Countdown to opening night of 'I have a strange kind of feeling and I just can't place it'.

Monday night before the big opening, it's freezing in London but we are hard at work applying a last coat of paint to the exhibition space and getting ready to hang the artists works.

There has been significant coverage in various art blogs , and press most notably Giulia Ricci is featured on the front page of A-N magazine .

Hope everyone can make it on Thursday night, the doors will open at 7.30pm and we hope to have a fun filled evening of art and music. We look forward to seeing you all there. 


If you are looking for a pre-opening drink or snack there is the Amersham Arms, easy to spot with the massive Take Courage neon sign out front right by New Cross Station and the Royal Albert pub also on the way to Tanners Hill.

Other nearby stations include Deptford Bridge, St John's and  New Cross Gate, if you need any hints or tips on getting to South London just ask us on the Facebook page. Take Courage North Londoners its not as scary down south as you might think .


Cheers 


xxx

Night of music during 'I have this strange kind of feeling' at Utrophia

Folie à Deux will be bringing to you a spectacular evening of music, with some of the most up-and-coming and talented young folk musicians around. The performance will take place on 20 November from 19.00 - 23.00 at Utrophia Project Space. This gig will run alongside and be complementary to our exhibition 'I have this stange kind of feeling and I just can't place it... ' and is central to Folie à Deux's vision to create opportunities for exciting young artists to showcase their work. Of course there will be the obligatory beer, mulled wine and other seasonal goodies. Here's a little sneak preview of the music line-up for you to enjoy!

Dear Winesburg

Dear Winesburg
A London-based folk four-piece, pair the deft finger-style playing of singer-songwriter Chris Kreinczes with the violin of Emma Kraemer (Peggy Sue, Mariners Children) backed in rabble-rousing-style on double bass, accordion and drums, as well as mandolin, clarinet and harmonica. They evoke contemporaries Noah and The Whale and Mumford & Sons but with a lyrical intensity that harks back to the protest singers of the 60s and the roots of the folk tradition, as well as song writing that echoes the Greenwich Village-era Dylan and the Lake Poets. Kreinczes' voice is mature and timeless, and with instrumental arrangements that build, surge and simmer, 'every fluttering violin note to every guitar delicately plucked shows off musicianship that is heavily accomplished' For Folks Sake. Their acclaimed debut record 'Dark Water' produced by Mike Pela (Stephen Stills, Fairport Convention) was released earlier this year.
www.myspace.com/dearwinesburg

Amber States
This North London folk four-piece are highly involved in the music enterprise You Choose Jamboree and have performed alongside the likes of Portico Quartet and Moulettes. Whilst relatively new to the folk scene they have performed in venues such as Ronnie Scott's and Proud Galleries over the last year, and their debut single 'Son of a Gun' featured on BBC 6 Music Tom Robinson. With lead singer Gavin Bell's smokey voice, and banjo, cello, guitars and drums they create a harmoniously addictive sound with 'catchy hooks, dreamy melodies, exhilerating builds and toe tapping rhythms' (Amelia's Magazine). Listen to 'Morning Sun' and 'Fall from Grace' by watching their beautiful videos shot in Abney Cemetery, where their sound changes from a delicate guitar strumming into an emotional layering of instruments, making your heart swell. This talented, goodlooking and charming bunch have a bright future ahead.
www.myspace.com/amberstatestheband

Benedict Rubinstein, front man of The Mariner's Children

Mariner's Children 

Benedict Rubinstein is the front man of the Brighton seven piece Alt-Folk band The Mariner's Children (Broken Sound Records) who are made up of friends' band members Laura Marling, Peggy Sue, Sons of Noel & Adrian and Alessi's Ark. Their sound sees an alliance with the immense instrumentation of Arcade Fire yet whose subtleties have been compared to the likes of Iron & Wine and Bonnie Prince Bill. On this rare and special occasion, Benedict will be performing solo (possibly with one other band member), presenting a stripped down version of their songs. Lyrically, he artfully constructs heart-breaking, often hair-raising confessional tales that are visually rich and evocative, and intimately bound up with the surging wildness of nature (in human kind and the natural world). Benedict's voice is soft, distinctive and unique, just listen to 'Waltz for a Sleeping Lover' - his lightest, most delicate and sparse solo song - as well as the bands new song 'Golden Pine' to really understand. In the last month The Mariner's Children have received rave reviews from The Guardian, NME, The Independent and Blue Walrus, if you haven't heard of them already here's your chance. The EP New Moore Island is out 1 November.
www.myspace.com/marinerschildren.com

