Dr Rowe said: “The word ‘history’ stems from the Latin historia meaning ‘narrative, account, tale or story’ whilst the word ‘myth’ stems from the Greek mythos meaning ‘speech, thought, story’. This exhibition explores the myriad ways in which contemporary artists engage with western traditions of narrative, fable, storytelling and legend in literature, art, history and personal experience through painting, drawing, photography, installation and sculpture.
“Relationships between myth and history are evidently blurred; the artists presented in the exhibition take their cue from such ambiguities in creating their own versions of events.”
The Bristol Gallery, located on Millennium Promenade, Harbourside, Bristol, is a new contemporary art gallery representing international, national and regional artists working in a wide range of media, making their work available to new public audiences in Bristol and the South West.
Myth and History runs from Saturday 19 September to Thursday 29 October 2009 at The Bristol Gallery, Building 8, Unit 2, Millennium Promenade, Harbourside Bristol BS1 5TY. Opening Hours: Monday – Friday: 9am – 6pm; Saturday and Sunday: 9am – 5pm; Late Night Opening: Thursdays until 8pm
Earlier this year, The Bristol Gallery supported two undergraduate prizes for the Department of History of Art: The Stephen Bann Outstanding Dissertation Prize and The Michael Liversidge Outstanding Achievement Prize for a five year period. The Bristol Gallery is also employing recent Bristol University History of Art graduates as curatorial research assistants.
About the artists
Lubaina Himid is currently shortlisted for the prestigious Northern Arts Prize (outcome January 2010). She is Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire and has exhibited widely both in Britain and internationally with solo shows at Tate St Ives, Transmission Glasgow, Chisenhale London, Peg Alston, New York and St Jorgens Museum, Bergen. She represented Britain at the 5th Havana Biennale. She has work in several public collections including the Tate Gallery, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Arts Council England, Birmingham City Art Gallery, Bolton Art Gallery, New Hall Cambridge and the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston.
Deborah Van der Beek has exhibited her sculpture widely, including at the offices of the European Commission, London in 2008, Pangolin London’s In the Mix II (2009) and the University of Leicester’s A Celebration of British Sculpture (2009). She has also accepted an invitation from Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, the city's public gallery, for an exhibition in 2010.
Patrick Haines has been practising sculpture for over twenty years. He has received several commissions for sculpting work from internationally acclaimed artist Marc Quinn, including full body portraits of Kate Moss in clay for bronze, as well as undertaking sculptural work for Anthony Gormley, Mariella Neudecker, David Mach, Paul McCarthy, Rachel Whiteread, the Chapman Brothers and Daphne Wright. He is widely exhibited nationally and internationally.
Phil Sayers is a widely exhibited artist who has also worked collaboratively with fellow artist Rikke Lundgreen since 2000. His most recent solo exhibition, Old Masters – Different Heroines was held at Brand Contemporary Art, Groningen, Netherlands. The exhibition ran alongside the major retrospective J.W.Waterhouse (1849-1917) The Modern Pre-Raphaelite at Groninger Museum, currently on at Royal Academy of Arts, London before travelling to Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in October 2009. Sayers’ exhibition for The Bristol Gallery will include two brand new, previously unseen works based on the art historical sources of J.W. Waterhouse’s Mariana in the South and Mariamne.
Emma Tooth exhibits her breathtaking oil paintings all over the UK and abroad, sells originals and accepts commissions. A full series of works including a number of newly commissioned and previously unseen pieces from Concilium Plebis, extraordinary portraits of ordinary people, often derided as 'chavs' and 'hoodies', within traditional religious iconographic poses, will be exhibited for the first time at The Bristol Gallery in March 2010.
Tina Hill is a 2009 graduate of the MA in Multi-disciplinary Printmaking at the University of West of England, Bristol. She won the 2009 Agassi book prize, for her installation Excavating Babel, composed of over 2,000 books rescued from the pulpers and the floor of the defunct Book Barn warehouse in Bristol.
Mark Parkinson is lecturer in fine art at the University of Central Lancashire. He has exhibited widely in both solo and group exhibitions nationally including Triple Echo Liverpool and Preston (2009); Night: A Time Between Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (2008); Jerusalem, PAD Gallery, Preston (2007); Group Show, Shore Gallery, London (2006); and Distance No Object Bowes Museum (2005) amongst others.