URBAN NARRATIVES 1

THE URBANITE COLLECTIVE present

URBAN NARRATIVES 1

Exhibition: 1st November - 13th November
 

Private Views: 2nd & 11th November 6-9pm

The Urbanite Collective are -
Jane Palm-Gold
Ethel Shoul
Marcus Berns
Raziye Parmley
Julia Martin

Jane Palm-Gold ‘That this one parish of St. Giles hath done us all this mischief’ was Sir Thomas Peynton's judgement on my parish as the Great plague spread out from Drury lane. After the Plague, came a new sickness. An unquenchable thirst for Gin consumed people here, ruined lives gripped by poverty and mayhem.

Today crack is the malady of the parish that burns our transient population of users and dealers. History repeats herself in St. Giles. My drawings are observational, documenting police, intoxication and crime over five years.

Alongside the St. Giles drawings of dealers, users and the police, Jane shall be exhibiting stolen items - anonymous personal belongings dumped locally by drug users in the heart of the West End. These end up over the walls of the nearby Phoenix Garden after anything of value has been removed.

Jane Palm-Gold’s work has exhibited at the Hospital and at the ‘Concert for Hope’, Wembley Arena and featured on ‘The Pulse’ MTV Europe and NHK TV Japan; her films have screened at the Glastonbury Festival, the National Film Theatre.

Ethel Shoul Although cosy in my niche at home, I must gravitate to the buzz and theatre of the city - my subjects are gatherings whether a crowd at the bus stop, Carnival, markets, tattoo conventions, playgrounds. The city stage seethes with the movement of bodies, momentary glimpses... Ethel Shoul has exhibited widely in London and Toronto. Major commissions include Pathways Conference Centre, Johannesburg,S.A. and private portraits for clients in Canada. Her work is held in the collections of Yale University and ACE.

Marcus Berns The industrial detritus of various cities, collected from scrap yards, auto wreckers and flea markets, has been the main source of the material for my direct metal sculpture. The steel has been transformed through cutting, reshaping and welding into compositions that evoke the ever changing dynamic of the urban environment.

Marcus Berns has exhibited at Burgh House, Hampstead, London and has works in private collections in London, Toronto and Montreal in Canada, Vermont, U.S.A. and Johannesburg, South Africa.

Raziye Parmley The series of paintings I’ve called ‘A Stitch in Time’ are an intimate portrayal of urban living. Drawn from personal memories, they show children waiting in a domestic setting or self-absorbed in the landscape. The themes of family and belonging are key to my work, infused by my English and Cypriot heritage. Pictorial representations of family and domestic objects, ‘read’ differently when placed in an external environment. Within this juxtaposition, each painting has a story to tell, to be unraveled and interpreted by the viewer.

Raziye Parmley built up a successful practice while at ACAVA and Great Western Studios in London and participated in many Open Studio events there. She recently exhibited in ‘10 days at The Laundry’, sponsored by BID and Winchester City Council. She is a founding member of Optician Gallery, a collective of artists who collaborate on site specific projects and workshops. Raziye’s work is held in private collections in the UK and abroad.

Julia Martin In this exhibition I have chosen urban themes from both home and abroad. Whether they stem from the affection I feel for the long and closely-observed familiar, or from the excitement of encountering foreign cities, I try to interpret my impressions and memories, choosing the scenes, events, people and objects which most faithfully portray my response.

Julia Martin has exhibited at Butleigh and Taunton in Somerset; in London her work has been shown in St. John's, Smith Square and in Kensington and Chelsea.

The Urbanite Collective’s work is informed by locality: themes of psychogeography and history, of home and familiarity, intimate domestic interiors and the landscape of the metropolis. We document the urban crowd, the buzz and theatre of the city and it’s underbelly – intoxication, crime, crack and the police. The abandoned industrial detritus we make art from. Occasionally we break from the city, travel to form new perceptions of faraway places: to document other people’s urban narratives. The group aims to expand upon these perceptions of modern urban living within the Urbanite Collective blog at www.urbanitec ollective.com and invite written responses to the work via our Facebook page at the Urbanite Collective page –

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