4 Jan 2008 to 27 Jan 2008
Open Thursday - Sunday 12 - 6 pm
private view Thursday 3rd January 6 - 9 pm
Studio 1.1
57a Redchurch Street
Nearest tubes Liverpool/Old Street
E2 7DJ
London
United Kingdom
Europe
p: + 44 (0) 7952 986 696
m:
f:
w: www.studio1-1.co.uk
Running simultaneously with and counter to the vogue for property make-overs Amanda Benson presents Dreamhomes that, although they have their origins in California or Nantucket, are constructed from the primitive materials to be found to hand in a Hackney artist's studio. The gap between Jackie O or Elvis' mansion and the plasticine and cardboard re-interpretations express both a grand and poignant wish-fulfillment and the basic human need for shelter common to both. The everyday materials make up delicate and beautiful structures that pique our imagination, let us re-build the lives of the rich and/or famous in our own image and with whatever means are at our disposal.
Andy Cohen produces delicate drawings that might themselves decorate these interiors, while also re-creating a corner of a real caravan, with all its authentic and exquisite paraphernalia, asking us once again: what is it that makes a home 'where the heart is'? The impulse to beautify one's domestic surroundings is basic but need not be primitive. The suite of images documenting a year in the life of that caravan tells the story of an unknowable existence that reaches back through a familiar past. Lived and yet not-lived, they form the shored fragments of the ruin of all our dreams, where aspiration escapes realisation. An examination of the unexamined life.
A feature of the show will be Cohen's pub sign 'The Breast' calling us all into the snug, an environment of warmth and comfort, be it ever so humble - there's no place...
