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Sovay Berriman, New Worlds Hum: platform for a story, 2013,
dyed cloth, timber, wire and cardboard
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Sovay Berriman, Entertainment Suite: segments, 2010 - ongoing, acrylic sheet and timber
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Sovay Berriman, Installation View, 2014
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Sovay Berriman, Leaning White Baton with Fins, 2013, insulation tape, copper rod, acrylic sheet,
wire and paper
and Marker for the Brough: detail, 2012, insulation tape, copper pipe, wire and paper( front)
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Karl Ohiri, Scribbleheart, 2013, Archival C-print
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Karl Ohiri, False, 2013, Archival C-print
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Karl Ohiri, Wicked Fool,2013, Diptych, C-Prints
Installation View, 2013
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Karl Ohiri, How to Mend A Broken Heart, Installation View, 2013
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Sovay Berriman Gallery 1
Karl Ohiri Gallery 2
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Sovay Berriman's sculptures and drawings are devised to work together as an ensemble. Berriman uses the principles of dramaturgy and scenography to position sculptural objects, drawings, signs and the audience into a terse relationship, which carries the potential for sudden transformations. She approaches sculpture not as a fixed object, but one, which through gravity or performative interaction may take on variations of meanings. Beginning with Entertainment Suite
(2010 -ongoing), a modular perspex and wood structure, which was devised for Entertaining at the Dust Lounge
a solo show at Exeter Phoenix, Berriman embarked on a series of research led explorations of stages for activity, addressing the role an object/ stage construction plays in influencing the social and physical behaviour of the audience, protagonist or director Prevalent in experimental theatre, cognitive behaviour theory, but also and more commonly in the psychology of mass entertainment the subject or the audience are compelled to move or behave in certain ways prescribed by the manner in which the stage or the auditorium is laid out and how the dramaturgy governs their behaviour. A reduced language of visual printed signs, which Berriman developed based on her observations, adds a further dimension to her work, which is neither drawing nor object, but gives directions for behavioural circumstances, which may or may not arise in the given constellations.
A further dimension of the work is literary text, which Sovay Berriman practices consistently as part of her work process. Where Molluscs Huddle and Wizards Roaris such an example of her literary engagement with structure and transformation, the mollusc being an archaic organic form, which is unsegmented and symmetrical whilst wizadry referring to the sudden change of constellations, meaning and reaction, be that of a shamanic or technical nature. Berriman converges many elements from modernist influences on theatre and film to recent social theory about behavioural mechanisms in institutional contexts to create works, which are subtly political in nature and also formally challenging.
Born in 1972 in Penzance, Cornwall, Sovay Berriman graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2003. Currently based in London Berriman works across sculpture, drawing, text and event. Recent solo exhibitions include the Sepulchre by the Sea (2013 , Malgras|Naudet, Manchester, ||HOST|| (2012) a collaboration with Laura Mansfield as part of the Liverpool Biennial, and Symbol Archive: Visual Language , (2013) with Spacex, Exeter, Engagement Network and a team of Contributors from the South West. Group exhibitions include The Starseed Transmissions (2013), Enclave, London, Lot. No. (2013), Lionel Dobie Projects, Manchester, and the publication it all started when the days seemed quite plain curated by Sarah Carne and launched at Banner Repeater in September 2013.
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How To Mend A Broken Heart is a series of found archival photographs, which chart the break-up of his mother's marriage to her ex- husband marriage. Ohiri takes personal memories from extended family ties and re-presents them in most cases entirely unchanged yet re-contextualised. As an ensemble the photographs recreate and re-emphasise the powerful meaning they once held for the afflicted woman whose life was disappointed by the insufficiencies of her then husband. Her excorcism of a bad marriage becomes universal by Ohiri's decision to displace the intensely 'private' into the public realm. Ohiri takes his intervention one step further and establishes differences and similarities between the found photographs through selection, much like a collector. He surveyed his findings to create two diptychs or pairs, which were scanned and enlarged. The pieces take on their own meaning, one which becomes authentic to the artist and which turns the works as much into an emphatic portrait of male identity whilst also representing the female gaze. In the simplicity of his intervention lies the success of the dual perspective underpinning his compelling portrait of human relations. This is the first solo presentation of works by Ohiri, who has also successfully collaborated with other artists such as Sayed Hasan and Riikka Kassinen.
Karl Ohiri is a British/ Nigerian artist, born 1983. Since completing his Masters at Goldsmiths University in 2008, his artwork has been a mixture of conceptually driven, often documentary based works that consist of original works and the recontextualisation of pre-existing artefacts. He was included a./o. in the Tate exhibition Family Matters, Dec 2012 and is currently showing as part of the Lagos Photofestival in Nigeria.
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