Glamourland
Original date 24/9/11
Tony Heywood & Alison Condie: Glamourland
GLAMOURLAND
(Jurassic Coast)
By Tony Heywood & Alison Condie
in collaboration with Unanico Group
Represented by VIGO Gallery
A multimedia landscape in a box,
11th October 2011 – 20th January 2012
Berkeley Square, London W1
“Heywood’s work defies the conventions of the gardening establishment”, The Guardian
“Tony Heywood cross-fertilises landscape design with sculpture and philosophy”, Financial Times
“The most avant of Britain’s avant gardeners”, The Sunday Times
10th October sees the unveiling in Berkeley Square of Glamourland, a major installation by artists Tony Heywood and Alison Condie. This peculiar and wonderful new twist on landscape art combines elements of sculpture, botanical field study, digital animation and shamanism. Described by Heywood as ‘a radical celebration of the English landscape’, the work considers man’s engagement with nature. It also has overtones of the 18th century Picturesque movement with its idealised versions of natural settings.
Displayed in a window-fronted steel box (7M x 3.5M), the installation is the third in this series. Each Glamourland is a representation of a specific place, the previous installations representing Formby Beach near Southport and Tintagel in Cornwall. The installation in Berkeley Square is inspired and derived from the Jurassic Coast landscape in Dorset.
Making Glamourland
The process of creating the works is detailed and unashamedly spiritual. After carefully selecting a location, the artists spend many hours drawing and filming in situ. Heywood intensifies his experience of the environment by going through a shamanistic practice known as ‘meditative journeying’ a technique deployed to find ‘the spirit of a place’.
Back in the artists’ London studio, Heywood replays the film made at the scene wearing virtual simulation eyewear to relive the experience. During the replay he sketches a graphic expression of the film onto the walls and floor of a steel chamber using graphite in a frenzy of automatic drawing. The artwork provides the template from which Heywood and Condie create clay maquettes. These are then carved into sculptures that are scaled up for the project from man-made materials and coated in copper and bronze. Condie inlays the surfaces of the sculpture with synthetic gems, giving them an iridescent skin that reacts to the viewer’s movement and changes in light levels.
Horticulture
Professional horticulturalists, Heywood and Condie take botanical notes ofthe plants and vegetation indigenous to the location in order to place the same species in the installation. After sourcing trees and growing plants, they are part-sprayed with resin and other synthetic materials to create part-alive, part-dead ‘zombie plants’. The extraordinary power of nature is revealed as new shoots break through the plastic coating. The sculptures, trees, and plants are then assembled in the box along with digital insertions. The installation grows throughout the exhibit, creating a living sculpture that is tended to by the artists.
Animation
Two 1.6M high LED screens with programmed animation by Unanico Group are set in the Jurassic Coast Glamourland. The digital works animate the landscape and resemble contemporary totem poles, providing both elements of the spirit of the land associated with shamanism and abstract figures within the landscape.
Performance
As in previous installations, ritual performances will take place at Glamourland before and during the installation period. Please contact us for more information.
About Heywood and Condie
Heywood and Condie are celebrated for their horticultural installations thatinclude floating sculptures on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, installations on the lawns of the Tate, Lord’s Cricket Ground, at sea and in woodland. They have worked together since 2000 and live and work in London. Tony Heywood is represented by VIGO Gallery, 22 Old Bond Street, London W1S 4PY.
Tel: 020 7491 1485
www.conceptualgardens.co.uk
www.tonyheywood.com
About Unanico Group
Unanico Group is an international award-winning animation studio, based in London and Shanghai, which specialises in creating innovative, high quality and globally appealing 3D and 2D computer and hand-drawn animation. The Glamourland project showcases the talents of acclaimed directors Jason Jameson and James Hall.
Further information: Unanico Group, Universal House, 251 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 7AB
Tel: 020 7209 8369
Email: info@unanico.com
Website: www.unanico.com