Views from the Southbank III: Information, Objects, Mappings

It’s everywhere: people plugging in and playing on smartphones; iPods blaring on the buses; GPS leading us to our destinations; screens clamouring for our attention in our homes, offices, cars, and pockets. In an age saturated with information, instant updates, and constant connectivity, how do artists respond to this ever-present yet ever-changing reality?

Views from the Southbank III brings together three different sets of artwork by over twenty artists who respond to this societal shift. Some of the artists directly engage with the stuff of our digital world—infographics, information, data systems—weaving in this new reality to their work. Pouring and peeling back large drips of paint, Debbie Tuepah makes vibrantly coloured graphs and charts based on statistics found in the news. Ben Reeves throws darts at a map of Surrey and then drives to these randomly selected sites where he makes one small painting for each location, mounting the panels on his car steering wheel as he works.

Another series of artworks reimagines how we interact with information through forms of mapping and counter-mapping. Sandee Moore creates an interactive, animated video game influenced by GPS-mapping and townhouse marketing.

A third group of artists resists the digital and ephemeral world by returning to the physicality and tangibility of objects through such forms as pottery, assemblage art, and textile sculpture. Connie Glover’s wheel-thrown ceramics and hand-built sculptures featuring local materials harken back to early forms of nature such as seedpods and buds.

Marking the Gallery’s 40th anniversary, this is the third and final part of the Views from the Southbank series of exhibitions that has featured over seventy-five artists from Surrey and its surrounding region throughout 2015.

Artists: Sylvia Grace Borda, Elizabeth Carefoot, Walter Dexter, Willa Downing, Connie Glover, Sara Graham, Adad Hannah, Davida Kidd, Robert Kleyn, Cora Li-Leger, Don Li-Leger, Robert Linsley, Ferdinand Maravilla, Stuart McCall, Sandee Moore, Aaron S. Moran, Fred Owen, Barry Parker, Jeff Rasmussen, Ben Reeves, Michael Soltis, Tracie Stewart, Lesley Tannen, and Debbie Tuepah.

Curator: Jordan Strom
Origin of Exhibition: Surrey Art Gallery