Paradise Shack
Dylan Shipton
Private View: Friday 16 November, 6.30 – 9pm
17 November - 9 December 2007
Opening times: Saturdays and Sundays, 12.00 – 5.30, or by appointment
The Belfry, St John on Bethnal Green, 200 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 9PA
Dylan Shipton uses materials that you would usually associate with areas of a building hidden from view, or the materials used in the process of building that are removed after the work is completed. Within this language of temporariness and impermanence, he maintains an aspect of the working process that is often lost by the time of completion.
Paradise Shack sits within the classical symmetry of the belfry, and inhabits a space that is neither corridor nor room. The ramshackle structure has been built in direct response to this architecture and the limitations and restrictions inherent in a Grade 1 listed building. The empty space of the belfry serves as a catalyst for a new form to develop; an inner realm that both resembles but revolts within its narrow limitations.
Shipton has often used adhesive 'hazard' tape in his working process. This naturally linear material allowing him to build up a picture plane of line and hatching, covering areas within the typical white-walled gallery, and incorporating architectural features found in this space. The work has a sketch-like quality that implies that there are still choices to be made, and hovers on the brink of becoming another state altogether.
His installation at the belfry, in an old and worn John Soane designed church, uses the rudimentary materials of low-grade building work, plasterboard and crude timber, which speak of makeshift housing and the type of impermanent living arrangements that itinerant and outsider communities can be found inhabiting through necessity. Inherent in these temporary arrangements, however, can be found a sanctuary of sorts, for un-realised dreams and lost utopias.
Dylan Shipton has exhibited widely, including Circuit Diagram, Cell Project space, London 2006, Slider, Cell project space 2006, The Golden gilded egg box, Lot, Bristol 2005, Homage to Buren, Central St Martins London 2005, In the beginning of the world, Cell London 2004, From here to eternity (and back again), Generator Dundee 2004, Something is already happening, Rosy Wilde gallery London 2004, Ram Lounge, The Ship, Cable st London 2003, Babak Ghazi curates a fridge, Magnifitat and sons Edinburgh 2003, Spiders, foam and other mysteries, Cassella Gallery,Boston USA 2002, Butter, Spike Island, Bristol, group show curated and exhibited, 2000.
For more information about the belfry: www.thebelfry.org.uk
All press inquiries to: thebelfry.org@gmail.com, or ring 07981 924 196
The Belfry is a non-commercial project space in the belfry of St John on Bethnal Green.
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