The Bones of My Hand – A Show about Skeletons
 
Opening April 12th  4-8pm - June 10th

Paul Benney , Tessa Farmer, Errol Fuller , Marcelle Hanselaar , Matthew Killick, The Little Theatre of Dolls, Claire Morgan, Hugo Wilson & ViktorWynd.


The way of all flesh turns to bone.  Beneath the pulsating skin & organs  lies the skeleton, away from the putrefying foul smelling needy desiring flesh, with it’s senses, it’s desires, it’s wants it’s afflictions lies something pure and beautiful.
This is a show about skeletons, a celebration of an osteological obsession – since childhood Viktor Wynd has slowly been building up a collection which, until now has never been seen in one place or out of storage.  To celebrate the occasion a group of artists who he greatly admires & respects have been invited to respond to the theme & their work will be exhibited amongst the veritable Noah’s Ark of Skeletons – from a hippo to  a mouse.  Paul Benny has painted a skeleton pissing  in a dark landscape; Hugo Wilson has drawn the an animal whose skeleton has been removed; Tessa Farmer’s tiny skeleton fairies have taken over a new world;  Matthew Killick has painted the pulsating organs of a man, removed from flesh;  Claire Morgan has created a body, a nipple from dandelion seeds, infested by bluebottles, Marcelle Hanselaar has painted a dream of bloody hands & skeleton beds wrapped in barbed wire & Viktor Wynd has drawn his hand, and the bones within.


Paul Benney is an established portrait artist whose work was included in the BP Portrait Award Exhibition in 1995, 1996, 2000 and 2008, and was shortlisted in 1997 and 1999. His work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery, Canberra, and the National Portrait Gallery, London.
 
Matthew Killick makes hyper-detailed paintings that are influenced by his explorations underwater. He is a keen wreck diver, and spends a lot of his time in the English Channel amongst the multitude of ship carcasses that are spread all over the sea bed below one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Perhaps due to the intense up-close focus that this type of diving requires, the work is often reminiscent of electron microscope photography, and biological forms appear that are cell-like or bacterial. Although the works have the feeling that they are derived from careful study of organisms, they are in fact entirely fabricated. Works from this series have recently been the subject of solo shows at Artdepoo Estonia (Tallinn), & Working Rooms E8, with works being bought for the collections of Bryan Adams, Roland Mouret, Richard Ducker, Simon Fuller & Viktor Wynd.

Marcelle Hanselaar was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and travelled extensively in Asia and Europe before finally settling down in her studio in central London. Although she studied briefly at The Royal Academy, The Hague,1962-'64, in oil painting she is entirely self-taught. In 1992/93 and again in 1995/96 Hanselaar was invited to teach painting at the S.W.Teaching University, Chongqing, China, she also taught drawing at Sotheby's Educational Institute, London from 1989-'99. Around that time Hanselaar became interested in etching and learned printmaking first at Morley College and later at Kensington & Chelsea College. Marcelle Hanselaar's early painting was abstract but from 1992 her work became completely figurative. Member of The London Group and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE)
 
Tessa Farmer was born in 1978 in Birmingham, UK and is an artist based in London. She received her BA in 2000 and her MA in 2003 from the Ruskin, Oxford. Subsequent awards include the Vivien Leigh Prize, a sculpture residency in King's Wood, Challock, Kent, and a Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award. In 2007 she was nominated for The Times/ The South Bank Show Breakthrough Award.  She has shown work in many exhibitions including Thinking the Unthinkable at The Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, Miniature Worlds at the Jerwood Space, London, and The Terror at Firstsite in Colchester. In 2007 she undertook a residency at the Natural History Museum in London. Her work is in collections worldwide, including those of the Saatchi Gallery, the Ashmolean Museum and the David Roberts Collection.

Errol Fuller (born 19 June 1947) is an English writer and painter who lives in Tunbridge Wells , Kent. He was born in Blackpool , Lancashire, and grew up in South London , Englan. He is the author of a series of books on the subject of extinction and extinct creatures. These books include Extinct Birds, The Great Auk, The Lost Birds of Paradise, Dodo – From Extinction to Icon and, in conjunction with the New Zealand artist Raymond Ching. He has also produced, in both English and Arabic, a catalogue for The National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage, Qatar, to complement an exhibition held in Doha during 2004, titled Lost Worlds.

The Little Theatre of Dolls is a puppet company that consists of two artists and puppeteers, Frida Alvinzi and Raisa Veikkola. They met in the rainy streets of London where they eventually decided to fly over the puddles with their shared Scandinavian imagination. In spring 2006 this daydream of reinventing the world around them became real. That is when The Little Theatre of Dolls was born. With their creations, they invite the viewer into fantastical worlds where anything is possible. In beautifully crafted sceneries the audience gets to experience magical realities and stories acted by exquisite hand made puppets that all have been created by The Little Theatre of Dolls.
 
Claire Morgan was born in Belfast. She attended University of Ulster and Northumbria University where she achieved a first class degree in Sculpture. She is now based in London.
Since graduating she has pursued a career solely as a visual artist. She has exhibited internationally, with solo shows, residencies and commissions across the UK, as well as group exhibitions in Europe. At an early stage she developed a strong interest in the organic, in natural processes, and in the bodily connotations of natural materials. This formed the basis for her practice as an artist creating sculptural installations and continues to influence her work at present.
 
Hugo Wilson is a multi disciplinary artist, he works in  sculpture/installation , painting , drawing, printmaking and photography. Since finishing his M.A. in 2008 he has exhibited widely here and abroad, most recently at the Busan Biennial (Busan city museum - South Korea) ,  solo shows at Projectb (Milan) and  Nicodim Gallery (Los Angeles). His work is in Private and public collections including the New York public library and the Deutschebank collection. His work is often concerned with the governing systems around life and their implications emotionally.
 
Viktor Wynd is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, collector & The Chancellor of The Last Tuesday Society which he refounded as a project in Relational Aesthetics in 2006 with David Piper - The Provost, and Silas Wynd - The Regent. Since then he has produced the majority of his projects under the banner of The Society, Suzette Field joined as Tribune in 2007 to help him give substance to a tiny handful of the many dreams he has every day before breakfast.
Apart from that he really doesn't know who, or what or how he is, or what he is doing or why he is doing it,  what he is going to do next or where he is going: many of his other activities and projects are documented on www.viktorwynd.org