Meet the Artist: Isobel Smith & The Baron Gilvan
An introduction to Isobel Smith & The Baron Gilvan
This September, Isobel Smith and The Baron Gilvan bring “When Painted Birds Laugh” to Artelium, their exhibition of painting, sculpture and performance inspired by William Blake's Laughing Song and The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński. Here, we introduce you to them both…
Isobel Smith completed her MA in Sculpture / Performance at the Royal College of Art in 2017. Her practice crosses performance, sculpture and moving image.
Isobel's work is in the Saatchi Collection, and was exhibited in ‘Known Unknowns’ at the Saatchi Gallery in 2018. She has performed at the Tate Modern in response to the Joan Jonas exhibition and at Performance Festivals in the UK and abroad. Isobel is a member of The Royal Society of Sculptors. She exhibited in ‘A Generous Space’ at Hastings Contemporary, 2021/22 selected by Matthew Burrows, and The Royal Society of Sculptors Summer Show, London, selected by Isabel de Vasconcellos (Director of Sculpture at Messums Wiltshire).
Performance is at the root of my practice. I explore my surroundings viscerally, employing a hands-on (or head-in) exploration of material through the performance process. These ridiculous or desperate actions are designed to reconnect me to the wilder nonhuman world, both external and within myself.
Whether working with everyday objects or in nature and the countryside, I attempt to get closer, to merge with the materials and look out of unfamiliar eyes.
Modern human conventions would have us walking down the middle of our lives, not stopping to sniff or lick it, or roll and rub up against it. Age and gender further tame these norms and I’m passionate about using performance and sculpture to shake them off.
The Baron Gilvan is a graduate from Central Saint Martins, Academy Fine Art Cracow, Poland and Turps Art School (Studio Painting programme 2019). He was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2019), FDA Futures and was Artist in Resident at Glyndebourne Opera House (2019).
He won the Royal Overseas league Travel scholarship to paint in India and Nepal. On his return he was commissioned to design the BBC Proms logos for two seasons. He has exhibited widely and performed at the Towner Museum of Contemporary Art and Hastings Contemporary.
For me painting operates as a hermetic portal between an instinctive inner and outer reality. The act of making a painting is important, one visceral decision leads to another, as I draw out the subject by twisting and turning the paintings until images reveal a space containing bathos and absurdity, something both divine and decrepit. I invent narratives involving corporeal figures occupying preternatural landscapes and stage sets. They are falling or about to fall apart often in a state of transformation or reverie. Employing the dynamics of the imagination I consider my practise as a sequential 'visual opera' where each new painting informs the next.
When Painted Birds Laugh is open 8th - 10th, 15th - 17th, 22nd - 24th September. Families can book tickets for the Hobby Horse making workshop here, otherwise attendance is free and opening times are in line with our normal opening times (Thursday & Friday 11.30 - 19.00, Saturday 11.30 - 21.00).
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