London Art Fair 2022: Stand G9a

Andy Burgess

Jazz Collages

Since 2004 Cynthia Corbett Gallery has been internationally representing Andy Burgess who read Politics & Economics at Leeds University before embarking on a serious career as a visual artist, multitalented painter, drawer, photographer, collagist, writer & curator. London-born Burgess, lauded by Annabel Sampson, Deputy Editor of Tatler as “the next David Hockney”, moved to Tucson, Arizona in 2010, when his career exploded on both sides of the Atlantic. The Gallery will be presenting primarily his vintage-inspired and historic ephemera collages as these are inspired by music, in particular, Jazz. For this project Andy Burgess will collaborate with Jazz prodigy, Guildhall-trained Pianist & composer Rick Simpson.

“In terms of artistic expression, there are many similarities between collage and Jazz. Not least, their shared desire to challenge and re-shape traditional forms of arrangement and to respond with vitality and energy to the rhythms of modern life. In a sense both collage and Jazz, move to the beat of the city, the speed, intensity, and complexity of the metropolis.

As a visual artist with a passion for music and Jazz in particular, I am fascinated and inspired, as many artists have been, by the relationship and shared motivations of both art forms. At its heart Jazz explores the relationship between structure and freedom; the melodic structure and harmony running through a composition and the freedom to depart from that structure, to weave in and out, to play around, diverge and then return.”

"Collage is my way of exploring a similar relationship in two dimensions. Making collage encourages play and experimentation and allows me to make an abundance of smaller works that riff on a central theme. I feel freer to invent and try new ways of picture-making, exploring colour, texture, and composition with a greater sense of freedom and abandon. The cut and pasted nature of collage is experimental and playful and allows for dualities: objective versus non-objective, organised versus disorganised, geometric versus organic, resolved versus unresolved, cut edges versus torn edges, found versus fabricated etc.

In Jazz there lies a tension between the parts and the whole, played out in the expression of individualism, the improvisation around a theme and the imagination of the players. Charlie Parker deconstructed well known melodies. Miles Davis, classically trained, encouraged improvisation to such a degree that he arrived at “free jazz”, a total rejection of traditional structure.

Collage also kicks against convention. For a start, collage rejects a central premise of fine art...the picture as an illusion, a window into another world. Collage, the cutting and pasting of fragments of paper or other material, insists on its own materiality. By bringing fragments of the real world, culled from the streets and advertising, such as bus tickets, newspapers, wine labels and all manner of ephemera, collage breaks the spell of art as illusion. Collage insists on playfulness, imagination, and spontaneity,” – says the artist, Burgess.

"In terms of the musical theme, Picasso’s guitar collages and constructions have been particularly inspirational for my work. Paying homage to Picasso, I too am deconstructing a well-known motif for my own ends. The cubist guitar is the theme, but each collage offers an endless variety of improvisation, as I play with shape, colour, material, and texture. The sinuous curves of musical instruments such as guitars and violins offer a counterpoint to the sharper geometric elements of cubism. Many of my collages incorporate vintage sheet music with musical notation and lyrics appearing under thin glazes of paint, further underscoring the relationship between collage and music.

I am excited to be a part of this compelling collaboration with a rising star of the Jazz scene Rick Simpson, in which we can explore the synergy between these musical and visual genres.”

Burgess, who has made a name for himself exploring the relationship between modernist architecture and contemporary painting, aims to instil the artwork with feelings of positivity and calmness, while staying true to his British and London heritage and his love of early 20th century art, architecture and collage. He will be creating a multi-layered narrative, incorporating his signature open primary colours and clean lines.

Andy Burgess has been internationally represented by Cynthia Corbett Gallery since 2004.

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Matt Smith

Excerpts from a 31 Note Lovesong

While Artist in residence at the V&A, art historian, curator, textile and ceramic artist Matt Smith visited the former Spode factory site in Stoke on Trent. He brought 31 production moulds that had been left at the now closed factory site. Using black parian clay and porcelain, casts were taken from the moulds and reassembled into new objects, each a portrait of the closed factory and loss of livelihoods.

When grouped together, a visual rhythm started to form. Similar to the black notes on a white score; a visual melody in response to the now silent factory site. The new works inspired composer Dimitrios Skyllas to compose ABYSS for piano – an aural response to a visual response to silence. The work has been shown and performed at the V&A as part of London Design Festival and at the British Ceramics Biennial.

UK-born Matt Smith is well known for his site-specific work in museums, galleries and historic houses. Using clay, textiles and their associated references, he explores how cultural organisations operate using techniques of institutional critique and artist intervention. He is interested in how history is a constantly selected and refined narrative that presents itself as a fixed and accurate account of the past and how, through taking objects and repurposing them in new situations, this can be brought to light. Of particular interest to him is how museums can be reframed into alternative perspectives.

"What museums collect, and what this tells us about what society deems important, is an ongoing fascination to me. Recent events have shown how important objects, and particularly sculpture, are in the national debate about who we are and how we got here," – Smith says.

In 2015 / 2016, Matt was Artist in Residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 2009 he received the ARC Award for Craft from Aspex Gallery and was awarded the inaugural Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize in 2014. At Collect 2018, he was awarded "Object of the Show" by Ekow Eshun. For Collect 2020, Cynthia Corbett and Matt Smith co-curated a site-specific installation featuring textiles and black parian works. The curation was extremely well-received, and Matt was awarded the inaugural Brookfield Properties Crafts Council Collection Prize, which allowed the Crafts Council to purchase six artworks for the Council's collection. The V&A Museum's Design and Textiles department also acquired one of Matt's subversive embroideries.

Matt regularly exhibits his work at public collections including Coming Out, Walker Art Gallery 2017, A Place at the Table, Pallant House, 2014; Subversive Design, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, 2013; DIY A Revolution in Handicrafts, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburg, 2010.

Matt Smith started his career at the V&A before developing exhibitions at the Science Museum and the British Film Institute. After retraining as a ceramicist, his work has often taken the form of hybrid artist/curator. His large scale solo shows have addressed themes including the legacy of colonisation in Losing Venus (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford) and Flux: Parian Unpacked (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), LGBT visibility in Queering the Museum (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 2010) and Other Stories (Leeds University Art Collection, 2012). Matt co-directed and curated Unravelling the National Trust which saw over thirty artists working with contemporary craft (including himself) commissioned to respond to the histories of the National Trust properties Nymans House, Uppark House and The Vyne. Matt holds a practice-based PhD from the University of Brighton. The PhD explored the use of craft techniques in contemporary art by artists exploring identities. He is Professor of Ceramics and Glass at Konstfack University of the Arts, Stockholm and Honorary Fellow at the University of Leicester’s School of Museum Studies. His work is held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Walker Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Fitzwilliam Museum as well as numerous private international collections.

Matt Smith is internationally represented by Cynthia Corbett Gallery.