A collaborative performance, by Jonathan Baldock and Florence Peake, presented within Baldock’s solo exhibition ‘Notes on the Orifice’. Activating the exhibition space and highlighting a shared concern for the relationship between sculpture, painting, prop and costume. A small audience will be invited into the exhibition to witness a durational performance in five parts within the fabric of the show.
‘Vignette for the Orifice’ - like Baldock’s exhibition title - refers to William Burrough’s book ‘The Naked Lunch’, which is described as being similar to a series of short vignettes. In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, idea, setting, or object; Baldock and Peake’s performance will similarly arise as such moments within the exhibition.
Jonathan Baldock and Florence Peake, Performance, Chapter (Cardiff), 2014
Jonathan Baldock first collaborated with Florence Peake earlier this year for his Primary, Nottingham, and Chapter, Cardiff, solo exhibitions. Florence Peake is a London-based artist with an extensive training in dance and a background in painting; her practice encompasses visual art, dance and performance, using drawing, painting and sculpture materials combined with found and fabricated objects placed in relationship to the moving body. Baldock’s background is also in painting. His work explores a contemporary ‘primitivism’, transforming between sculpture and prop, and toying with a curious irregularity of form, stillness and movement. Through multifarious materials, disparate cultural references and exquisite craftsmanship his works take the form of painting, sculpture, installation and performance, all with a sense of the uncanny.
Curator: Alys Williams.
Florence Peake’s recent and forthcoming exhibitions include; Shift Construct, NOW Gallery (2014), Swell the thickening surface of, Mirrorcity group show, Hayward Gallery (2014), MAKE at BALTIC (2013) and Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2012); Swell the thickening surface of , David Roberts Art Foundation (2013); REMAKE at Baltic 39 (2012) and the Lanchester Gallery (2012);Chorus; Swell the Thickening Surface of at Tintype (2013); Paper Portraits (2010) at the National Portrait Gallery. As a performer, Florence works with filmmakers, artists and choreographers, most recently touring with Station House Opera’s Roadmetal, Sweetbread.
Jonathan Baldock has exhibited internationally with solo shows including: Warm Bodies (with Olga Balema) at Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, The Netherlands (2014); The Soft Machine, Chapter, Cardiff (2014); Multiple points in this crude landscape, Primary, Nottingham (2014); Hot Spots, The Apartment, Vancouver, Canada (2014); A Strange mix between a Butcher’s Shop and a Nightclub, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK (2013); The Blue Epoch, Colloredo- Mansfeldský Palác, AMoYA, Prague, Czech (2012); Musica, Annarumma Gallery, Naples, Italy (2011); Pierrot, PeregrineProgram, Chicago, USA, (2011); The Fool’s Flipside, Cell Projects, London, UK (2010); and ‘H.E’ The Fine Art Society London, UK (2008). Group shows include; Two Figures in a Landscape (choreographed by Rubato Dance Group), Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2013); The Gathering, Mytoro Gallery, Hamburg, Germany (2013); ARE YOU ALRIGHT? New Art From Britain, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), Toronto, CA (2013); A Conspiracy of Detail Mackintosh Museum Glasgow, UK (2013); NEWSPEAK: British Art Now, Hermitage Museum St Petersburg, Russia (2009) and Saatchi Gallery London, UK (2008). He has received international awards and residencies, including: Abbey Fellowship, British School in Rome, Italy (2013); Residency – The Forest, Wysing Art Centre Cambridge, UK (2012); and Skowhegan, School of Painting and Sculpture Residency, Maine, USA (2007).