Network: Groups
Cape Town Art
What's happening on the Cape Town art scene!
Members: 4
Created By: Suzette Bell-Roberts
Latest Activity: 7 Sep
William Scarbrough- Bell-Roberts Contemporary Gallery
89 Bree Street
Cape Town
South Africa
2 April to 26 April 2008
William Scarbrough’s latest body of work is a series of twenty-one digitally created collages, made from thousands of appropriated images sourced from magazines, books and the Internet collected over the past twelve years. Images have been scanned into the computer and manipulated in virtual space. The layers of each piece have been printed onto their own physical layer on a variety of material surfaces, papers and transparencies. Specific image areas were then cut apart and layered back together using suture stitches. The resulting collages are visually mesmerizing in their color, depth and composition, and at the same time they hold extreme conceptual potency.
Scarbrough’s unrelenting approach to Art making allows him to attack where others dare not go. His willingness to navigate topics of social tension, religious and cultural incompatibility, sexual taboo, genetic engineering, death, disease and suffering, combined with his own approach to the art of collage, has resulted in some of the most disturbing pieces of his career. But somehow through all of this he is able to hold his sense of humour close, creating a dichotomy of horror and fun – beauty and ugliness.
About the artist:
William Scarbrough was born in Knoxville, TN. in 1968. He earned his BFA in Printmaking from Colorado State University in 1990 and his MFA in Printmaking from the Pennsylvania State University in 1993. While in Pennsylvania, he also studied Performance Art. In graduate school Scarbrough began to examine and deconstruct the influences of media and propaganda.
In 1992 Scarbrough created a body of work collectively known as Suicide: Scarbrough Industries. This project consists of five functional suicide machines designed to kill their consumers in a highly sensational manner and an infomercial. Scarbrough then mounted a national media campaign advertising his machines in competition with the now-infamous Dr. Kevorkian. After making a debut in New York, Suicide has been exhibited at museums and galleries in California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and South Africa.
Cape Town
South Africa
2 April to 26 April 2008
William Scarbrough’s latest body of work is a series of twenty-one digitally created collages, made from thousands of appropriated images sourced from magazines, books and the Internet collected over the past twelve years. Images have been scanned into the computer and manipulated in virtual space. The layers of each piece have been printed onto their own physical layer on a variety of material surfaces, papers and transparencies. Specific image areas were then cut apart and layered back together using suture stitches. The resulting collages are visually mesmerizing in their color, depth and composition, and at the same time they hold extreme conceptual potency.
Scarbrough’s unrelenting approach to Art making allows him to attack where others dare not go. His willingness to navigate topics of social tension, religious and cultural incompatibility, sexual taboo, genetic engineering, death, disease and suffering, combined with his own approach to the art of collage, has resulted in some of the most disturbing pieces of his career. But somehow through all of this he is able to hold his sense of humour close, creating a dichotomy of horror and fun – beauty and ugliness.
About the artist:
William Scarbrough was born in Knoxville, TN. in 1968. He earned his BFA in Printmaking from Colorado State University in 1990 and his MFA in Printmaking from the Pennsylvania State University in 1993. While in Pennsylvania, he also studied Performance Art. In graduate school Scarbrough began to examine and deconstruct the influences of media and propaganda.
In 1992 Scarbrough created a body of work collectively known as Suicide: Scarbrough Industries. This project consists of five functional suicide machines designed to kill their consumers in a highly sensational manner and an infomercial. Scarbrough then mounted a national media campaign advertising his machines in competition with the now-infamous Dr. Kevorkian. After making a debut in New York, Suicide has been exhibited at museums and galleries in California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and South Africa.
Discussion Forum
Comment Wall (1 comment)
Add a Comment
1 Comment
-
Comment by Gary Frier on 18 June 2008 at 11:53am -
Gary Frier exhibits at re-launch of the (ARC) The Artscape Resource Centre
The first exhibited work titled ‘Person to Person’’
will be up until 12 July 2008. Some of the artists have been confirmed for future exhibitions thus far include graffiti artist Mak 1 and photographer David Robert Lewis.
Part of our aim with the exhibitions is to assist artists with establishing relationships with galleries and other major players in their industry while giving them exposure.
About the artist
Born 15 October 1972 and later educated as a Graphic Designer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Gary has been moved to create art of a more personal nature. Of his work he says,” I find inspiration in many forms of media and subjects. Creating art for me is about constantly reflecting on his place in the world, discovering how to distill and interpret this interaction with what surrounds me and documenting that personal relationship.”
Gary makes a continued effort to encourage interest in art among his contemporaries by exhibiting at NGO’s and cultural institutions such as the Alliance Franciase and the ITECED (Institute of Training and Education for Capacity Building) library in East London.
Most recently he has been asked to contribute to art auction “Starfish Dinner of Hope” hosted at The Vineyard Hotel, Newlands as well as MyLifE's South African Art Auction on the 11th of April on at U.C.T. Michaelis School of Fine Art in support of the youth development work of the MylifE Project. As well as creating a work for Peninsula feeding scheme charity auction exhibition later in November of 2008.His work will also be used as a video installation for Return the musical at Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica on June 5th and run through July 20th.
He has exhibited at Greatmore Studios, Idasa (Institute For Democracy in South Africa) and Durbanville Cultural Society, Battswood Art Centre, Cape Gallery, AVA (Association of Visual Arts) gallery, Caledon Museum, Fordsburg Art Studios (Bag factory), Institute of Training and Education for Capacity Building (ITECED) library, Alliance Francaise de Mitchell's Plain, Alliance Francaise du Cap in Cape Town and the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (KKNK)
Person to Person
The body of works exhibited here form part of a collection, which plays with the sameness and difference that make up portraits. The work was originally done sporadically in sketchbooks taken from day to day observations of urban life.
These works started as an experiment in which I tried to find a figurative relationship between found portraits and expressionistic memories of faces. The works have no beginning or end unto themselves but are a type of stream of consciousness the meanders between figurative abstract and expressionistic styles. Similar to the experience of traveling through the day and recording experiences from moment to moment.
As well as traditional techniques of drawing and paintings I’ve also made use of masks to illustrate the ambiguous nature of revealing and hiding of personalities below the persona. www.friersart.com
Please let us know if you are able to join us by no later than Thursday 19 June 2008.
We look forward to hearing from you and would be delighted if you could join us.
Kind regards
Ukhona Mlandu-Letsika
Artscape Resource Centre Coordinator
Members (4)
You need to be a member of Cape Town Art to add comments!