Repeat Repeat

How does an artist make work? What is it that an artist does each day? What are their routines?

2019 sees a dynamic programme of exhibition scheduling, commencing with the inaugural show, Repeat Repeat curated by Creative Director Henry Ward, exploring ideas of daily practice and repeated routine. The exhibition will feature internationally recognised artists alongside creative individuals who would not necessarily call themselves artists, including: photography, drawing, painting and sculpture.

Repeat Repeat will address questions relating to domesticity, parenting and occupation, investigating how the undertaking of a repetitive action, embedded as a daily practice, can enable artistic activity to take place.

Many artists establish routines for themselves, setting rules to follow in order to stimulate making. Repetition is important, continually reworking an idea, revisiting a motif and trying again. The reworking of a theme or idea again and again is at the core of many artist’s practices.

The seven artists brought together in this exhibition have each undertaken, or are still undertaking, repetitive projects that operate in conversation with other aspects of their daily lives. Using routine to find a way of making in the face of professional commitments or domestic responsibilities. By integrating activities into their lives, and maintaining them, they have found ways of developing work that transcends these often, deceptively simple tasks.

Maintaining a rich artist practice alongside full time work, studying, parenthood and domestic tasks presents challenges. However each of these seven artists have found ways to circumnavigate these. From Susan Hiller’s seminal piece, “10 Months” (the exhibition features the preliminary study for this work), tracking the ten lunar months of her pregnancy, through Andee Collard’s obsessive drawing of the same ball of string every day for four years whilst working as a full time art teacher, to Ben Borthwick’s daily photographs whilst trying to wake his daughter each morning.

In the repetition of an action we can find new meaning. When an artist chooses to redo something, over and over again, the way in which we read the work is altered. A, seemingly, meaningless or pointless action can become meaningful, perhaps even profound.

About the Artists:

Ben Borthwick is an independent curator and writer based in Plymouth, and Associate Curator at University of Bath’s Arts Centre, The Edge. Previous roles include Artistic Director of Plymouth Arts Centre,
CEO of Artes Mundi, and Assistant Curator at Tate Modern. He has published widely on experimental music and contemporary art.

Nicky Britton Field is an artist and educator. His work addresses ideas relating to the motivation for creating art, drawing out routines and rules for making. Field currently works as a teacher of art in a school in Surrey.

Andee Collard is an artist and educator. He was Head of Visual Arts Specialism at a London secondary school and is now practicing as a full time artist. His work spans a variety of media and approaches. He has, on occasions, worked collaboratively as part of the art collective AMALGUM. He is co-founder of Bolton Contemporary, a non profit organisation dedicated to providing inclusive contemporary visual art to the people of Bolton.

Joseph Cartwright is an artist and Head of Art at a London secondary school. He balances his practice with this commitment alongside
the responsibilities of being a married father to three boys.

About the Artists:

Peter Dreher is a German artist. As professor Emeritus of painting,
he has influenced a generation of internationally acclaimed artists, including Anselm Kiefer. Dreher has painted a series using landscapes and interiors, flower pieces and skulls. His magnum opus is Tag um Tag guter Tag (Day by Day good Day), a series he started working
on in 1974. This work has received worldwide recognition and
praise. Dreher paints realistic objects with a twist of abstraction.

Susan Hiller has a practice extending over 40 years and is considered one of the most influential artists of her generation. Her work can be found internationally in both private and public collections and her career has been recognised by mid-career survey exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Tate Liverpool and, most recently, Tate Modern.

Simon Wells and his 9 year old son, William Swift Wells, pick up things on their daily walks together. Begun in the simple pleasure of the find, the collection has grown by default into a sculpture.

Notes to Editors:

Freelands Foundation was set up by Elisabeth Murdoch in 2015 and is run by Managing Director, Melanie Cassoff and Creative Director, Henry Ward.

The Foundation’s mission is to support artists and cultural institutions, to broaden audiences for the visual arts and to enable all young people to engage actively with the creation and enjoyment of art. Critical research plays a vital role throughout the Foundation, being able to articulate the value that art and culture bring to society, creating positive interventions and support structures in order

to provoke change and new ways of thinking and learning.

The Freelands Foundation’s first physical building at 113 Regents Park Road, which opened in early 2018, acts as an incubator
for new ideas and thoughtful conversations between artists, teachers, students, writers and creative professionals.

Previous exhibitions include: Brink, a presentation of work made by PGCE students at The Institute of Education exploring creative practice in arts education; Look, a group exhibition bringing together eight recent graduates from UK art schools; Moving Rocks, a collaborative project between artist Ruth Proctor and Acland Burghley School.

Notes to Editors:

Elisabeth Murdoch was appointed a National Council Member of
the Arts Council England in November 2017, running until November 2021. She was formerly a Tate Trustee between 2008 to 2016, and Chairman of the Tate Modern Advisory Council between 2009 to 2016.

Elisabeth was the founder and former Chair of Shine Group, which grew to become one of the leading content production companies internationally over her 14-year tenure. Prior to founding Shine, Elisabeth was the Managing Director of Sky Networks, the programming and marketing division of BSkyB PLC. Elisabeth began her career in television at the Nine Network in Australia, later joining Fox Television in Los Angeles as Programme and Promotion Manager for seven stations before she went on to the FX Cable Network as Director of Acquisitions. In 1995, Elisabeth started her own company, EP Communications, managing two dominant NBC affiliate stations, which won one national and five Californian Emmy Awards as well as the 1995 Peabody Award for Broadcast Excellence.