Please call Great Brampton House on 01981 250 912 to arrange a suitable time for you to visit. If you get no immediate response from this route please call call Craig on 0777 553 2291.

Down Stairs is proud to present Force Quit, an exhibition of work by artist Matt Brown that mediates between the ever increasingly blurred boundaries of virtual and real, artificial and actual, analogue and digital.

Showing a range of sculptural and two dimensional work produced over a twelve year period, Brown harnesses a diverse range of mediums including digital image creation, model making, painting, print making and embroidery. With a zealous and labour intensive attention to detail, Brown’s work utilises’s aesthetics from a more innocent age of virtual immersion to perhaps ask the question where actually are we when sat daily interacting with and via technology for the most part of our waking hours.

When writing his own synopsis of the exhibition, Brown’s original statement became digitally mangled through the transferal from one computer program to another. Reflecting upon this inadvertently remixed version, he decided it said as much as it had originally, if not indeed more:

“der and chaos.reating a turf war of ora random equivalent is overlaid ceate exquisite patterns to which red to crdere oronment. These cubes (pixels) arblocks of this enviesent the building reprthe cube as a bases to eciously constructed pieces user- His painstakingly peady faithful following.rconsequences to this alor this type of evolution with what realm soon mirrthe lightening fast development of the digital own raises the question willrcious thought, Bseate amazingly complex systems without any conrcIf assumed that the natural world is comprised of unthinking simple rules having the power to e of ourselves.resulting in technology becoming the centroportion of our everyday livesrge prough a larcomputer letting it become the pilot guiding us thol to there giving over contre aW world. ’ealronments rather than n the ‘rconstraints of virtual envie socially signicant in the isolatedronic ideal of becoming more even shifting into a perversely irae Wganized logical existence. rheir seemingly otinferior of their ability to multi-task and jealous of e than we believe in ourselves, feeling rome have come to believe in technology Wcomputers. elationships with ring a huge shift in peoples cSince the birth of the internet the world is experienStatement”

Showing alongside Force Quit in Down Stairs’ screening room is a video walkthrough of Computer Love, an exhibition that explores our love affair with computers. It takes the form of a virtual gallery that showcases the work of artists and research from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Computer Science in collaboration with Human Studio.

Download the Computer Love application http://www.shef.ac.uk/dcs/computerlove
Watch the video walkthrough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BucVX7vlg5s

So! You have four more weekends to see these exhibitions:

The Stone of Folly

Tainted Love

Emily Fryer – Space

Kayley’s work is about the body as an organic vessel – the fine lines between life and death, survival and decay, fluid and solid, thick and thin, inner and outer; she use’s her work to communicate the impermanence of life, the remnants and traces that are left behind. She has often worked with found, emotive materials for their fragility and unstable qualities, for the tension that they can create – paper, textiles, latex and wax (thus relating back to the body). The processes she uses are also highly considered – she is interested in deconstruction; removing a material or object from its stable points of reference, and presenting it as a new form, suspended between perishing and flourishing.

Her work has diverted towards film and performance as of late; using the physical body as my material, rather than merely representing it – she feels that my message is conveyed more immediately in this format. Kayley is undertaking various projects that fuse concepts of temporality and varying degrees of emotional, physical and mental states with contemplated acts, often involving endurance. She expects to respond to Down Stairs and Great Brampton House on a very sensitive level, via exploring their historical contexts and surrounding areas; her ideas frequently challenge social constructs and the boundaries of humanitarian subjects.

Kayley describes her art practice has always been of paramount importance in her life: “I lived in a hostel when I was sixteen years old, just to pursue my early art education at Derby College. Although I was accepted into Falmouth’s College of Arts eight years ago, I declined the offer in exchange for some further life experience. It is since finally completing a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art (at Hereford College of Arts), that I have discovered what my practice is constructed around; the inescapable thread between two extremes – life and death, lost and found, elation and sorrow, etc.; the uncomfortable yet intriguing moments in life that cannot be fully explained, or denied. By bringing these subjects to the surface, acknowledging them and presenting them to others, I am attempting to reconnect with what often seems such a desensitised world. My research often includes obscure objects or methods of travel (vintage ‘Housewife’ annuals, for e.g), but also spans across history and philosophy – from Duchamp to Hesse, Serra, Bourgeois, Beuys, and (Karla) Black; more recently I have been inspired by Abramovic and Viola. Aside from continuing with my art investigations, I expect to study further; a PGCE or MA in Fine Art, based in the South.”

This time last year we also had three open at the same time. Non Obsolescence, curated by Trove, students from Hereford College of Art showing works in the grounds of Great Brampton House, and Mark Houghton giving the world his Upstare (or Upstairs depending on who you talk too). Here he talks about his practice, and some of those works from last year.

Mark Houghton Artist Interview from mark houghton on Vimeo.

Back here in Herefordshire Down Stairs will be closed from Monday 17th September for instillation of our new exhibitions. Please do join us on Saturday 29 September from 6 – 9pm to celebrate the openings of:

The Stone of Folly HOLLY ANTRUM, MIKE COOTER, WILLIAM COBBING, KATIE CUDDON, BENEDICT DREW, MARTIN NEWTH, FRANCESCO PEDRAGLIO, HEATHER PHILLIPSON, NICHOLAS POPE, TOM WOOLNER. Curated by William Cobbing

Tainted Love ALICE ANDERSON, GEORGIE FLOOD, ANNABEL DOVER, KIRSTY BUCHANON, ANDREA HANNON, CORINNA SPENCER, JESSICA VOORSANGER, HAYLEY LOCK, PAUL KINDERSLEY, ALLI SHARMA, MARK SCOTT WOOD, CATHY LOMAX. Selected by Corinna Spencer

Space EMILY FRYER. A Down Stairs residency exhibition

We’re really excited about these exhibitions. It would be wonderful to see you at our Opening Reception Saturday 29 September 6 – 9pm. All are welcome.