HANDS TO MOUTH

The works in the exhibition all share the common experience of bodily fascination; whether it's a focus on identity, sex or intimacy - all the artists in this show are concerned with the construction of narrative with a particular focus on the corporeal. Mixed media and collage are prevalent both in the painting, video and sculpture, which adds to the visceral, tactile references presented to the viewer.

Colour and shape reign through this exhibition, accentuating certain body parts and actions. This show is a celebration of flesh and surface, sound and image.

Laura Bygrave takes the distillation and distortion inherent in cartooning to make paintings that investigate the psychological effect of pictorial space. Working on the basis of amplification through simplification found in cartoons, she treats paintings as hyper real versions of our reality. She draws from 'sinister pop' where the body is dealt with as a surreal, fluid form; the figure as a darker, dirtier, abject identity filtered through the humorous and democratising cartoon line.

Through the notion of collages and loose connections Ninna Bohn Pedersen questions the production of images and the construction of narratives, which allow the viewer to fill in the blanks. Often using herself and immediate surroundings as a subject, canvas and stage, her works are haptic representations of the real. She works with moving image across a variety of formats and technology, often site-specific and utilising sculptural gestures.

Interested in eliminating a literal depiction of herself within her work Rachel Jones focuses on a sense of self in relation to the representation of black people within the contemporary canon of painting and portraiture. She uses colour alongside narrative to depict various emotions and thoughts, to reflect and develop ideas about the depiction of the black figure, and how it is understood and reflected within historical and contemporary art.