The Courtyard Studio

The Courtyard Studio is an exhibition space cut out within an artists’ studio. Thought as a "transition space" between conception, creation and display of works of art, the Courtyard Studio exhibitions propose an on-going "relocation" that involves artwork and space. Here visitors can experience at the same time the process through which ideas are given shape and their immediate passage to a specific site installation.
The meditation about the “space” and its re-interpretation becomes the subject of this first series of exhibitions. The multifaceted correspondence between ‘internal horizon’ and ‘external surroundings’, along with the duality that maintains gallery-space and studio-space as separated dimensions, evokes the symbolic image of the “Hortus Conclusus” (the “close-locked” garden). The traditional opposition between ‘wild nature’ and ‘ordered garden’, metaphor for man’s complex relationship to nature, is echoed here in the ‘creative disarray’ of the studio (landscape/OUT) and the ‘essential clearness’ of the exhibition space (garden/IN). This dichotomy multiplies as a mise en abîme where the courtyard that hosts the studio becomes the protected, secret garden surrounded by the chaotic urban environment.
Francesca Marti, curator
www.francescagaleazzi.com
www.saradellonze.com
www.rivalefton.co.uk
www.myspace.com/robinaspage
WED 22nd AUGUST – SUN 2nd SEPTEMBER
ROBINA DOXI
Paintings
"Every situation or emotion has a multitude of dimensions and this is a great source of inspiration for me and something I aim to incorporate into my work. I like the idea of experimenting with textures and letting different materials react with each other to create atmospheres that feel fresh and vivid. I find shapes in the abstract form and try to make them evolve into figurative images. In the process of making these paintings I have also been inspired by 20's and 30's commercial and propaganda posters".
www.myspace.com/robinaspage
WED 15th – SUN 19th AUGUST
SARA DELL'ONZE
"The shadow of a dreamer"
Sara Dell'Onze presents the latest outcomes of her work about the poetic of dream and shadow. The script of a short video performance with storyboard, drawings and monoprints will be shown at the Courtyard Studio.
www.saradellonze.com
WED 1st - SUN 12th AUGUST
RIVA LEFTON
Paintings and Portraits
“Portrait painting has again established itself in our modern age. The photographic image has often become unsatisfying, disposable item, typified in glossy throwaway snapshots or ‘never to be printed digital’ pictures. For me a photograph is an important part of the process of making a painting. Photographs are the documentary or the prose. My interpretation is an alternative to, not a painted substitute for an exact photographic likeness. I try to transcend that record of a moment in the poetry of the timeless. The background information is irrelevant. The paintings have no environmental context. The white background gives a pure frame to view the subject”.
www.rivalefton.co.uk
WED 18th JULY – SUN 29th AUGUST
MARY YACOOB
Drawings inspired by Italo Calvino’s novel “Invisible Cities”
“My work has centred on drawings which record incidental and typically overlooked occurrences. Habitual behaviour, chance events, and experiments concerning domestic routines are notated in charts and maps. Scientific methods and visual languages are appropriated and used as structures within which to observe and note, to search for the poetic in the everyday or to suggest narratives”.
[email protected]
www.mary-yacoob.com
WED 4th - SUN 15th JULY
SARA DELL'ONZE
Video Performance
“And what more could I possibly ask as an artist than that your most precious visions, however rare, assume sometimes the forms of my images.” Maya Deren
Sara Dell’Onze opens this cycle of exhibitions elaborating on a crucial topic of her research. By using her body as primary material, Sara has been exploring the physical and mental limits of her being.This performance is conceived as an ongoing experiment on the visual view of a dreaming state of mind. Starting on the 4th July at 6pm, the ephemeral trace on the video will last, to witness the artist’s presence, until the 15th July. The camera will be the main audience's eye and the interventions from the guests will come with the scenarios.The unconscious will be on the screen…“What is real and who is dreaming whom?”
www.saradellonze.com