The Rockets present their first major exhibition of work created specially for Phoenix Gallery.  Eight artists with learning disabilities have been working alongside art students over the past year in a series of weekly workshops at Phoenix.  The resulting show is fresh, personal and innovative, incorporating drawings, paintings, monoprints, mixed media, photographs and installations.

Andrew Apicella, John Cull, Peter Cutts, Louella Forrest, Shirley Hart, Zoe Leonard, Pat Morgan, and Keith Purcell are the gravity-defying Rockets group, artist Jane Fox joins the team with a series of collaborative printed cloaks, and Andrew Kingham unveils a series of portraits made with The Rockets.

OPENING CELEBRATION
Friday 16 March, 5.30 – 8.30 pm
The Rockets talk about themselves and their work.

SCREENING: 'Overalls'
Friday 16 March, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm
The premier of a new film documenting the making of a series of visual diaries which have been drawn, painted and printed onto the artists’ overalls.

THE CRITICAL INCIDENT
Workshop 1
Thursday 5 April
10:30 am - 4:30 pm

£50 / £35 concessions

The first in a series of challenging, practical conversations about artistry, innovation, insight and imagination. Forage through the world of artist Jane Fox, and try out some of her strategies for embarking on creative journeys. 
Suitable for adults.  
For details and registration, visit www.thecriticalincident.com

TIME TRAVEL
FREE Workshop
10 & 12 April, 1 - 3 pm
14 April, 1 - 4 pm
Private View: Sat 14 Apr, 3:30pm

Work alongside artists to explore, make and wear various costumes past, present and future.
A fun, participative private view will take place on Saturday 14 April at 3:30 pm.
For ages 5 - 11.

To book a place, please contact Brighton & Hove City Council on (01273) 293906.

'Mountain Flame', Ayling & Conroy	'ilog' , The Owl Project

Collaboration is like a love affair; it segues from admiration to anxiety, reflection to rage, desire to envy, powerlessness to misunderstanding, from not getting what you want but may be coming nearer to knowing what you thought it might be.
Katherine Clark, Two Minds: Artists and Architects in Collaboration, Jes Fernie (ed)

The exhibition will feature work and new commissions by

Ayling and Conroy download Interview
Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry
The Library of Unwritten Books download Interview
The Owl Project download interview
Jonathan Gilhooly and Stig Evans download Interview
Semiconductor download Interview

Interviews: To accompany the Double Acts exhibition a number of writers, curators and artists have been commissioned to interview the duos. Through the interview process they shed further light on the artists’ work and ways of working, as well as highlighting the notion of working together which the exhibition raises.

Pairing artists based outside of Brighton with local interviewers and those in Brighton with interviewers from elsewhere we hope that this has made connections and expanded the Phoenix network.

Collaborations have acted as a means of examining the shape and limits of the self, redefining artistic labour. They have been ways of deliberately altering artistic identity from individual to composite subjectivity. The complexities of double authorship deny the economics of representation.

From 1960s collaboration has often taken the form of close-knit relationships such as that of Gilbert and George (whose retrospective is taking place at Tate Modern), Ulay and Marina Abramovic, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, but how do they look today?

In a collaboration who does what? How did this collaboration begin and why does it continue? Do they practice individually and if so how does the collaboration inform their individual practice? Does the collaboration allow for other people to become involved? What are the expectations of loyalty and mutuality?

Double Acts, is a celebration and mini-survey of collaborative practice in the UK today. It seeks not to answer the behind the scenes questions but to provide a context for pondering these questions.

Double Acts is the first of two exhibitions curated by Sally Lai for Phoenix Arts Association. Sally Lai is a curator and Clore Fellow currently based in Manchester. Her most recent project is a major co-curated exhibition Arrivals and Departures: New Art Perspectives of Hong Kong which is at Urbis, Manchester until July. 

Sally was previously curator at Chinese Arts Centre where she worked with international and UK based Chinese artists. She frequently writes for art journals, which have included Art Monthly, Untitled, Art Asia Pacific, Yishu; Journal of Contemporary Art. Sally was a nominator for the 2003 Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists, Specialist Advisor to Visual Arts Department of the Scottish Arts Council (2003- 2007), curatorial advisor for AXIS website’s Open Frequency programme.

