David Troostwyk / Matt’s Gallery Studio Award & Vanguard Prize Winners 2020
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Left: Brody Chipchase, Unititled, 2020. Right: Isobel Finlay, Vortex, 2020.
This autumn, Chelsea Space in collaboration with Camberwell College of Arts is delighted to host an exhibition of new work by Brody Chipchase and Isobel Finlay, winners of The David Troostwyk / Matt’s Gallery Studio Award and The Vanguard Prize respectively. The exhibition sees these two artists, both recent graduates from BA courses at Camberwell College of Arts, come together to showcase and celebrate the culmination of their individual year-long studio residencies. In response to the current access restrictions, Chelsea Space is hosting this exhibition to enable on street viewing via the gallery’s large window frontage.
Brody Chipchase presents a new body of work inspired by objects known as tongue stones - curiosities thought to have fallen from the moon and offer protection from poison. Regarded as mystical treasures from the sky, they were in reality the fossilised teeth of prehistoric creatures. Chipchase presents objects from an imagined world where teeth are the most valuable offerings, collected and scavenged by creatures known as The Tooth Collectors. These relics are the only known evidence that such a place exists.
By fashioning her own mythology and visual language through an assemblage of other-worldly objects and talismans, the artist harbours an archive of artefacts from an unknown realm and ambiguous time encompassing both past and future. Offerings of teeth and bones, ceremonial vessels and globulous idols are some of the curiosities found within this world. The collection of relics, positioned in conversation with each other, allows the artist to explore narrative elements that allude to suggestive storylines without providing us with a fully comprehensive tale. The work presents itself as props to be played with, and like props they act as signifiers to a larger world.
Isobel Finlay is interested in how craft skills reflect the body’s natural rhythms, and how these rhythms can be distorted by modern living and materials. Fabric production was, up until relatively recently, something that would have been done in the home and is inextricably tied to our bodies; fabric literally houses us daily as clothing, protects us and is a form of personal expression. Fabric we create or wear holds a part of us within it.
Describing her process, the artist writes, ‘I offer myself to the world, and it changes and distorts me. Up then down. Left to right. Again and again and again. Memories buried in muscles, twitches of fingers mimicking the ghosts that have gone before. Memories held in the making, the future tumbling from needles that press into the past. Twisted, taut, trembling - the skin of my cloth supporting the things that have come before. Change is inevitable. The hard, unwavering materials of our architecture bleed into us, leave their mark in calcifying scars. We stretch out to meet the boundary, sacrifice little offerings of ourselves, and the metamorphosis begins’.
Brody Chipchase (b. 1996, UK) studied BA (Hons) Sculpture, Camberwell College of Arts (2019). Selected exhibitions include Traces, Old Parcels Office, Scarborough (2018); Croaky Throat, Take Courage gallery, New Cross (2019); Degree Show, Camberwell College of Arts (2019). She lives and works in London.
Isobel Finlay (b. 1996, UK) studied BA (Hons) Drawing, Camberwell College of Arts (2019), receiving the Vanguard Court Studio Prize and the Clyde & Co Art Award 2019/2020. Recent group exhibitions include: My House is an Island, Arthousehaus, London; 1001 Sunsets and 1 Eclipse, King’s Arch Gallery, Brighton; Clyde & Co. Art Award 2019/2020, St Boltoph Building, London; Business As Usual: How the 1% Remain Blind to the 6th Mass Extinction, Dean Clough Gallery, Halifax; Tactile, Deptford Does Art, London. She lives and works in London.
The David Troostwyk / Matt’s Gallery Studio Award is awarded to a Camberwell College of Arts BA Sculpture undergraduate and provides the recipient with a year’s free studio, mentoring from Robin Klassnik OBE (founder and Director of Matt’s Gallery) and Camberwell Lecturer Leah Capaldi, and 100 hours workshop access. The award is named after David Troostwyk (b.1926, d.2009) a leading British conceptual artist who taught at Camberwell 1964-89. In 1979, Troostwyk became the first artist to be shown in what was soon to be known internationally as Matt’s Gallery, London.
The David Troostwyk / Matt’s Gallery Studio Award is supported by the David Troostwyk Trust (Barbara Cavanagh, Olivia Cavanagh and Robin Klassnik), Matt’s Gallery and Camberwell UAL. The inaugural recipient was Hannah Skinner.
The Vanguard Prize allows Vanguard Court to help new artists grow and develop and reinforces Vanguard's strong links with Camberwell College of Arts. The prize, launched in 2010, is for graduating students of the College. The winner is offered a year's free studio residence at Vanguard Court along with ongoing mentoring and support from Camberwell College of Arts to help with the development of their personal and professional practice. Previous winners include: Murray O'Grady, Philip Li a.k.a Le Fil, Philip Booth, Lauren Allen, Alexander Devereux, Queenie Clark, Billy Crosby, Rosie Grace Ward and Gwenllian Spink.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to
Robin Klassnik, Tim Dixon, Matt’s Gallery
The David Troostwyk Trust (Barbara Cavanagh, Olivia Cavanagh and Robin Klassnik)
Jonathan Shaw
Vanguard Court
Professor Dan Sturgis
Leah Capaldi
Donald Smith, Gaia Giacomelli, Dr Karen Di Franco, Clare Mitten, Chelsea Space
Ends
This exhibition, which usually takes place at Camberwell Space, is relocated to Chelsea Space this year due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
Publication
The exhibition will be accompanied by a printed leaflet, which will also be available online at www.chelseaspace.org.
Press Information
For further information, images or to discuss interviews please contact:
Gaia Giacomelli / Clare Mitten at Chelsea Space via email info@chelseaspace.org or tel: 020 7514 6983
Notes to Editors
• Images and further information are available upon request.
• About: Chelsea Space is a public exhibiting space, sited on the Millbank campus of Chelsea College of Arts, UAL, where invited art and design professionals are encouraged to work on experimental curatorial projects. See: www.chelseaspace.org
• Please refer to the gallery as Chelsea Space at Chelsea College of Arts.
• In copy please refer to Chelsea Space and not ‘The Chelsea space.’
• Please note that the gallery is currently closed to the public in light of the current health emergency. For updates please refer to our website.
• Online launch event: Thursday 26 November 2020, 6pm BST – this event will take place online, please see www.chelseaspace.org for further information.
• Admission Free
• Chelsea College of Arts, UAL is one of the world’s leading art and design institutions.
• Located at Millbank, next door to Tate Britain, Chelsea specialises in Fine Art, Graphic Design and Interior and Textiles Design. Since its origins in the 19th century, the College has produced many of the greatest names in the arts, including: Quentin Blake (illustrator and author), Ralph Fiennes (film and stage actor), Anish Kapoor (sculptor), Steve McQueen (artist), Chris Ofili (artist), Alan Rickman (film and stage actor), Alexei Sayle (comedian) and Gavin Turk (sculptor).
Operating at the heart of the world’s creative capital, University of the Arts London is a vibrant international centre for innovative teaching and research in arts, design, fashion, communication and the performing arts. The University is made up of six Colleges: Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, Chelsea College of Arts, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion and Wimbledon College of Arts. Renowned names in the cultural and creative sectors produced by the University include 12 Turner prize winners and over half of all nominees, 10 out of 17 fashion designers named British Designer of the Year, more than half of the designers showcased in London Fashion Week and 12 out of 30 winners of the Jerwood Photography Award.
