Lismore Castle Arts is delighted to present Feel Up, a collaborative exhibition between Eddie Peake and Prem Sahib, two of the most exciting artists working in the UK at present. Feel Up is the first time either artist has exhibited in Ireland. The exhibition opens on 18th April and continues through until 7 June 2015.
Borne of ongoing collaborative conversations between Sahib and Peake, Feel Up extends from their performance Darkroom, first realized in a club night in London in 2011. In a development of themes found in the Darkroom performance, Feel Up is a room installation of accompanying elements – a silent video is installed in relationship to a large wall sculpture, golden fronted and reflective, through which originally composed audio plays from in-built speakers.
The shining surface of the Feel Up audio wall, cutting through the gallery space, holds the reflection of the historic architectural features of St Carthage Hall and prominently, the video, with its imagery of participants then viewed alongside the actual visitors to the space, conveying a sense of invitation, physical participation, witnessing the gallery filling up. Supporting this sense of presence is the audio track, combining electronic dance music with sounds of human effusions - laughing, breathing and spitting. Behind the wall, its supports are exposed and the space occupied by a jungle of bamboo, which in turn invites interaction with the gallery.
Surface lustre and animation through reflection or human reference is underscored in the second element of the show, where individual works by the artists are installed discretely but in natural dialogue. Sahib's anodised aluminium panels 'sweat' with resin painted drops, while Peake's spray painted mirror works reflect their viewer, bringing them in amongst the swagger, self-reference and poetry of the surface-filling text. Peake's life-size sculpture of a body that looks as though it has been peeled from a cartoon steam-roller has a plexiglass box, stuffed with detritus, for a head – a portrait of the artist's mind. Sahib's cool, minimal column is autobiographical in a more oblique way, its smooth reflective tiles echoing the decor of the sauna or bathhouse, and standing in for interactions that take place there.
This exhibition is kindly supported by Galleria Lorcan O'Neill, Roma