WEEK #5

JACK BURTON & VICTOR SEAWARD

Jack Burton participated to the summer group exhibition Further Images in 2018 while Victor Seaward participated to the group show To the Core in October 2018.

All artworks are available to purchase. Should you wish to make an enquiry please email maddie@whitecrypt.com or anais@whitecrypt.com

JACK BURTON

The Redistributions (2020), Archival pigment print, 60 x 42 cm (A2), ed. 5 + 1ap

Lonesome (2020), Archival pigment print, resin, oil paint, 47 x 35 cm

Jack Burton’s practice engages with the medium of photograph through the use of collage and layering. Incorporating a richness of visual imagery, his works often have a feeling of suspension, floating, fragmentary narratives pregnant with the potential for change. His new collages further his exploration and challenge of photography using shifting layers of competing imagery and materials.

Speaking about current life from his home in Brussels, Burton muses:

After the initial anxiety, which made it impossible for me to make anything, I established a good studio and cooking routine with my partner, Aisha Christison, which brought some sense of normality back. I've also been making masks for a local initiative, which gives me some vague sense of being useful, which I realise I fall to pieces without. All in all, I won't say I've been enjoying it, as the general situation is still so upsetting, but I have to admit being forced to live at a slower pace has been good for me.

Everything I had coming up was cancelled or postponed of course, but I found once that kind of weight and expectation was lifted from the studio, my work has been wandering off into stranger and stranger territories. I'm not sure if it's any good yet, but I like walking into the studio and rediscovering what I got up to the day before. I'm often scratching my head at something like a picture framed in a camembert box, or a new slogan that might have pushed a painting so far in a bad direction it's good again. That's the hope anyway.

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website
@jackfrburton

Jack Burton (b.1988, Wales) Lives and works in Brussels.

Education: Royal Academy Schools, Postgraduate Diploma, Art, (2014 – 2017); The London Consortium, MRes, Cultural Studies and the Humanities (2010 – 2011); Chelsea College of Art and Design, BA Fine Art, (2007 – 2010).

Solo Exhibitions: ‘Emotional Paintings About Economics’, Josh Lilley (2018), ‘Long Journey/Fever Dream’, Elika Gallery, Athens (2017); ‘Soft Diary’, Castor Projects, London, (2017); ‘Kelly’, Elika Gallery, Athens (2015).

Selected Group Exhibitions: ‘Habitual’, Castor Projects, London (2020); ‘Greetings’, Mauve, Vienna (2019); ‘All in green went my love riding’, Giardino dello Zuccaro, (2019); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London, (2018-19); ‘Chumming’, The Pipe Factory/Glasgow International, Glasgow (2018); ‘Further Images’, White Crypt, London (2018); ‘Dead Heat’, Kunstraum Ortloff, Leipzig (2017); ‘Printed Matters’, Gesso Art Space, Vienna (2017); Manchester Contemporary, with Castor Projects (2017). Notable Residencies: Red Mansion Art Prize, Beijing (2016)

VICTOR SEAWARD

Common Flax, 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic and cement chip terrazzo, 23.5 x 16 cm

Common Flax (detail), 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic and cement chip terrazzo, 23.5 x 16 cm

Flowers (after Matisse) II, 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic, 23.5 x 16 cm

Flowers (after Matisse) II (detail), 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic, 23.5 x 16 cm

Large Branch, 2018, cast concrete panel with inlaid stainless steel and black glass terrazzo, 45 x 35 cm

Large Branch (detail), 2018, cast concrete panel with inlaid stainless steel and black glass terrazzo, 45 x 35 cm

Hands and Chain, 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic and cement chip terrazzo, 45 x 35 cm

Hands and Chain (detail), 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic and cement chip terrazzo, 45 x 35 cm

Matisse Three Times, 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic and polar marble terrazzo, 45 x 35 cm

Matisse Three Times (detail), 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic and polar marble terrazzo, 45 x 35 cm

Mercedes and Solids, 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic and cement chip terrazzo, 45 x 35 cm

Mercedes and Solids (detail), 2019, cast concrete panel with inlaid acrylic and cement chip terrazzo, 45 x 35 cm

Victor Seaward’s practice is concerned with materiality and process, the agency of things, the aesthetics of the ancient, material history, and how objects can interact with others from different socio-historic contexts. His work is founded upon attempts to articulate meaning from objects that cannot communicate linguistically. The act of making is also integral to his practice, be it through technological reproduction, casting, or metalwork. Seaward is emphatic: I take great joy in making every single aspect of an artwork.

Speaking about how current circumstances are influencing his mode of working, Seaward comments:

Under normal circumstances my practice relies heavily upon various forms of specialised production such as welding, plasma cutting, powder coating, and 3D printing. Of course this has all had to be put on hold since the lockdown and as such I have spent much of the lockdown learning to use computer aided design software which I had always wanted to use but never had the willingness to take two months out to truly learn. After a slow start, I’m finally at a point where I can articulate some of the ideas in my head, and this in turn has engendered a new direction in my work. I am very excited to manifest these artworks physically.

I must add that I am lucky to have had a positive outcome on my practice. I think that one has to be in the right frame of mind to be creative - many artists have not had the luxury to think about their work as many of us are struggling financially and worrying about lost freelance work that we all rely upon. It is wrong to assume that there should be an unbridled blossoming of creativity - and frankly if we make it through this period being able to continue as artists then that’s the most important thing.

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website
@victor_seaward

Victor Seaward (b.1988, Kuala Lumpur) Lives and works in London.

Education: Royal College of Art: MA Painting (2016 – 2018); University of Leeds: BA History of Art (2007 – 2010); Chelsea College of Art: Foundation Diploma, Fine Art (2006 – 2007).

Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions: ‘Nebelmeer’, Recent Activity, Birmingham (2019); ‘Vanitas’, Rectory Projects, London (2019); ‘Isabelline and Other Colours’, Lily Brooke, London (2019), ‘Outlines Roughly the Size of a Suit’, Two Person show with Luke Burton, Union Gallery, London (2019).

Selected Group Exhibitions: [POSTPONED] ‘Non Objects’, Hortensia Gallery Kensington & Chelsea College, London (2020); ‘The Potion Room’, Subsidiary Projects, London (2020); ‘The Smartphone was invented before the Candle’, Dyson Gallery, London (2020); ‘Listen to the Hum’, Alice Black, London, (2019); ‘Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer’ 2019 - Curated by William Bennington Gallery, Buckinghamshire ( 2019); ‘Same Tendency’, Summerhall Gallery, Edinburgh (2019); ‘ABSINTHE’, curated by James Capper - Spit & Sawdust, London (2019); ‘Studio.us’, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (2018); ‘The Salamander Devours Its Tail Twice’, Gallery 46, London (2018), ‘Paper Cuts’, Curated by Kris Day - Saatchi Gallery, London (2018); ‘To The Core’, White Crypt, London (2018); ‘The Metallurgical Ouroboros’, Gossamer Fog, London (2018); ‘Extended Call Pt. 3’, Subsidiary Projects, London (2018); ‘Arc.’, Curated by Kris Day, Herrick Gallery, London (2018); ‘Les Mains Dans Les Poches’, Pierre Poumet, Bordeaux(2018); ‘Extended Call Pt. 2’, The Parasite, London (2018); Degree Show 2018, Royal College of Art, London (2018); ‘Spring Syllabus’, J Hammond Projects, London (2018)

Awards: Valerie Beston Grant, Painting Department, Royal College of Art, 2018