PRESS RELEASE
 
For Immediate Release: 7 May 2013
 
Moda WK
Holly Antrum, Nadia Hebson, Winifred Knights, Titania Seidl
 
25 May – 29 June 2013
 
Vane is pleased to present the group show ‘Moda WK’; Titania Seidl, Nadia Hebson and Holly Antrum with Rose O’Gallivan respond to the legacy of little-known British artist Winifred Knights (1899-1947).
 
Winifred Knights was the first woman painter to hold a Rome Scholarship; noted for both her meticulous draughtsmanship and her unique sense of dress, she represented Britain at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs. Completing just seven major works, her masterpiece The Deluge (1921) is held in the Tate Collection. In the 1930s Knights collaborated with designers Rolf Engströmer and Peter Malacrida on the interior decoration of Eltham Palace, the Courtauld family’s Art Deco residence in South London. Knights’ diminutive body of work and early death have meant her legacy remains occluded.
 
‘Moda WK’ explores the generative possibilities of ‘subjective biography’ and the creative significance of female friendship. In recasting an expanded artistic inheritance the artists have been able to consider misunderstanding and misinterpretation, filmic and painterly narrative, writers/painters block and the expressive significance of dress. The discursive threads that have emerged, both oblique and specific, have served as prompts for a visual conversation.
 
Works loaned by kind permission of the estate of Winifred Knights and Liss Fine Art.
 
ENDS
 
Artists’ Biographies
 
Titania Seidl (born 1988 Austria) works with painting and assemblage. She studied at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst Vienna and currently holds the Sammlung Lenikus Stipend. A founder of Mauve, Vienna, her recent exhibitions include Redox, STUDIOS Sammlung Lenikus, Vienna (with Katharina Monka), Anthem, Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna (with Daniel Ferstl), and Inversion, Reisnerstr. 9, Vienna (solo).
 
Nadia Hebson (born 1974 UK) works with painting and objects. She studied at Central St Martins and The Royal Academy Schools. Recent residencies include the British School at Rome, and Lokaal 01, Antwerp. Solo and group exhibitions include: From Flemish Portraiture to Czech Cubist Furniture, VOLTA NY, New York, Moda WK, Lokaal 01, Antwerp, The Continuation of Romance, Rosenfeld Porcini, London and The Jerwood Contemporary Painters. Moda WK is her second curatorial project after The Whiteness of the Whale, Transition, London (2007), and is a group iteration of her recent solo show for Lokaal 01. A presentation by Hebson on her engagement with Knights will appear in the feminist journal Persona, published by Yale Union in summer 2013.
 
Holly Antrum (born 1983 UK) works with film and print, guided by multiple starting points. She studied Painting at Wimbledon School of Art and received an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 2011. Recent exhibitions include In the House of Mr and Mrs X, Temporary Gallery, Cologne, The Stone of Folly, Down Stairs Gallery, Herefordshire, Deleted Cities, Generator Projects, Dundee, Apropos the Kissing of a Hand, Vane, Newcastle upon Tyne, SV12, Studio Voltaire, and New Contemporaries 2010, A Foundation, Liverpool and ICA, London. For Moda WK Holly Antrum has worked in collaboration with Rose O’Gallivan.
 
Rose O’Gallivan (born 1984 UK) studied at Falmouth College of Art and received an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in 2011. Recent exhibitions include the solo show, mrs soprano at Furini Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2012), and the group shows Accidentally on Purpose, QUAD, Derby (2012) and Reception Area, as part of the Sleeping Upright project, Nottingham (2012), and Shadow Lines, Tintype, London (2011). In 2013 she was included in Take Me Out with Limoncello at the London Art Fair.
 
Artist talk
 
A public conversation between Titania Seidl, Nadia Hebson and Holly Antrum will take place in the gallery at 2pm on Saturday 25 May. Admission to the talk is free but booking is required. Please contact the gallery on 0191 261 8281 or events@vane.org.uk to book a place.
 
Contact details
 
For further information or images please contact:
Paul Stone, Creative Director, or Christopher Yeats, Programme Manager
tel: 0191 261 8281, email: info@vane.org.uk
 
Vane is open Wednesday-Saturday, 12-5pm, admission free.
Vane, First Floor, Commercial Union House, 39 Pilgrim Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6QE.
T +44(0) 191 261 8281
www.vane.org.uk
 
Vane
 
Vane was founded in 1997 in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England. Vane opened a permanent gallery space in Newcastle city centre in 2005. In October 2011 Vane launched a brand new gallery space on the first floor of Commercial Union House, 39 Pilgrim Street, in the centre of Newcastle. Vane represents the work of a number of artists, both from across the UK and internationally, as well as showing the work of invited artists in collaboration with other galleries. The gallery directors are Paul Stone and Christopher Yeats. Vane is supported by Arts Council England.