Launch Pad: Th-th-th-that’s all folks!

Artists: Jamie Fitzpatrick, Maria Gondek, Amy Kim Grogan, Alfie Kungu, Millie Layton, James Lomax, Milly Peck, and Dominic Watson.

For our first Launch Pad of 2018 Castlefield Gallery presents Th-th-th-that’s all folks! curated by Manchester-based collective Rhino. Guest judge Poppy Bowers, Exhibitions Curator at the Whitworth (Manchester) and Castlefield Gallery’s Curator Matthew Pendergast selected Th-th-th-thats all folks!  from CG Associate members’ submissions.

Rhino is Emily Chapman, Liam Fallon, Tulani Hlalo (CG Associate member and Castlefield Gallery 2017-18 Manchester School of Art Graduate Mentee) and Meghan Smith.

Th-th-th-that’s all folks! features work by artists based across the UK, including Glasgow, Birmingham and London, a number of whom are exhibiting in Manchester for the first time. Working with video, sculpture and painting, the artists selected by Rhino share a particular sense of humour, part expression of and part refusal to be determined by the current socio-political climate, and accompanying the exhibition will be two texts- one by a 23-year-old and one written by a 6-year-old.

‘’Over the past year, there has come to light an array of similarities in the work of artists commenting on and documenting our disheartening socio-political situation. In Henri Lefebvre’s ‘The Production of Space’ he makes reference to Paul Klee and the Bauhaus; claiming that artists do not actually make work about space but instead, produce space. It is in this way that a new landscape is (re)emerging, as artists reclaim exhibition space as an intimate and safe domain for their own creative recreation. We have witnessed a breadth of work manipulating exhibition space, charged with an incentive ‘to loosen up a little’. Regardless of age or background, a flashback to our childhoods and its accompanying naivety is something that we have all experienced on varying levels. This project brings to life motifs and imagery stolen from the minds of our much younger selves, rejecting anyone and anything that attempts to interfere with it. Instead of being spectators of the spectacle, we want to be emerged in spectacle, to exist within the realms of an abstracted reality which defies and rejects the current socio-political situation we otherwise find ourselves within.’’

– Rhino, 2018

Launch Pads are short exhibitions or performances that punctuate Castlefield Gallery’s main curated programme providing artists, writers and independent curators with the opportunity to use the gallery as a test bed for the production, display and consumption of contemporary art. Launch Pads feature works and projects selected from CG Associate members’ proposals. For more information about CG Associates visit castlefieldgallery.co.uk/associates

Jamie Fitzpatrick (b.1985, Southport, UK) lives and works in London. He graduated in 2015 with an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, having gained a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, Philosophy and Contemporary Practice in 2009 from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. He was awarded: Vordemberge-Gildewart Award (2016), shortlist; XL Catlin Art Prize (2016); UK/RAINE Saatchi Gallery Sculpture Prize (2015); New Contemporaries (2015 and 2016); Cowley Manor, Shortlisted, Cheltenham (2015); LAND Securities Award (2015); Sidney Perry Foundation (2013 & 2015); Mijoda Trust (2014); Dundee Visual Artist Award Bursary (2009); Wasps Studio Prize, Dundee (2009); and George Duncan of Drumfork Scholarship (2008).

Solo exhibitions include: ‘(loudly) chomp, chomp, chomp’, VITRINE, London, UK, 2016); ‘Into the Hands of Housewives & Children’, Telfer Gallery, Glasgow, UK (2012); and ‘Jamie Fitzpatrick, Gallery of Wonder’, Hancock Museum, Newcastle, UK (2011).

Recent group exhibitions include: ‘Grim Tales’, Cassina Projects with ARTUNER, New York, US (2017); ‘New Contemporaries’, ICA, London and Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK (2016); ’XL Catlin Art Prize Exhibition’ Londonnewcastle Project Space, London, UK (2016); ‘UK/RAINE’, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2015); ‘New Contemporaries’, ICA, London and Backlit, Nottingham, UK (2015); ‘Which one of these is the non-smoking lifeboat?’ and ‘Taking Shape: Sculpture on the Verge’, Pangaea Sculptor’s Centre, London, UK (2015); ‘Off The Wall’, HQS Wellington, London, UK (2015); ‘Cowley Manor Sculpture Garden Show’, Cheltenham, UK (2015); ‘Pause Patina’, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK (2015).

Fitzpatrick has a forthcoming group exhibition at Millennium Gallery, Sheffield Museums, UK (2018), and his first solo institutional exhibition at Touchstones, Rochdale, UK (2019).

