Female artists breaking new ground at Spike Island

The expansive gallery space, lofty ceilings and long corridors at Spike Island make it a joyful place to immerse yourself in an art exhibit.

As a venue mainly for new commissions rather than touring shows, it often hosts work that was designed specifically for the space. Adjoining the main galleries, the building is a major provider of studio space in Bristol, currently supporting over 70 artists in a nurturing environment where they can also network and collaborate more easily.

Their curatorial team are dedicated to helping to give a platform and build the reputation of under-recognised artists. Following his 2020-2021 exhibition of paintings Itchin & Scratchin, Denzil Forrester went on to receive an MBE and a Sky Arts Award (2021).

Sculptor Veronica Ryan – whose extended exhibition at Spike Island, Along a Spectrum, was also career-changing – has recently produced the first permanent pieces of public art in the UK recognising the Windrush Generation, with a series of Caribbean fruits and vegetable sculptures now situated on Narrow Way Square in Hackney.

Like many important venues in Bristol, Spike Island has been innovative over the pandemic, emerging with new ways of working, particularly in terms of harnessing the opportunities of digital access to widen accessiblity to its installations. As a result, their audience is growing and changing, and as a result, many in-person visitors to the gallery in recent weeks have been those coming for the first time.

Currently showing until January 16 2022 are dual exhibitions, Vision Machines from experimental moving image artist Peggy Ahwesh and Wet Room, from West Cornwall-based Lucy Stein. Bristol 24/7 took a look around…

Peggy Ahwesh – Vision Machines

Widely regarded as a pioneering experimental film maker, Peggy Ahwesh’s work spans four decades, and has inspired generations of young video artists and filmmakers. Until now, however, she has been lesser known in the world of visual arts. Vision Machines is her first survey exhibition and presents work made between 1993 and 2021.

Concerned with the power of the moving image to distort real life events, Ahwesh reappropriates images, inviting us to look at them anew through a prism of abstraction, ‘gamification’ and the hyper-real.

Ahwesh’s fascination with technology and ‘the increasing virtualisation of everyday life’ signifies the incongruity of modern’s life: while humanity benefits from greater connectivity, in some ways it serve only to detach ourselves further from each other.

Peggy Ahwesh, Poses (2021). Colour laser prints on Xerox paper. Installation view, Vision Machines, Spike Island, Bristol. Courtesy of the artist and Microscope Gallery, New York – photo: Max McClure

Exhibits range from uncanny video installations in which war reporting footage has been transformed into CGI news, to moving images viewed on a smart phone. Ahwesh reflects the way in which we can choose to digest, or switch off, from the increasingly disposable facets of everyday life.

Peggy Ahwesh, Verily! The Blackest Sea, The Falling Sky, 2017, two-channel video installation, 9 minutes, 30 seconds – photo: courtesy of the artist and Microscope Gallery, New York

Lucy Stein – Wet Room

Shot through with mythology, feminist symbolism and psychoanalytic theory, Stein’s paintings and drawings are inspired by the Neolithic underground passages in West Cornwall known as the ‘fougou’, leading to ‘uterine caverns’ and as a result, sacred to the goddess culture of the region. The predominant installation is a bathroom with running taps, surrounded by hand-painted tiled walls depicting vibrant underwater scenes rich in mythological allusion.

This collection of Stein’s paintings and drawings were made during the pandemic – a period through which she was also pregnant with her second child – reflecting a time of ‘intensive domestic caregiving and anxiety’.

Stirring, folkloric and wildly expressive, with a rich colour palette and an exhilarating mix of styles, Stein’s gaze is an exploration of female cultural stereotypes, and the mysticism rooted in the West Cornish landscape which she calls home.

Lucy Stein, Erotic encounters South West (2020), Wet Room – photo: Max McClure

Complementing the exhibition, Stein will be giving a performative lecture at Spike Island on December 15. Performing the Question will involve Stein walking around the Wet Room installation, talking with artist, writer and researcher Maria Christoforidou.

Lucy Stein, drawings and paintings from Wet Room, Spike Island – photo: Max McClure

Lucy Stein: Wet Room and Peggy Ahwesh: Vision Machines are at Spike Island, 133 Cumberland Rd, Bristol, BS1 6UX until January 16 2022, on Wednesday-Sunday from 12-5pm (closed on Mondays and Tuesdays). The gallery is free to attend. Tickets to Stein and Christoforidou’s performative lecture on Wednesday, December 15 are free but advance booking is essential, through www.eventbrite.co.uk.

Main photo: Max McClure

Read more: Spike Island’s galleries to reopen with solo exhibition by Denzil Forrester

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