Photos of the artists work

Sorry we haven't blogged for a while we have been super busy trying to put the show together and handing out flyers at the Deptford X festival. We thought that you might want to see a bit more of the artists work and get a better idea of how the show will look, so we have uploaded some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Keith Roberts, The Clearing, 2006

Judith Lyons, from 'A Different Nature', 2009

Nina Mankin, Magdalena and Her  Circus of  Horrors, 2009

Nina Royle, Amber Room, 2009

Nina Mankin, Emanuel's Opiate, 2009

Giulia Ricci, Untitled, 2010

Giulia Ricci, Untitled, 2010

Nina Mankin, Vitacup, Take Four Times Daily for Mental Wellbeing, 2010

Keith Roberts, Original Crossing, 2008

Judith Lyons, From 'A Different Nature', 2009

New name for first Folie à Deux show: 'I have this strange kind of feeling and I just can't place it...'

After much thought and deliberation we have come up with a name for the first Folie à Deux show, which will be called 'I have this strange kind of feeling and I just can’t place it…',  taken from a work by Nina Mankin (below)

I have this strange kind of feeling and I just can't place it...

In celebration we have issued a press release to promote the exhibition and here it is!


New pop-up gallery project Folie à Deux to launch with exhibition at Utrophia, New Cross

This autumn sees the launch of an exciting new pop-up gallery project, Folie à Deux, with an exhibition entitled 'I have this strange kind of feeling and I just can’t place it…' to be held at New Cross’s vibrant Utrophia Project Space – an old ice cream factory-turned art gallery located at 136 Tanners Hill, London SE8 4QD. The exhibition will run from 11 - 28 November 2010, and is a group show displaying the work of five artists: Judith Lyons, Nina Mankin, Giulia Ricci, Keith Roberts and Nina Royle. The exhibition will be complemented by a series of events including talks by the artists about their works and a number of musical evenings, including performances from up and coming folk bands such as Alessi’s Ark and Mariner’s Children, and celebrated musician Mauricio Velasierra.

Diverse in terms of their practice, the mediums in which they work and their sources of inspiration, the artists in the exhibition are united by an equally diverse engagement with the notion of ‘environment’ – the underlying theme of this first show. Their approaches range from delicate installations unlocking the poetic qualities of the flotsam and jetsam produced by today’s disposable society, to camera-less photographs exploring the impact of scientific advances on the natural world. Other works investigate the roles played by memory and emotion in our perception of the world around us, or consider the finely-balanced relationship between chaos and order underpinning the systems of both mankind and nature. Together, these reflective pieces subtly reveal our complex relationship with our environment, the ways in which we shape it, and are in turn shaped by it.

Judith Lyons will be showing photographs from two series which take plant and flower specimens as their subject matter. 'A Different Nature' comprises images created in the darkroom without a camera or film, while 'Un/natural Forms' features images of plant components that have been deliberately deconstructed, recombined and further transformed using inks and dyes. Creating hybrids that are unnatural and botanically flawed, they raise questions about contemporary society's relationship with the natural world and the increasing genetic modification of plant species.

Nina Mankin’s art explores a secret, inner world – its dreams, memories and stories. Her use of found and discarded materials is a direct response to our modern-day throwaway society. Nina will be showing new works from her 'Camera Illuminata' series: peepshow-like constructions that draw the viewer into fully-realised artificial environments.

Giulia Ricci – shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2010 – is fascinated by patterns and their systems, which she explores through various repetitive processes, primarily drawing on paper. She is interested in various aspects of science and mathematics, such as chaos theory, but her work is also intimately bound up with, and born of, her experiences, background and cultural reference points. These include not only the famous mosaics of her home town of Ravenna, but also the rural patchwork of fields in the countryside of Emilia-Romagna where she grew up – what she calls the ‘man-made geometry of the landscape’.

Keith Roberts trained at Camberwell School of Art and the RCA. His works often take vast areas such as the American landscape or moonlit woodland scenes as their subject; however, their contrasting small scale and delicate construction suggest the fundamental intimacy of the individual’s personal experience even of such wild, wide-open expanses as these.

Nina Royle graduated this year from the Slade School of Fine Art. Her paintings are inspired by her subjective experience of space – that is, her immediate environment – and her desire to encapsulate and represent this in a two-dimensional image. Nina’s works present perception as something in constant flux, constructed from an unstable mixture of rational, emotional and sensory responses that she aims to evoke through a heightened use of geometry, perspective, colour and form.

