Platform for Art presents, as part of its Creative Communities programme, the first of four collaborations with Wimbledon School of Art. Each installation will be in place for three months and utilises large window panels across two walls as frames for the sequence of images. The inaugural work in the project – Holiday – is by artists Ed Everett and Julia Parry, and is a response to the overall brief of “Motion”, given by the school, which hopes commuters will see and engage with the images.
“Following the success of the 2003 project we felt that there was a fantastic opportunity available for students to realise large-scale site-specific proposals sited in this space,” Platform for Art’s, Liz O’Sullivan explained. “South Wimbledon Station is simply perfect for a collaborative project with Wimbledon School – and no better place to feature such inspiring projects as in a station that is used by thousands of people every day.”
“We believe that working on live projects is an essential ingredient in the professional development of our students”, comments Hayley Skipper, External Projects Co-ordinator at Wimbledon. “This project has presented each of the students involved with the opportunity to realise and exhibit significant works on an ambitious scale, in a prominent public setting and professional context.”
Wimbledon School of Art is one of the leading art schools in the UK. As an independent school it has a significant international reputation in Fine Art and Theatre, and provides foundation, undergraduate, taught postgraduate and research opportunities for study in these subjects. Wimbledon School of Art has a strong tradition of research and all academic staff are active practitioners, researchers or scholars. As a result, work by the staff in theatre and fine art is frequently showcased in major galleries, museums and theatres throughout the world.
Ed Everett is currently living in Helsinki. He graduated from Wimbledon School of Art with a degree in Fine Art Painting in 2004. He works within the genre of landscape painting, introducing contemporary techniques and digital technology to create fresh interpretations of the natural world.
Julia Parry is currently studying for a Postgraduate Diploma in Textiles at Goldsmiths after completing her BA in Fine Art Painting at Wimbledon in June 2004. Since graduating, she has participated in several exhibitions, in particular a dual show at the Toni Heath Gallery. Parry is a painter who interprets photographs taken from magazines of aerial landscapes. She is particularly interested in aesthetic pattern in landscape and introduces elements of textiles such as embroidery and paint to emphasize and manipulate these attributes.
This is the first collaboration between Everett and Parry. They had previously worked closely, having shared a studio space for two years. Working together for this piece they directly explored the shared dialogue between themselves and between their paintings. They have created an imagined foreign landscape, collaged and manipulated from their own photographs and found images. The landscape is bright and colourful and evokes positive thoughts about travel.
