10 October 2009 - 21 November 2009




An exhibition of work by David Austen presents an invitation to step into a parallel existence… a strange and fragile landscape populated by figures, flowers, trees, abstractions, words and signs; woven across painting, drawing, print-making, sculpture and film.

It is a fragmented but distinct encounter, in which each object and artwork stands alone, yet simultaneously forms part of a greater whole. The drama that unfolds reveals the tragicomic potential of human existence and the futility of love. It is a world of love and fear, though the cruelty is offset by the empathy Austen brings to his subject matter.

About artist

David Austen is a hard artist to pin down. His exquisitely delicate paintings on flax canvas and paper, ink drawings, and clumsily beautiful suspended objects build together like the ingredients of an odd narrative: a series of wonderful fragments, each standing alone yet seeming part of a bigger story. He borrows images and snatches texts from old black and white photographs, film noir, and 19th Century literature, re-presenting them in works that create a dark, bittersweet world inhabited by strange and lovelorn characters. In recent years, Austen has made two large groups of etchings which seem like strange storyboards for these fractured tales, and which in turn have led to the making of works in film. His first, Smoking Moon, was shown at Camden Arts Centre in 2007, and was followed by Crackers, commissioned for his most comprehensive solo exhibition to date at Milton Keynes Gallery, also in 2007, which was subsequently screened at the Locarno Film Festival. Most recently he has collaborated with the artist Enzo Cucchi to make a short film in Rome, Man Smoking (2008).

David Austen is currently the Stanley Picker Fellow at Kingston University where he is working on a new film, End of Love which will be shown within his exhibition at the Stanley Picker Gallery in November 2009.

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Ingleby Gallery
15 Calton Road
Edinburgh
EH8 8DL
Scotland
+ 44 (0) 131 556 4441
info@inglebygallery.com
www.inglebygallery.com