United by a seriousness of intent, and producing work that is visually beautiful, stirring and insightful, these artists epitomise the spirit of Folie à Deux. The first of many pop-up projects to come, this venture aims to explore universal themes from unexpected angles, with a fresh, exciting, instinctual approach that embraces all forms of art.


About Folie à Deux

Folie à Deux (‘a madness shared by two’) is a collaborative venture that aims to promote thoughtful and provocative contemporary art through temporary exhibitions around London. It is born of a simple yet sincere belief that art can make a profound difference to the quality of an individual’s life, enriching it with an element of magic and inspiration, as well as revitalising the life of a community by encouraging local participation in cultural activities. With over eleven years’ combined experience of organising exhibitions and cultural events, its founders – Christopher Adams and Clara Cowan – bring to this project a wealth of practical knowledge, an extensive network of contacts, an eye for artists of genuine merit and an irrepressible enthusiasm.

Meeting the artists: Nina Royle

I first discovered Nina Royle when I decided to go to the BA Degree show in May 2010, at the Slade School of Fine Art, home to some of my favourite Modernist artists, such as Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash, Mark Gertler and Christopher Nevinson.

Through the hustle and bustle of students at the show I saw Nina's painting To Surround. I stared - or more appropriately - fell into the work like Alice falls into the rabbit hole, the sound draining away like someone was turning down a radio. In slow motion my vision was sucked into a distorted, purple-grey room in which stood three doors or spaces closed up by bricks. I was floating in the space, looking at three choices of doors to run out of, yet knowing I couldn't get out through any of them - I was trapped. If this sounds more like a dream than a painting that is because Nina's work takes you to a similar place - one where your sense of space and time has been dramatically rearranged.

The work reminded me of a photograph that appears in David Lynch's film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. At night time the photo given to Laura Palmer by an old lady opens into a bizarre other world. Watch the scene from 'Fire Walk With Me'

Photograph from 'Fire Walk with Me'

Nina’s paintings take you into a world that, disconcertingly, is familiar yet unfamiliar. They make you consider the space around you in its purest form as if for the first time, creating a range of feelings from calmness to uneasiness. The way she speaks about her work is so inspiring: serious yet light-hearted; modest yet calmly confident. It is clear that her work is completely a part of her being. I can honestly say that her work has taken me to new places and I am incredibly proud that she is taking part in this show.

Clara Cowan

To Surround, Nina Royle

Meeting the Artists: Giulia Ricci

Giulia Ricci is that rarest of artists: one who writes and speaks about her art as well as she makes it. She is also distinguished by the fact that her imagery is  intimately and genuinely bound up with, and born of, her experiences, her life, her cultural reference points.The rural patchwork of fields in the countryside of Emilia-Romagna where she grew up, the famous mosaics of her home town of Ravenna, all these things have seeped into her, and subsequently into her work.

Giulia is currently artist in residence at a north London gallery, which is where we first met her (her installation is scheduled for display in October, (and more information about this project will be available nearer the time). We immediately fell in love with her work; with its shifting, kaleidoscopic patterns and its ostensible geometric austerity which, on closer inspection, reveals itself full of human and organic qualities with its densely-worked cross-hatching. Like one of those amazing hand-carved woodcuts of cold, rational, industrial machinery by Edward Wadsworth.

Giulia epitomises the kind of artist we had in mind when we started Folie à Deux: one who is ‘one with their work' and who creates objects of real beauty.

Meeting the Artists: Nina Mankin

 Back in October 2006 I was showing some small linocuts at the Candid Arts Trust’s Contemporary Art and Design Fair. Among my usual pictures of telegraph poles, pylons and other industrial detritus was a tiny black and white print called Adolescent, depicting a girl gazing out into a black space thinking about… what? Difficult to say…


To my surprise, this little print proved to be quite popular. A certain Nina Mankin, artist extraordinaire and one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet, left a comment about my prints; we became friends and Adolescent now hangs in her living room. We have stayed in touch ever since, usually meeting up at gigs by her equally talented other half Moss http://www.mvelasierra.com/ who we hope will be playing at some point during the show...


Nina’s work taps into people’s dreams, frailties and secret inner lives, and like artists of the avant-garde (Ettore Colla, Kurt Schwitters) manages to conjure magic out of elements discarded or taken for granted by mainstream society. If you haven’t done so already you should all check out her beautiful website www.ninamankinarts.com and get yourselves down to her current show at Livingstone Space in Hampstead, which is open until 7August. We visited the show on the weekend and there are a few pictures below:

Nina's work

We are very pleased to have Nina, with her infectious enthusiasm, on board with our project.


Chris Adams