25 Jan 2011

Gibson / Martelli present VISITOR

VISITOR
Gibson/ Martelli ( igloo)

Friday 14 January - Sunday 27 February 2011
12- 4pm and 6.30 – 8.30pm on selected evenings

artsdepot are please to present the first showing of VISITOR, a newly commissioned installation by artists Gibson and Martelli (igloo) in the Apthorp Gallery, artsdepot.

Inspired by the artists' travels to the snow-driven mountains of the Canadian Rockies VISITOR was developed following research at The Banff Arts Centre.

Vermilion Lake comprises a full-scale replica of a trappers cabin housing an interactive virtual environment. A companion moving image piece, where the bears are sleeping, depicts stunning monochromatic imagery of glaciers, forests and frozen lakes.

In both works, either a friendly or malevolent force is suggested, evoking the hunter being hunted, the tracker being tracked. Employing techniques used in video games, bringing exterior virtual space into the physical gallery space the exhibition plays with our anticipation of different forms of reality.

Gibson & Martelli work together as igloo creating ambiguous topographies and relationships between the natural and the artificial. Re-purposing media tools and combining them with remodelled objects, prints and interrupted surfaces they simulate and reconfigure representations of the world.

VISITOR is an investigation into the experience of place, figure and landscape. Real and invented panoramas depict the beauty and strangeness of the natural world.

The artists' first major work won them a BAFTA nomination and their installations, video works, online projects and performances have featured in international exhibitions and festivals including the 52nd Venice Biennale.

The worlds they create are total simulacrums: there is no separation between the invented & the real, the site & the represented, the local & the imagined. It is a territory that is cohesive & singular in language, yet simultaneously is forever folding in on itself. Their work engages the particular of the site while undermining its place, the original & point of departure become one in a conceptual unravelling.
Richard Ducker Curator, Fieldgate Gallery 2010

www.igloo.org.uk



Press Enquiries:
For more information, images or to arrange an interview please contact: Viki Mizon on 020 8369 5467 or viki.mizon@artsdepot.co.uk

Information:
APTHORP GALLERY
artsdepot
5 Nether Street
Tally Ho Corner
North Finchley
London
N12 OGA

Exhibition dates: Fri 14 Jan – Sun 27 Feb 2011

Open daily 12-4pm and on selected evenings: 6-8pm
Tel: + 44(0)208369 5454
gallery@artsdepot.co.uk
Directions: www.tinyurl.com/map-artsdepot


Notes for Editors:
VISITOR is a touring exhibition in association with artsdepot and commissioned by the Henry Moore Foundation and Arts Council England supported by The Banff Centre, Canada.

About the artists
Internationally exhibited and award-winning artists Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli (igloo) are based in London. Their rigorous observation is similar to that of nineteenth century landscape painters,yet instead of using paint to represent nature, their tools are from the twenty-first century.

Bruno Martelli
Graduated from Central Saint Martins with a first class degree in graphic art before setting up a multimedia platform for interactive design. He has since worked with artist John Latham, muf architects and co-curated Wired Worlds a computer games exhibition at the National Media Museum, Bradford. He is a recipient of a Wingate Scholarship through which he continues his research into technologies to abstract the human body, it's movement, and it's senses.

Ruth Gibson
Graduated from University of Kent Canterbury with a BA (Hons) in Performing Arts. She studied with the Marcel Marceau Group whilst on a scholarship at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti USA. She continued her education at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. Nominated for a Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Art in 2000, she has worked with many artists including Sandra Fisher, Gary Rowe, Leonard McComb Gaby Agis and Leigh Bowery.

They were made associate artists at artsdepot in October 2009