Follow Fluxus 2008 /

Emily Wardill

Sea Oak / The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter)

Following sources of philosophy, science and culture, Emily Wardill recomposes text and image material from the history of ideas--such as the motives of medieval church windows or theoretical treatises from Ruskin to Rancière--and develops a many layered and intense meshwork of autonomous statements and concepts. Her work is concerned with strategies of communication and the implicit connection between the structure of a language and the media conversion of the pre-existent text and image material.

In Wiesbaden, Emily Wardill presented herself with a selection of her 16mm videos. With an almost magical pull, the artist enthrals the spectator in details and recesses of complex interrelations, combining music and speech with a syntax of absence in sound and vision.

Wardill’s technique follows the principles of a collage with playful but strict rules of composition. In her films she quotes finds of the real world and underlays and expands them with speech specific elements. The films’ music, composed by Wardill herself, plays symmetrically mirrored after a strict score reminiscent of Schönberg’s twelve-tone technique.

Based on one single metaphor, one carefully chosen motif, Wardill plays with the sensuous possibilities of filmic narrative. With the surging social and psychological implications, she pulls the spectator into an intense tableau vivant. The expectation of a complex overall meaning is fed by hidden leads and encoded clues for possible interpretations: The visitor’s perception is wooed along a labyrinthine path of intellectual seduction.

Emily Wardill

Selected Exhibitions and Projects

2009
Sea Oak. Solo Show. Spacex Gallery, Essex

2008
Follow Fluxus / Emily Wardill - The Diamond (Descartes' Daughter) / Sea Oak, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany
Neither either nor or. Group Show. Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany
An Ambiguous Case. Curated by Emily Pethick. MUMOK,Vienna
And the clouds are in transition. Botkyrka konsthall, Sweden.
Solo Show. Standard Gallery, Oslo
Ben . Exhibition Programme. Perth Institute for Contemporary Art, Perth.

2007
Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck. ICA. London
Artprojx . Théâtre Royal de Marrakech
Film as a Critical Practice, OCA, Oslo, Norway
Ballet Mecanique. Curated by Emma Dexter. Timothy Taylor Gallery , London
Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck. Solo Show. Picture This. Bristol
Secs. Solo Show. Fulham Palace. London
London Film Festival . Curated by Mark Webber. London.
Hi Fi. One night screening. Tate Britain. London.
Ben. Solo Presentation. Liste. Basel Art Fair. Basel.
storal. Curated by Michelle Cotton. Whitechapel Art Gallery. London.
Kinomuseum. Curated by Ian White and Emily Pethick. Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Germany.
Depiction Perversion Repulsion Obsession Subversion. Film Screening.Witte de With. Rotterdam.
Der Ficker, Group Show curated by Franz West. Fortescue Avenue. London.
Inky Toy Affinitas. Group Show. Cerealart. Philadelphia, Berlin.
Itchy Park IVI. One night performance, music, film and video event. Limehouse Town Hall. London

2006
Basking in what feels like ‘an ocean of grace’, I soon realise that I’m not looking at it, but rather that I AM it, recognising myself. Solo Show. Fortescue Avenue. London
Skirt. Screening. Hollybush Gardens. London
Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires. Group Show. Ancient & Modern. London
Remove Celebrity Centre. Audio Project curated by Nathaniel Mellors and Dan Fox.
Lightbox. Film Exhibition Tate Britain . London
Born Winged Animals and Honey Gatherers of the Soul..Show with Sterling Ruby. Fortesque Avenue
Itchy Park III. One night performance, music, film and video event. Limehouse Town Hall. London

2005
Le Voyage Interieur. Group Show curated by Alex Farquarson and Alexie Valliant. Espace Electra, Paris
Slimvolume. Poster Project curated by Andrew Hunt.
The Reader’s Wife. Solo Show. Fortesque Avenue. London
Itchy Park II. Limehouse Town Hall. London.

2004
Romantic Detatchment. Touring Group Show. PS1 New York, Chapter Arts, Cardiff. Q Arts, Derby.
Feast Against Nature. One night event commissioned by Henry Moore Foundation and Grizedale Arts.
Grizedale , Lake District. PS1 , New York.
Itchy Park. Organized and showed work in one day live performance, video and music event. Limehouse Town Hall, London.
Like Beads on an Abacus Designed to Calculate Infinity. Group exhibition, Rockwell Institute, London

2003
The Royal Road to the Unconscious. The Telephone Repeater Station, Catterick, North Yorkshire, The Freud Museum, London.
A short Hello and a Long Goodbye. A micro intervention into cinema. Curated by Klaus Weber. Various cinemas. London, Berlin, Los Angeles.

2000 – 2002
Science Fair. Camden Art Fair, Curated by Sally O’Reilly.Camden Arts Centre. London
Atelier Something. Springfield House, London
Newcontemporaries2000. Touring Show.

Exhibitions and Projects as part of the Collective Twenteenth Century

(‘Twenteenth Century’ was an art collective consisting of 12 members now working as a studio collective)

Rencontres International Paris/Berlin
You'll Never Walk Alone The Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol.
Twenteenth Century Split Boxing Club, Limehouse Town Hall.
Osterweiterung Haus St. Stephan, Oberpullendorf, Austria
Twenteenth Century, Nylon Gallery, London
Be in Berlin A Twenteenth Century event at the ICA berlin-london'01 exhibition
Newcontemporaries2001. Touring Show
OpenDay projects Stalls, events, speeches, images and community. Shoreditch Town hall, London.

Teaching and Lecturing

Friends of Art. Symposium .ELIA Luzern. Switzerland.2004
Senior Lecturer BA Fine Art. Central St. Martins. Present
Gallery Talk. Museum of Modern Art. ‘Real World’ 2005
Visiting Lecturer. CCA San Francisco. 2008

Awards and Residencies

Artist in Residence at The National Institute for Medical Research. 2001. Mill Hill. London
Grizedale Arts Research and Development Residency. 2003. Lake District + New York.
PS1, Grizdale Arts & Henry Moore Foundation Commission. 2004
Arts Council Grants for the Arts. 2004, 2005 + 2007
Hollybush Gardens Swedish Residence, Norberg, Sweden. 2006
Fulham Palace Comission. 2007. London
FLAMIN / Bristol Meantime Residency. 2007. Bristol
Botkyrka konsthall. Residency. Sweden . 2008
The Wiesbaden Grant: Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus. Wiesbaden, Germany. 2008
Shortlisted for the Jarman Award. 2008