MAKING HOLES IN WATER
17 - 24 May 2014
Opening: 17th May 2014 - 19:00-22:00h
Freddy Tuppen, Grear Patterson, Zoë Paul
The exhibition Making Holes in Water at Totàl project space in Athens has come about through a collaboration between London based artist Freddy Tuppen, New York based artist Grear Patterson and Athens based artist Zoë Paul whose works all revolve around the human relationship to sunlight.
Ever since Coco Chanel accidentally got sunburnt while visiting the French Riviera in 1923, leading to a fashion in darker skin tone, people have traveled the world in search of sunnier climes to achieve the perfect tan. Sun lamps and tanning salons thwart the onset of that most contemporary of complaints in temperate and polar countries, Seasonal Addiction Disorder, whilst malignant melanoma is on the rise. The cycles of the sun govern not only our temporal orientation but also global tourism and our quest for the exotic. We vainly seek out destinations where the Sun shines brighter, always under threat of the pain and embarrassment of severe sunburn.
It was Icarus’ vain attempt to surpass his mortal limit and to fly closer to the sun led to his fatal fall into the ocean, a hole in the water. It was the kiss of the Sun that melted his waxen wings and precipitated him into the sea, hubris being his downfall. The idiomatic expression to make holes in water, implies a futile attempt at the impossible which then passes insignificantly, as depicted by Bruegel in his painting The Fall of Icarus.
Freddy Tuppen's recent work explores the practice of sunbathing as both a leisure activity and an exercise in vanity. For Making Holes in Water, he presents a series of cyanotypes, a photographic printing process using UV rays from the sun to expose a photosensitive surface. Treating the pictorial surface like the skin of a sunbather, the sun's energy is harnessed to reveal images drawn in SPF25 suncream.
Zoë Paul exhibits a sun lounger with a woven bed ergonomically designed to maximize exposure of the reclining figure to the sun, the lounger presents the trace of the reclined figure. The woven bed develops her interest in weaving as a metaphor for social interaction, where one line of the weaving cannot exist without the other, and the cumulation making the whole and pattern visible. The reclining pose represents a languidity and vulnerability exposing the body in recline.
Grear Patterson exhibits a UV printed photograph of a beach scene constructed in central Manhattan. Shot in the middle of December, the scene exudes the atmosphere of summer and is disorientating in its artificiality and anachronism. Patterson creates a moment of escape to the sun in mid-winter New York.
The exhibition Making Holes in Water at Totàl project space in Athens has come about through a collaboration between London based artist Freddy Tuppen, New York based artist Grear Patterson and Athens based artist Zoë Paul whose works all revolve around the human relationship to sunlight.
(top)
Freddy Tuppen
Sunbathers (male and female tan lines)
2014
cyanotypes on cotton, fake tanning lamps, towelling shelf, swimming pool tiles and suntan perfume
200/220/22 cm
(bottom)
Zoë Paul
Psyche
2014
Aluminium, nylon, cotton and elastic webbing, studs, hand shaped wax tama
200/100/40 cm
Grear Patterson:
Sub AK
2013
Video
Manhattan beach
2012
UV print 86x54
225/147 cm
Grear Patterson:
Sub AK
2013
Video
Manhattan beach
2012
UV print 86x54
225/147 cm
Zoë Paul
Psyche
2014
Aluminium, nylon, cotton and elastic webbing, studs, hand shaped wax tama
200/100/40 cm
Freddy Tuppen
Balcony 9.30am,
2014
cyanotype on cotton
63/63 cm
Freddy Tuppen
Sunbathers (male and female tan lines)
2014
cyanotypes on cotton, fake tanning lamps, towelling shelf, swimming pool tiles and suntan perfume
200/220/22 cm
Grear Patterson
Manhattan beach
2012
UV print 86x54
225/147 cm
Zoë Paul
Psyche
2014
Aluminium, nylon, cotton and elastic webbing, studs, hand shaped wax tama
200/100/40 cm
Grear Patterson
Sally loves the rain
2014
Grandmother's needlepoint
17.5/17.5 cm