2008

 
Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Mlle De Bremont (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm

Recreations of found cigarette cards from 1939, using myself.

Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Maria Gregor (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Maryse Grandt (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Jacqueline Ford (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Iya (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Ginette Vrala (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Getty Jasonne (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Erni Erika (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm
Wish You Were Here, Real Photographs, Catherine Hamilton (2008)
Series of nine photographs
B&W fibre-based photograph, edition of 5, 51cm x 60 cm
Edition of 15, 20 cm x 25 cm


One afternoon in 2005, I came across a tin full of cigarette cards at a flea market. I leafed through to look more closely at the miniature pin-ups. I noticed the backs of the cards with the dated biographies of the girls on the cards. I selected all the dancers from the tin (there were actresses, models, swimmers and tennis players I rejected, no one in the tin I had heard of before) and bought all of them. As I walked home, I decided to recreate all the photographs using myself as the model. The original cigarette cards were objects to be held, looked at closely. They were private cards to view, collect and exchange. As enclosures in cigarette packs in the late 1930s, it was presumed that these were gifts for a male consumer. Looking at them with contemporary eyes, they look glamorous, innocent, staged and seductive.

Art Encounters (2008) 

An audio piece.  I recount some formative art encounters, in order to think about what remains of the encounter.  The afterwards reflections; did these experiences form the artist I am now?  I presented this as part of the Mid-Residency group show at CalArts.

2019

 
A Place To Perform (Because Other Places Were Inhospitable), 2019
70 cm x 35 cm
Giclee photograph on smooth white cotton paper
Bubikopf, 2019
Performance, 40 mins

Bubikopf is an art history lecture on gender that morphs. An examination of women in the modernity of the Weimar Republic with new opportunities to be independent in the city, to go to art school, perform in cabarets. Weaving together gendered forms of feminine visibility this piece spotlights and speculates women’s entertaining, creative and Avant Garde work.

Bubikopf, 2019
Performance, 40 mins
Bubikopf, 2019
Performance, 40 mins
Bubikopf, 2019
Performance, 40 mins
Bubikopf, 2019
Performance, 40 mins
Ascending A Staircase, Library Theatre, Sheffield, 1934, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, City Varities, Leeds, 1865, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, North Pier Theatre, Blackpool,1863, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Stockport Plaza, Stockport, 1932, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Stockport Plaza, Stockport, 1932, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, North Pier Theatre, Blackpool,1863, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Victoria Theatre, Halifax, 1901, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Pendle Hippodrome, Pendle, 1914, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Lyceum, Sheffield, 1897, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Pomegranate, Chesterfield, 1879, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Darlington Hippodrome, Darlington, 1907, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm
Ascending A Staircase, Penistone Paramount, Penistone, 1914, 2019
Giclee print on white cotton rag paper, edition of 5, 84 cm x 84 cm
Edition of 15, 34 cm x 34 cm

2014

 
Theatre Flats, 2014
Blueback paper photographs mounted onto MDF, freestanding in space
Dimensions approx 2 m x 1 m
Tap Performance-7292 72
Tap Performance for Gallery with Many Dancers, 2014 
Performance 4 mins
Three Act Structures, S1 Artspace, Sheffield
Hollywood Forever, 2014
Video, 3 mins
The Mucky Bits, 2014
Online gallery of photographs taken of book pages

My contribution to Sharon Kivland’s Library Interventions at Leeds College of Art.  I rifled through books searching only the racy and erotic pictures and photographing them–always with Sharon’s titillation in mind.
Ginette Vrala / Socialist Red / Neoliberal Pink, 2014
Half-tone screenprint on Keykolour Original Snow White 300gsm paper,
35cm x 50cm, framed dimensions 49cm x 64cm
Edition of 50
Help Me Pose, 2014
One-to-one performance, 4 mins
Wrought, Sheffield  
Jan 052019
 

Here are some photographs from the exhibition I recently put together, based around my book, Viewing Pleasure and Being A Showgirl, How Do I Look? Thanks to the artists who took part: Sophie Lisa Beresford, Julie Cook, Nwando Ebizie as Lady Vendredi, Alice Finch, Laura Gonzalez, Lucy Halstead, Sharon Kivland, Britten Leigh, Chloe Nightingale, and Isabella Streffen. 

Sep 202018
 

I had so much fun showing my work at Abingdon Studios in Blackpool. Here’s the documentation. I am so grateful to show my new video work Felicity Means Happiness for the first time in Blackpool.

Photo Matt Wilkinson, Abingdon Studios Project Space
Photo Matt Wilkinson, Abingdon Studios Project Space
Photo Matt Wilkinson, Abingdon Studios Project Space
Photo Matt Wilkinson, Abingdon Studios Project Space
Photo Matt Wilkinson, Abingdon Studios Project Space
Photo Matt Wilkinson, Abingdon Studios Project Space
Photo Matt Wilkinson, Abingdon Studios Project Space
Apr 052018
 
Left to right: Manifesto, 2017, Ascending A Staircase, Library Theatre, Sheffield, 2018, Ascending A Staircase, City Varieties, Leeds

Rowan Bailey put together the first show at the Market Gallery as part of the Temporary Contemporary collaboration between the University of Huddersfield and Kirklees Council and the Huddersfield covered market. Space, Place Action brought together the research staff at the university. I used the opportunity to test out my new series of theatre interior photographs, Ascending A Staircase.