AFTER DARK IN LUNA PARK
A pop-up performative exhibition featuring the work of Edwina Ashton / Kit Poulson & Friends
After Dark in Lunar Park
Ever get the feeling that the button you keep pressing isn't attached to anything?
Ever use a mop for a pillow?
Step right up and then take a peek behind the curtain and meet the creatures who make the wheels turn.
It’s not so bad up here on the moon.
Renowned for her interest in animals, zoology and our perceptions of nature, Edwina Ashton uses creatures to explore awkward human sensations, social relationships and language.
Ashton’s practice includes animation, performance, drawing and installation. Her hand-drawn, animated films hinge on the mismatch between our intentions and reality, offering narratives that draw on painful observations of everyday behaviour and individual foibles; “I’m interested in constructing characters and objects from the flimsiest of means and setting emotions up against ridiculous scenarios.”
Writing about Ashton’s films Sally O’Reilly observed, “The…absurdist dialogue groans with bad gags and twisting contradictions as the human and animal worlds writhe uncomfortably together.” This combination of slapstick and pathos is similarly a leitmotif of Ashton’s exhibitions and performances; scraps and debris suggestive of backstage at an amateur pantomime – exuberant re-purposing – audiences brushing up against odd and beguiling situations.
She has shown work nationally and internationally including woirk at Tate Britain and a solo show at the Whitechapel Gallery.
KIT POULSON
Kit Poulson usually describes himself as a painter although he also frequently uses sound, performance and writing. He also often works collaboratively, with film-makers, dancers, writers, musicians and other artists. He has shown nationally and internationally.
Over the last few years activities include: curating a performance/text/music event at Spike Island, Bristol (Mutter Physics) which involved artists, writers musicians and students.:producing a site specific painting and library furniture for a large scale public artwork project commissioned by Bristol Council and Foreground projects for Chester Park School.
He is an active member of the WITTA project at UWE which explores words and writing in art in the broadest sense through setting up conversations and events with a range of practitioners.
He has published a variety of writing, including two books commissioned by BookWorks, Ice Cream Empire and Mutter
Recently he has been in shows in Perpetually Stew Bristol, 303 projects (Lowestoft), Campbell Works (London) Sluice HQ (London), Standpoint (London) and Hauser and Wirth (Somerset).
His work can be seen at kitpoulson.com
