Not Safe For Work, has become a ubiquitous phrase online, but beyond simply porn and violence what is Not Safe For Work. Our work and personal lives are becoming ever more entangled, and with companies able to take a closer look at our private lives where does that line end.
Cupola's forthcoming exhibition NSFW exhibits artworks that, in some instances, have already caused trouble for the artists or have been censored by social media platforms or are simply topics about which employers and others might object. There are also more light hearted responses to the subject, but which most definitely would not be safe for, or at, work!
Amongst the eleven artists selected to take part in this exhibition, several deal with identity and sexuality using photographs, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. One artist has created artwork around mapping mental health, another is exhibiting a small deeply personal installation piece around politics, war and family. Another artist has made work around computer 'glitches' and another has delivered us dance steps guidance and instructions which would definitely be unsafe at work!
“What holds all these diverse works together is their connection with the deeply personal and often private aspects of ourselves. I find it fascinating that these very human feelings and experiences are too often censored and hidden away due to a perceived negative impact they may have on others or on a working environment. We spend on average 1/3 of our lives at work and the idea that the impact of our working life is now being extended into prying on and into our social activity is deeply worrying. Often it is only through sharing honest and personal thoughts, feelings and experience that deep connections can be formed. At a time when online personalities can be constructed and managed, fragmented and compartmentalised, how much of our 'real' selves is safe for work?”
Karen Sherwood, director.
Artists taking part include:
Amanda Cox, Barry Cottrell, Çağatay Tuna Özkan, Cos Ahmet
Diogo Duarte & Jessica Mitchell, Jeremy Morgan, Klaus pinter, Liberty Antonia Sadler, Fierce Fine Artist, Lucy Wright, Philip Lee, Cos Ahmet
NSFW
Selected Group Show
31 August – 12 October
Opening 7:30pm Friday 30 August
FREE TALKS: Sat 12 October from 2pm.
Please book as space is limited via calling the gallery 0114 285 2665 or emailing karen@cupolagallery.com
Diogo Duarte & Jessica Mitchell: Sour Puss: The Opera- in conversation. Details below.
Çağatay Tuna Özkan - 40’lar, şunlar, bunlar; birilerine selamlar..(“40, those, these..greetings to whomever”) -Talking about his powerful installation piece referencing war, politics and family. Details below.
Savage Collaboration – Sour Puss: The Opera: In conversation with her co-creators
Diogo Duarte and Jessica Mitchell are an artistic duo who have been collaborating since 2016 on the visual story ‘Sour-Puss: The Opera’. Comprised of photographs by Duarte and drawings by Mitchell, the series tells the sometimes fictional, sometimes emotionally biographical story of a woman grappling with her own sexuality and sense of self. It was born out of the unlikely friendship between the two collaborators - 32-year-old photographer Diogo Duarte and 53-year-old psychotherapist Jessica Mitchell.
The ’Sour-Puss’ is a character based on real-life Jessica and real-life Diogo, resulting in a composite of both collaborators’ life experiences. With its nihilistic undertones, a sour looking woman seems to be consumed within her own private rituals and absorbed in the contemplation of her own body, so much so that sometimes it’s as though she fails to imagine anything exists outside herself. In the series, ‘Sour-Puss’ borrows Jessica’s body and face to take us on a literal and metaphorical journey that is fundamentally marked by shaming, isolation, staining and an absurdist search for meaning, connection and freedom.
How does one make a baby without sex? What makes two very different people come together to collaborate in creating a character that exposes aspects of themselves that they are often desperate to hide? What makes a middle aged woman take up art and pose naked for a young, male photographer? Why continue collaborating when it seems like the process might destroy your friendship? Who wants to focus on emotions like shame and melancholy in these days of positive thinking.
Find out…
Çağatay Tuna Özkan - 40’lar, şunlar, bunlar; birilerine selamlar..(“40, those, these..greetings to whomever”)
40, those, these..greetings to whomever” is an installation piece which has evolved during a questioning process of the act of writing messages on ammunitions and its relation to the need of ‘self-transcendence’ in extraordinary situations. For the piece itself covers it by referring to controversial militaristic traditions, rituals, and myths from Middle East, he had to find other ways to conceptualize the subject matter. Newcastle based Turkish artist Cagatay Tuna Ozkan will discuss how his work has evolved and the methods he used to play with serious topics such as justification of violence in modern tribalism.