Jamie Fitzpatrick is represented by Vitrine, London www.vitrinegallery.com/artist/jamie-fitzpatrick

Maria Gondek (b.1985, Denmark) is currently living and working in Glasgow, UK whilst studying for her MFA at Glasgow School of Art. From 2014 – 2015 she took part in the  School of The Damned alternative MA, and from 2008 – 2012 Audio Visual VAV (BFA), Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL. Selected recent group exhibitions include: Calculation, StreetArt Museum, St. Petersburg, RUS (2017); Tounge Fest, Glasgow Arches, Glasgow, UK (2017); So Natural, LikeALittleDisaster, Italy (2017). mariagondek.com

Amy Kim Grogan graduated with a BA (Hons) in Sculpture from The Glasgow School of Art in 2017, in 2016 she attended the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (Exchange Programme). Group exhibitions include: Aporia, GSA Front Space, Glasgow (2017); Traces Below Stairs, Pollok House, Glasgow (2017); The Garden Party, Galleri Fisk, Bergen, Norway (2017); Green Reflection, Mary Mary, Glasgow (2017); Not Heavy, Just Awkward, New Glasgow Society, Glasgow (2017); Hand In, Double Yolk Gallery, Manchester (2017). Upcoming exhibitions include the Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries, Edinburgh, March 2018. amykimgrogan.com

Alfie Kungu (b. 1993,  Yorkshire, UK) lives and works in London. Kungu graduated with a BA (Hons) Fine Art from UWE  Bristol in 2016. Selected recent group exhibitions include: Good Luck, Cob Gallery London (2017); POCC, Fourty Seven, London (2017); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, ICA London (2016); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Bluecoat Liverpool Biennial, UK (2016); Screw, Republic Gallery, London (2016). He was selected for ‘Saatchi’s Best of the Year 2017’; Juxtapoze X Format Favorite 18 Artists (2017). alfiekungu.format.com

Millie Layton (b.1995) graduated with a BA (Hons) in Sculpture and Environmental Art  from Glasgow School of Art in 2017.  She was shortlisted for 2017 The Woon Foundation Prize. Selected recent group exhibitions include: New Graduates, The AAF, Village Hall, Battersea Power Station, London (2017); Woon Foundation Prize 2017, Baltic 39, Newcastle upon Tyne (2017); Not Heavy, Just Awkward, New Glasgow Society, Glasgow (2017); Making Waves, Platform, Glasgow (2017); Aporia Pt.2, Barnes Building, Glasgow (2017); Plus VAT, The Whiskey Bond, Glasgow (2016). Upcoming exhibitions include the Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries, Edinburgh, March 2018. millielayton.com

James Lomax lives and works in Birmingham. He has a BFA Fine Art from the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford. Recent group exhibitions include  Member Show, Outpost, Norwich (2017); Futures, Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art, Coventry (2017); Glasshouse, The New Art Gallery Walsall (2017); Creekside Open, A.P.T. Gallery, London (2017); Flux, Curated by Room 7 and Grand Union, Grand Union, Birmingham (2017); Last Chance to Paradise, Collar, Manchester (2017); New Art West Midlands Re-Launch – Coventry Art Space, Coventry (2016); Journeys, Saatchi Gallery, London (2016). Current and upcoming exhibitions include Another Point of You, James Cross (curated by James Lomax) at Recent Activity, Birmingham, January 2018 and a solo exhibition at 3 Ada Road, Camberwell, in February 2018. jameslomax.co.uk

Milly Peck (b.1990) lives and works in London. Gained her MA Sculpture from The Royal College of Art in 2016 and BFA (Hons) from The Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University in 2012. Selected recent group exhibitions include: Jessie Flood-Paddock with Kenneth Armitage, The Tetley, Leeds (2017); Green Reflection, 6 Dixon St, Glasgow (2017); Mudhook, Tintype Gallery, London (2017); Bought Objects, Voidoid Archive, Glasgow (2016); RCA Projects, Camden Arts Centre, London (2016); Top Bantz, The Royal Standard, Liverpool, (2016). She had a solo exhibition; LOUD KNOCK at Matt’s Gallery (Studio Space), London (2017) and has an upcoming solo show at Assembly Point, London later in 2018. millypeck.com

Dominic Watson (b. 1986, Sunderland, UK) currently lives and works in Amsterdam. His work was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2013) and was shortlisted for the Caitlin Art Prize (2015). In 2016 he exhibited as part of Art Rotterdam and Glasgow International’s satellite programme. He has had solo shows with HUTT Collective, Nottingham (2015), New Studio, London (2015) and BoetzalearNispen (2015).

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