Linked Event: OPENING CELEBRATION
Sat April 28, 1 - 3pm FREE

2:00pm onwards
Stig Evans & Jonathan Gilhooly:
Colour Conundrum

The Library of Unwritten Books:
Story Collection

The Owl Project:
Demonstration/performative talk

2:30 pm
Karin and Reuben: talk on collaborative curation

Linked Event:  Library of Unwritten Books - drop in & contribute
Sat 12 May, 2 – 4 pm

Visitors are invited to drop in and contribute their stories, which will be transcribed, edited, printed and displayed during the last two weeks of the exhibition.

Linked Event: THE CRITICAL INCIDENT: Workshop 2
Tue 22 May, 10:30 - 4:30

Part of a series of challenging, practical conversations about artistry, innovation, insight and imagination. Artists and curator Greg Daville invites you to discover and explore new creative terrain through undertaking a 'City Run'. This involves gathering information, ideas and objects from around Brighton, then returning to Phoenix to make a piece of work based on the material collected. A viewing and discussion will follow, in which the process and experience of creating the work will be addressed in a supportive and non-judgemental setting. Suitable for adults; no arts background necessary.
£50 / £35 concessions.

For further details and registration visit www.thecriticalincident.com

Linked Event: STATE OF THE ARTS: Double Acts
Tue 5 June, 7 - 9pm FREE

We grapple with some of the questions raised by the exhibition, through a dialogue around the nature of collaboration. The evening will begin with a panel discussion with curator Sally Lai, plus artists including collaborative duos Semiconductor and other artists to be confirmed. This will be followed by a general discussion and an opportunity to make contact with other artists who wish to collaborate on skills.

FREE: but please ring Phoenix on 01273 603700 to reserve a place

Jim Sanders constructs a landscape of totemic figures in a series of paintings and sculptures made from salvaged wood and found materials.  Bottle caps, flotsam and rusted hand tools undergo a remarkable transformation upon entering his studio, emerging as powerful, iconic images that draw upon popular culture, world religions and personal mythology.  Like a magpie, Sanders has an eye for the shapes, colours and gleam of objects that inhabit the natural and manmade environment.  He enlists the help of friends who deliver the raw materials, which are then hammered, painted, and assembled into eight foot sculptures sporting haloes, hats and glittering crowns.

Spanning over sixty feet in length, Martin Symons’ felt tip pen drawings erupt from the walls in a carnival of colour, movement and rhythm.  Faces and patterns mingle within an unfurling mindscape of twenty-first century imagery.  The artist draws upon the tapestry of everyday life for inspiration:  fragments of a conversation overheard, a fleeting observation of someone who doesn’t realise they’re being watched, a passing train, words pulled from a poster. The drawings create a narrative which reflects Symon’s own interest in conveying a contemporary world which, in spite of its pervasive appeal, seems to be built upon the foundations of human folly.

THE BIG DRAW

Saturday, 13 Oct, 1 - 5 pm, free

Join Martin Symons to help create a giant “felt-tip medley”.  Drop in any time between 1 and 5 and add colour and life to this collaborative drawing.  www.drawingpower.org.uk/menu2.htm

Jim Sanders will be creating a giant 7 square metre painting for the front of the building to be unveiled on 1st October.

The artist says: “This is the largest painting I’ve ever created, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to display it in such a prominent public location.  The image refers to the creative process—both the struggle involved and the freedom is allows.  I have used symbols that relate to the work in my exhibition, as well as connecting to images in art across the years.”

Gary Barber, Tim Brickell, Matt Brownsword, Buck in Fudgy, Fox&Gammidge, Tony Gammidge, Emilia McKenzie, Tanya Morel, Sebastian Pedley, Chris Phelon, Dave Stephens, Russell Webb

Artists working with the moving image explore the medium of film and video to create a series of specially made installations in this gallery exhibition. Themes of the work range from impossible quests to nursery rhymes, unsolved mysteries, rediscovered footage and shifting still-lives. The images flicker within cabinets and across objects and walls; meanwhile a rolling programme of short films invites the visitor to pause and linger within the cinema space.