Fugue Stage at Plymouth’s Ocean Studios

Between the 8th and the 29th of January 2016, The Factory Cooperage Gallery in Plymouth’s Royal William Yard will host Fugue State, a combined exhibition, funded by the Arts Council England, featuring Ocean Studios’ residents Jack Carberry-Todd and Rhys Morgan.

The exhibition explores the themes of human desire and greed set against a need for the romantic. Both artists’ works are presented together to question how these ideas operate and challenge how they are present in current society. Text, through publication, is also utilised by both artists to offer insight and narrative on the subject.

A key reason for the development of Ocean Studios was to provide not only the affordable working space for the full, part-time and associate artists, but also to bring a new level of collective networking, support, mentoring, diversity, sharing and experimentation for the practitioners.

Another crucial element of the Ocean Studios’ philosophy is the opportunity for residents and members to gain commercial success via access to audiences they might not otherwise reach. This residents’ show clearly provides this, whilst also bringing important publicity and profile for the selected artists.

As part of the exhibition, Jack Carberry-Todd and Rhys Morgan, in conjunction with Ocean Studios will hold two evenings’ events, consisting of workshops and talks. Dates and times of these events will be released on the 4th of January. These evenings will be free and open to public, providing opportunity to gain further insight into contemporary themes relating to the exhibition.

Since graduating from Falmouth University in 2014, both artists have continued to develop their individual practices. After featuring in Newlyn Gallery's Drawing a Presence exhibition in the summer of 2014, Jack took up studio residency at Ocean Studios where he has continued to challenge and develop the relationship between phenomenology and his painting: resulting in new bodies of work.

As part of Field Note’s The Wanderers project in Falmouth, Rhys was commissioned to create an installation at the Falmouth municipal. In response he created How Big the Bluest Sky? An immersive sound installation with accompanying book works. Since this, he has developed a new series of collage and books as well as sound and video installation which are presented alongside Jack's paintings to formulate the exhibition.

This exhibition is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Phil Gibby, Area Director, South West, Arts Council England, says, ‘Grants for the arts is our Lottery-funded programme that supports people who use the arts in their work or their community. We are particularly excited to work with artists as they develop their careers and this exhibition provides a great showcase for some exciting new work to be seen by audiences in Plymouth.’
FYI Definition of ‘fugue’: a loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.

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