| THE ECONOMIST presented by Contemporary Art Society |
25 St. James's Street |
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15 May - 7 July 2002 Tom Woolford Woolford lives and works in London and gradutated from the MA Sculpture course at The Royal College of Art in 1998. He has exhibited widely nationally, including EAST Riverside, Norwich (1999) and more recently was selected for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize, London in 2001. Woolford is currently working on a large-scale commission for the Chiltern Sculpture Trail and will be taking part in Further Up in the Air, Liverpool later this year. Sean Ashton These works all revolve around the theme of surface. They explore issues of authorship, originality and authenticity, with a specific focus on the production of The Economist newspaper within the building. Ashton lives and works in London and is currently studying a PhD in fine art at Goldsmith's College. He gained an MA in Sculpture from The Royal College of Art in 1997 and has exhibited extensively in London, notably at Nylon and Modern Art in 1999, Cabinet Gallery and Mobile Home in 2000 and at 3 Dingley Place in 2001. He has also shown internationally at Gavin Brown Enterprises, New York and KX in Hamburg. |
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On
The Economist plaza, Woolford will be exhibiting a new sculpture,
Raft 2002. Constructed from various odds and ends collected from
the South East coastline, the sculpture will resemble a castaway's
escape vessel. The design of the craft is influenced by one built
and used by hermit and cave-dweller Millican Dalton, whose eccentric
exisitence in the semi-wild environment of the Lake District in
the 1930s-40s seemed to be epitomized by his raft. Woolford attempts to challenge the viewers understandings of function
and aesthetics by placing his raft in the incongrous ennvironment
of St. James's. Far away from any substantial body of water, the
raft becomes less a symbol of a struggle for survival and more a
sign of wilful desire.
Sonnet
is a collection of works which include sculpture together with wall-based
pieces. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a work entitled, Sonnet
2002 in which Ashton has composed a sonnet from phrases
and words taken directly from an issue of The Economist newspaper.
Ashton has edited fragments of original text into a montage composed
of inscriptions from the newspaper, including advertisements he
has extracted a poem from beneath the publication's surface. The
poem is etched into a sheet of brushed stainless steel in an attempt
to merge the rougue prose seamlessly into the surrounding environment.
Ashton will also show two large sculptural pieces that juxtapose
forms and surface textures. They confound and please by suggesting
a similiar sense of poetic and gentle subversive playfulness.