My work is concerned primarily with occupied spaces and the narratives that unfold in
them. My drawings of school playing fields, junked underpasses and the like often
contain text with the tone of dialogue. Through these glimpses of speech the dilapidated
environments come to life in a skint version of enchantment: a tree stump or a broken
fence are filled with the meanings of the events that go on around and about them.
In my attempts to unearth this unpredictable and fragile process of memory, I use biro
drawings, paper interventions, animation, video and text. More recently I have made a
series of interventions, films and animations and text that focus on recurring motives
that often feature in the work, ditches, unofficial dumps and breached security fences.
My series of Pop-Up drawings inhabit the space between two and three dimensions,
transforming folded paper into emotive sites for memory and recollection.
The films bring to life a series of landscapes that are digitally manipulated, coloured and
made to move. Before each scene a title screen announces a name for the landscape,
outdoor scenes are then modified to show some minor action in repetitive motion.
These subtle movements such as a falling roof or clicking fence humorously draw
attention to the miniscule, the enhanced sound of each action dramatizing life’s kinetic
force. A recent series of moving image films ‘Severed’ a landscape in peril, coughing up
its own blood ‘The Deracinater’ a tree trying to communicate and uproot itself and
‘The Isle’ a whole landscape under threat, heighten the human impact and presence on
our landscape, both social and ecological.
The work is unassuming, quite often made from simple materials and with seemingly
modest aspirations. It is their quotidian qualities, however, that charges them with
emotion, not that those emotions are easy to identify. It is not that these works are
personal or autobiographical that obscures their emotional content, it is the fact that
they are irreducibly, irrevocably unsettling. These sites are the scenes of humiliation as
well as innocent play, of rejection and failure as well as fantasy and adventure.
I am also one half of M4SK 22, a collaborative project between myself and David Moss: We are visual artists making music and film with whatever we can get our hands on. Mixing acoustic and electric instruments roots, soils and dusts, samples and software, found internet archives, paint and drawing in a desire fired sonic crucible with undercurrents of a hidden occult.
Since graduating from Chelsea College of Art with an M.A. in 2000 Woolham has had shows and residencies both nationally and internationally. His first solo show was at the Hoxton Distillery Gallery in London at the end of 2000. This was followed by numerous group shows including Becks Futures student prize at the ICA, Pizza Express drawing prize, Oriel Mostyn 11, where he was the prize winner in 2001, and other group shows in Belfast, Düsseldorf, Berlin and Madrid. Since then he has had solo shows at The Lowry Gallery, which was also part of a commission and residency and Floating IP Gallery in Manchester, he was also in 2005’s emergency 05 at Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth and Perspectives 05 in Belfast.
During 2006 Woolham completed a BALTIC/ Creative Partnerships residency, this was followed by a residency at the National Glass Centre and was also commissioned for a Per Cent for Art residency/public art project in Ireland. In 2007 as well as having numerous group shows including ‘Paper Cuts’ a touring show curated by Yasmin Canvin, Woolham was The Museum of Garden History ‘Artist in Residence’ curated by Danielle Arnaud and funded by Arts Council England, culminating in a show and publication. Also in 2007 he had solo shows at BLOC space in Sheffield and Leicester City Art Gallery.
For 2008 he has been commissioned by Animate and RSA Arts and Ecology, and made new site specific work for a project with Danielle Arnaud for the Tatton Park Biennial where his work ‘invaded’ the parks formal gardens. He has also recently had solo show’s called ‘The Invader’ at Chapter Gallery in Cardiff and ‘The Short Cut at Kings Lynn Arts Centre and a public commission for Wysing Arts Centre, Kettles Yard and Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge. For 2009 he has been involved in group shows including the Project Pigeon – Pictorial, Curated by Alex Lockett and Ian England at the Rea Garden, Birmingham, In Between the Lines Recent British Drawings, Curated by Jeremy Cooper at Trinity Contemporary, London, Le Roman Du Lievre: Marginalia MTS Gallery in Anchorage curated by jimmy Riordan and Leslie Rosa Stump (also touring to New York and London). In 2010 he will be having his first show at Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art.
Woolham is also one half of sound and vision project M4SK 22.
Website:
www.darkcorner.co.uk
Other Website and Blog Links:
www.vimeo.com/user1038690
www.animateprojects.org/films/by_artist/w/s_woolham
www.artcornwall.org/webprojects/scanners_simon_woolam.htm
www.darkcorner-simonwoolham.blogspot.com
www.daniellearnaud.com/projects/projects-index.html
www.drawingcenter.org/viewingprogram/portfolio.cfm
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A24030497
www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=12273
www.tank.tv/movie.php?movieID=604
www.blocprojects.co.uk/programme/exhibitions/2007/simon-woolham
www.tattonparkbiennial.org
www.wysingartscentre.org/app/webroot/artists/137
www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/aug/16/art.centrallistings
www.urbanorigami.blogspot.com
www.chapter.org/13795.html
M4SK 22 Website Links:
http://www.facebook.com/M4SK22
http://www.myspace.com/m4sk22
http://m4sk22.blogspot.com
http://www.last.fm/music/M4SK+22
Simon Woolham's streams of consciousness make for very engaging artworks. He doodles his memories and fantasies on paper, often adding little tid-bits of information to guide the viewer through the caverns of his mind: places where he camped as a child, bleak underpasses and school playing fields - the unassuming backdrops against which the drama of his life has been played out.
Jessica Lack on ‘The Invader’ at Chapter Gallery, The Guardian August 2008
Woolham’s Poetic interventions take a unique response to archiving by chewing, tearing and twisting paper into elegant sculptures which are then littered among the garden tools on display. On the walls are animations of these sculptures come to life, creating a magical, after-dark impression of the gallery after closing time. Woolham’s exhibition combines playful fantasy with a rigorous investigation of the museums neglected spaces.
Jessica Lack on ‘Shreds of Evidence’ at the Museum of Garden History, The Guardian August 2007