynical extremes which are often apparent, a sense of humour runs through her work offering a release from this otherwise present tension.

As well as the production of objects, drawings and texts, Berriman also incorporates events into her practice, such as ‘Ghosts, Landscape, Literature: a walk with Dr. Shelley Trower’ (2009) a commissioned text delivered on moorland in Yorkshire and, ‘Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Back to Back’ (2008) an overnight screening of all the films of the legendary dance duo.

Whether seeking to offer us a route to comprehension or a course of escape is unclear, but what is certain is the importance of fantasy in the topography of Berriman’s work and of her efforts to persuade us to embrace it.

Eyeopener

Wed 7 Apr, 10.45am, FREE- please book place in advance

Finding out about the current exhibition through a sociable half hour
talk in the galleries.

www.sovayberriman.co.uk