BONKERS CONTEMPORARY 2017
OPENING EVENT THURSDAY 5 OCTOBER 7-11PM
EXHIBITION 5 - 8 OCTOBER 2017
THE BISCUIT FACTORY, EDINBURGH
FRIDAY 12- 7PM \ SATURDAY 10-6PM \ SUNDAY 10-6PM  

Artists
KIRSTY BOUTLE / SAMANTHA BOYES / SHELAGH BROWN / DONALD BUTLER /
CELIE BYRNE / FLORE GARDNER / KATE LIVINGSTONe / 
BOBBY NIXON / ANNA OBERFElD / THOM REES / JIHOON SON / 
JOAN STACK / SUSANA WESSLING 

​KIRSTY BOUTLE

​Drawing, painting and sculpture as a material interrogation of the body: an insatiably desiring and viscerally maniacal machine. An intimate examination of the emergence of subjectivity brought about by transfigurative encounters with other forms and forces. Life as a series of visceral exchanges activated in, on and through the flesh.

​web / instagram

SAMANTHA BOYES 

​Presenting public reaction to private horrors and guilty pleasures. Exploring traditional sculptural techniques including taxidermy, casting, carving and embroidery, drawing, print, collage and installation to subvert the niceties of normality. Recurrent themes include wordplay and language, all presented with humour and a surreal twist. 

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​SHELAGH BROWN

Combining interest in the history of art and contemporary art practice to challenge viewers to think in different ways about the ordinary events and experiences of our lives and to evoke a physical or emotional response.

web / youtube

​DONALD BUTLER

Unpicking the intimate relationships we now hold with digital technologies and exploring the realities of existing within global networks. Primarily working with image-based mediums, delving into the materiality of digital imagery and the context of documentary forms of working. 

web / instAgraM

​CELIE BYRNE 

​Studio neighbours for the last year and predominantly figurative artists who often diversify into other disciplines such as film, installation and mural. An inaugural joint venture realised and building upon shared aesthetic ideals.

web / instagram 

​FLORE GARDNER

​A work protocol based on daily drawing practice, notably making one drawing per day, a small, secret drawing in a notebook which is then transformed through processes of enlargement, translation and repetition. Subjects include the ordinary (part-)body, human, animal or otherworldly, altered, twisted or gone wrong. 

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​KATE LIVINGSTONe

Intrinsically material and process driven, approaching painting in a way that borders on compulsive and embracing obsessive tendencies. Through honing the intensely detailed surfaces, blossoming networks of graphic shapes emerge and dynamic movements within the layers of composition suggest a simultaneous coming together and splitting apart of matter. 

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​RADOSLAW LIWEN

​The clarity and minimalism is intended to offer respite from the information overload of modern life while hinting at the unknowable complexity that lies behind even the simplest of images.

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​BOBBY NIXON

Rooted in 2d art making, focusing on painting, drawing and printmaking to depict figurative scenes. The subject matter of this work attempts to push dark and hidden aspects of society to the forefront.

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​ANNA OBERFeLD

​A person’s life is continuously fragmented, copied and stored into both personal and shared memory, the shards of which are often misrepresented or lost. Aiming to find a visual vernacular for these shards of forgotten self and memory, objects and collage become a kind of self-portraiture adorned with oddity, discomfort, on the edge between disgust and beauty. 

​THOM REES

Exploring objects and phenomena situated within the boundaries of conscious and subconscious experience and focusing on the visual interpretation of both the material and immaterial world of the social and physical space. Through making and the presentation of ambiguous objects and situations, inviting viewers to experience the work through apperception and affect.

​JIHOON SON

​The idea of memory and fantasy through the expression of concealed inclination, daydreams and fears. Including interpretation of boyhood and immatureness into fetishism experienced and have longed for. The creative practice is therapeutic in provoking taboos and peeping the issue of voyeurism through the attitude of outsider-art.

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​JOAN STACK 

Somewhere between painting and sculpture, paint-sculptures. Research and recent works have been heavily influenced by retail – physical retail environments, the marketing of reality and trend forecasting. Her work points to a possible future where synthetic and natural merge.

web / instagram

​SUSANA WESSLING 

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