Concrete and Glass, is thrilled to announce Kate MccGwire as the winner of this year’s Heart of Glass with ‘Vex’, a sleek and tightly coiled alive-looking serpent-like sculpture made from homing-pigeon feathers and presented in an antique display case.
Commenting on her win Kate MccGwire said: ‘I’m thrilled, particularly as the other artists’ work was so strong. This award means a huge amount to me personally as it’s almost exactly a year since my entire studio was destroyed by fire. The only materials to survive were my pigeon feathers, so to win with this particular piece is very gratifying – it really does set me back on track.’
Kate MccGwire graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2004. Her MA-show work, ‘Brood’, an installation using thousands of chicken wishbones, was shown at the Saatchi Gallery that same year, and she has since exhibited widely, including two residencies, the most recent in New York. The public will get another chance to see ‘Vex’ at The Animal Gaze which runs from November 18th to December 12th, Unit 2 Gallery, London E1 (directly opposite the Whitechapel Gallery), Unit 6 and Metropolitan Works (Commercial Road).
Having played host to a vibrant and fascinating mix of exhibits from some of the most outstanding new and established artists London has to offer, ‘Heart of Glass’, the art strand’s central focus, organized in association with the Contemporary Arts Society, and co-curated by Flora Fairbairn and Paul Hitchman, provided a platform for new work by 33 artists selected via open submission that has been judged by a wide ranging panel of art luminaries that include lauded musician Alison Goldfrapp, Saatchi Gallery Director Philippa Adams, Director of The Contemporary Art Society Paul Hobson, internationally renowned artists Gavin Turk and Marc Quinn, art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston, and Irene Bradbury, Associate Director of White Cube Gallery, each of whom picked their three favourite works with the inaugural winner Kate MccGwire being awarded a solo show at next year’s Concrete and Glass.
Paul Hitchman, co-curator of Heart of Glass, commented: “After a hugely successful debut festival, we are already looking forward to next year’s event and are delighted to be able to offer Kate the opportunity to show her art to an even wider audience. We have been enormously impressed with the quality of all the work in Heart of Glass, and a feature of the show has been how many of the different artists have received positive feedback both from judging panel and public alike.”
Exhibited in Shoreditch Town Hall’s engagingly un-modernised basement, each work was a direct response to the space’s uniquely eerie atmosphere. Drawing a huge crowd over both Concrete and Glass days and continued to be shown until the 19th October, other works displayed in Heart of Glass included ADAM KING’s Curiositas (Cave of Terror) which explores the idea of ‘pleasurable terror’, ALISTAIR MCCLYMONT’s The Limitations of Logic and the Absence of Absolute Certainty, a fan powered water vapour tornado appearing like a ghost in the centre of the room, ALEX BAKER’s Black Cube Interrupting A Wall, one conceptually impenetrable object meeting another, AMANDA COUCH’s Dust Falling – a dirty snow globe featuring a figure engulfed by the dust. ANAHITA REZVANI’s Kafareh, a comment on perception that attempts to see deeper than a glance allows. ANDREA DETTMAR’s Tire Some (I, ii, iii, iv, v) looks at the possibility and the freedom to do what ever you like to do and ANNA BOGGON’s Still life / life still reflects and absorbs its current surroundings.
BENEDETTO PETROMARCHI’s Monument to an Oil Tanker, examines our complex relationship with the role oil plays in the global economy, DANA MUNRO’s Confidentially Yours, Room 1005 explores a relationship between 4 historical works, DAVID BIRKIN’s Diptych: “Form 3” & “ Form 4”, from the series Forms describes the human form in its entropic and transient state. GERRY JUDAH, Untitled, 3 pieces, challenges the boundaries between painting and sculpture. IMOGEN O’ RORKE’s MeTube (i &ii) is a response to the self-broadcasting phenomenon, JANE HOODLESS’S GOOD FRIDAY 1865 (Conspirators’ Hoods) – 2008, evokes the incarceration of conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination and JASON SHULMAN’S 3 Lightbulbs, a stunning triptych that is part of an ongoing enquiry into the manipulation of light.
HENRY KROKATSIS’S Carriage, uses seemingly worthless objects to create art, KAREN MIZRA & BRAD BUTLER’S The Space Between, playfully questions whether the camera and or/ its subject matter is acting as the agent, mediator and/or the performer as articulated within the language of contemporary art. KATE TERRY’s Thread Installation # 19 is a structural installation made of thread that alters the surrounding space and the way viewers experience it. LIZ COLLINI’s Untitled (Wall Drawing IV) describes the things which might be and things which once took place but no longer do so, LOUISE STERN’s John: Talking Cure & Michele: Extraction examine communication, whilst MARTIN SEXTON’S Truth Machine – The Head of John the Baptist’ attempts to look at the world as a poem – rather than as a choice between faith and reason.
NICK MOBBS’ Shoreditch Town Hall Basement – Room 16 Shoreditch Town Hall Basement – Room 20 offer the viewer the choice to dwell on their fears, or ponder enlightenment, ORLANDO MOSTYN-OWEN’S Cerberus links the mythological hound at the gates of Hell to suppressed violence and historical denial, PAOLO W TAMBURELLA’S Jasma 148 is an exhaust pipe purchased from a mechanic near Shoreditch Town Hall and left in the basement of the building as a reminder of human actions and the passing of time. PAUL ARCHARD Horseplay, features a beast hidden in a box, brooding in a dimly lit obscure place, giving off a feeling of animal power, fear, anticipation and ultimately instability. PHIL ASHCROFT’S Better Days is part of a light box series considering our changing ideology of past modernity in our present environmental, financial and political climate. POLLY MORGAN’S Understudy probes the changing reflection of a blackbird, and RICHARD BULLOCK Everything’s Not Going To Be OK uses elements of the craft of film set design and construction in an exploratory way.
RICHARD DUCKER’S Burden of Dreams uses and abuses the viewers notions of taste and cliché and turns them upside down, ROSIE LEVENTON’S Mat is a doormat made entirely from human hair, SAM MCEWEN’S Painted Cloud Painting I & II, uses paint to create simplified and reduced versions of nature, in this case clouds, that are as much made from paint as described with paint. TOBIAS COLLIER’S 1×10-37 seconds after the universe was no bigger than the dot at the end of this sentence. is a kind of quotidian metaphor, the inverted symbol of the ‘idea’ whilst finally TOBY CHRISTIAN Block (Yellow), investigates the legerdemain of sculpture.
