MANCHESTER CONTEMPORARY 2021
Pippa Eason, Liz Calvo, Monique Atherton, Sofia Albina Novikoff Unger, Ceel Morgami De Haas & Evi Kalogiropoulou
curated by Ir Seager
19-21 NOVEMBER 2021
Seager brings together works by five artists. Monique Atherton & Liz Calvi, 2021 who are both concerned with the portrayal of women in an increasingly digital public sphere. Calvi focuses on the portrayal of subjectivity and sexuality on digital platforms, whilst Monique examines the construction and curation of identity within her self-portraits.
Sofia A. N. Unger explores the relationship between self and technology, her work approaches the ‘nature vs. culture’ question as a hybrid space for the continual transformation of identity.
Pippa Eason's sculptures are ambiguous, though aims to pick up on - and visually start to un-pick - trends in art, fashion and pop culture, mapping the direct impact aesthetic shifts in contemporary culture on visual artists.
Evi Kalogiropoulou's marble and onyx works refer to the Greek mythological figure Medusa. Her sculptural practices recognise the techniques and principles of classical sculpture, updated through their playful multi-coloured palette, created by combining different gradients of stone.
Ceel Morgami de Haas' works explore the relations between writing and animals, with an obvious preeminent focus towards wolves. The series of colourful two-faced busts hint at this type of imaginary wolf, carrying a curious prejudice from the Early Modern period ‘Never trust a man whose eyebrows meet’ (2018) as their title.
Monique Atherton (b.1980, Japan) uses photography as a launching point and incorporates installation, sculpture, and performance. Atherton explores intense personal moments created by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer into the various microcosmic states in which she exists. Her works uncover unspoken desires, tensions and passions that reside on a subconscious level among the people in her images as well as between the artist and the public. Atherton currently lives and works in New Haven. Atherton has exhibited in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, New Haven and New York. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Wassaic Project and a recipient of the 2018 Connecticut Office of the Arts Emerging Artist Grant. Her book, First Avenue was shortlisted for the 2017 Kassel Dummy Award. She received her MFA in Photography from the Yale School of Art in 2016.
Liz Calvi (b.1990, USA) is a recent graduate of the MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University and is currently based between London and Connecticut, USA. Recent exhibitions include "All About the Light", Griffin Museum of Photography, 2020 "Rituals of Resistance", The Urban Collective, 2020 and "Shadow Screens", SEAGER, 2019. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Der Greif, Aint-Bad and Fader. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in several public & private collections. Calvi's work is in multiple limited-edition books including: Me, Myself and AI, Vuu Super Special Vol. 2, and The Blue Library Vol. 2, which is in the permanent collection of Antenna in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Sofia Albina Novikoff Unger (b.1990) is a Danish Russian artist based between London and Copenhagen. She holds an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths University (London) and a BFA in Fine Art from The Funen Art Academy (Odense). Her practice uses a plethora of mediums spanning video, installation, textiles, 3d-printing and sound to converge unexpected connections between biological and cultural phenomena. Examining the relationship between self and technology, her work approaches the ‘nature vs. culture’ question as a hybrid space for the continual transformation of identity.
Pippa Eason (b.1993), is a contemporary artist, based in Manchester. Recent shows London, solo ‘The Ball of My Foot’, SEAGER Gallery, April 2019, London, ‘FUN’ GRAFT Gallery, October 2019, Lancaster, and ‘Much Too Shy’ AIR Gallery, July 2020, Manchester, and her latest solo project Funny Blurry and Everything Hazy produced and curated by MDP, PINK Manchester. Eason’s work makes observations of performative online gesture through sculpture, digital drawings, GIFs, and collages. Her practice co-opts the crispness of advertising but with a hand-crafted touch. Her sculpture is ambiguous, though aims to pick up on - and visually start to un-pick - trends in art, fashion and pop culture, mapping the direct impact aesthetic shifts in contemporary culture on visual artists.
Evi Kalogiropoulou studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts and the Royal College of Art London. Her work has previously been shown at the Benaki Museum, Athens, the Whitechapel Gallery, the Chisenhale Gallery and the British Film Institute, London. She was a resident of Somerset House Studios. In 2020 Evi had a solo exhibition of her video and sculpture work at Kunstverein Dresden. Her work is part of the Onassis Collection, among other collections around the world. SEAGER presented her works in Art Rotterdam art fair in February 2020.
Ceel Mogami de Haas (b. 1982) is an artist living and working in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Geneva, Switzerland. He is a co-founder of the artist run space One Gee In Fog. His first solo exhibition in the UK was “I am stuck, very much, because of a missing page” (SEAGER, 2019) and his work is currently being exhibited at La Kunsthalle, Centre d’art Contemporain (Mulhouse) as part of “Qalqalah: Plus D’une Langue”.
