WILLIAM COBBING, JUAN FORD, LAUREN LAVITT, STEVEN MacIVER,
EAMON O´KANE, SARAH STEAD, SHARON THOMAS

The British School at Rome
via Gramsci 61, 00197 Roma
tel. 06 3264939
http://www.bsr.ac.uk

Opening: Thursday, 16 March 2006, 6.30-9.30 PM
17-25 March 2006, Monday-Saturday, 4.30-7.00 PM and by appointment
info: finearts@bsrome.it

The next exhibition of The British School at Rome Fine Arts Programme, directed by Jacopo Benci, will present the works of six artists (William Cobbing, Juan Ford, Lauren Lavitt, Steven MacIver, Eamon O´Kane, Sharon Thomas) and one architect (Sarah Stead). The exhibition title, OVERLAP, refers to the encounter and cross-fertilization of different generations, disciplines and practices.

WILLIAM COBBING
«Walking into William Cobbing’s exhibition is like stepping into an active narrative momentarily at rest- like backstage at a theatre or film set. Photographs that incorporate found spaces, models and sculptural prosthetics are echoed in a group of three-dimensional works, charging the space with a sense of ‘something happened here’.» [Alex Mar]
William Cobbing (Arts Council England Helen Chadwick Fellow, September 2005-March 2006). Education: 2000, MA Fine Art, De Ateliers, Amsterdam. 1997, BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martin’s College, London. Exhibitions: 2005: “Over de mensen en de dingen”, Z33, Belgium; “Sunday Screenings”, MK-G, Milton Keynes; “Library of Babel”, Courtauld Institute of Arts, London; “Wall to Wall”, Tent, Rotterdam. 2004: “A Secret History of Clay; from Gauguin to Gormley”, Tate Liverpool; “Body-Con”, A-I-T, Tokyo.

JUAN FORD
« My painting practice has to date involved a series of stratagems for pushing realist painting beyond the photographic image, while using it for the paintings’ own needs and ends. This series uses disembodied heads from Roman statues and busts as a staring point, painted while consciously misinterpreting them.» [Juan Ford]
Juan Ford (Australia Council Resident Artist, January-March 2006). Education: 1995-98, BFA (Painting), 1st class honours, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia. 1999-2001, MA (Fine Art) by Research, RMIT. Selected exhibitions: 14 solo exhibitions; 2005, “The year in Art”, National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Observatory, Sydney; 2004 “Satellite Cities and Tabloid Life”, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; 2003-2001, “Glacier: Contemporary Painting”, touring exhibition Victoria, NSW, Queensland; 2001, “Look See: Five Contemporary Painters”, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne. Recent awards: 2004, Fletcher Jones Contemporary Art Prize, ABN Amro Emerging Artist Prize; 2003, Conrad Jupiters Contemporary Art Prize; 2002, Australia Council New Work Grant; 2001, Whyalla Art Prize.

LAUREN LAVITT
«Lauren Lavitt’s work reveals contractions between poetry, love, joys, horror, sexual identity, pop culture, garlic and health. In fact, if Lavitt wasn’t an artist reflecting on the erotic vomit, she would be a nutritionist. Her work embraces a personal and fragmented narrative about the anxiety and joy of existing in a modern automobile driven metropolis such as Los Angeles to more presently Rome.» [Gea Politi]
Lauren Lavitt (Abbey Scholar in Painting, October 2005-June 2006). Education: 2002-2005, MFA, UCLA, Los Angeles; 1998 -2002, BA, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. Exhibitions: Nov. 2005, Flower album (solo show). Play Gallery, Berlin. July 2004, Summer show, Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles; May 2003, Sundown Salon (curated by Fritz Heag, Pipilotti Rist and Skylar Haskard), Los Angeles; Sept. 2002, Gallery Commencement, 4-F Gallery, China Town, Los Angeles. Public art projects: 2006, Mattoni Water Colors, billboard image by the Nuselsky Bridge, Prague.

STEVEN MacIVER
«My paintings are a quiet reminder of what has gone before, the form remains as an echo of event. Desolate and abandoned, structures are left empty, noiseless. The form becomes an entity in itself, clarified through absense and reduction, broken down and reconstructed.» [Steven MacIver]
Steven MacIver (Sainsbury Scholar in Painting and Sculpture, October 2004-June 2006). Born 1979, Kirkwall, Orkney Islands. Education: 2002, BA (Hons) Fine Art, 1st Class. Grays School of Art, Aberdeen. 2004, MFA, The Slade School of Fine Art, London. Recent exhibitions: 2005, 2005, “Overlap 1”, The British School at Rome; “Steven MacIver: Resolution Through Reduction”, Toni Heath Gallery, London; “Spazi Aperti”, Romanian Academy, Rome; “Plural 3” & “Plural 2”, The British School at Rome. 2004, “Plural 1”, The British School at Rome; Royal Scottish Academy, 178th Annual Exhibition, Edinburgh; “Pass It On”, Central Space, Hammersmith, London. Recent awards & scholarships: 2004-06, Sainsbury Scholarship in Painting and Sculpture, The British School at Rome; 2004, The Guthrie Award, Royal Scottish Academy; 2003, The John Murray Thomson Award, Royal Scottish Academy.

EAMON O´KANE
«It’s as if O’Kane by-passes years of career-building by virtually inserting himself into the most hallowed preserves of contemporary art in a cheeky piece of wish-fulfilment. Even better is the non-stop pan across an endless succession of museums, including Tate Modern and the Guggenheim, all deposited in a nondescript landscape.» [Aidan Dunne, Irish Times, 29th Dec 2004]
Eamon O’Kane (Derek Hill Foundation Scholar, February-July 2006) was born in Belfast in 1974. He studied in Dublin, Belfast and New York. He has exhibited widely and is the recipient of many awards and scholarships. In 2005 he received an award from Dan Cameron (Senior Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York) at EV+A in Ireland. O’Kane will show in a major exhibition of contemporary painting at the Burda Museum in Baden Baden whilst at the same time having a solo show in the Kunstverein in the same city in March 2006. He also has forthcoming solo shows in Berlin and Dublin in September and will be one of the artists representing Britain at the Armenian Biennale in August.

SARAH STEAD
«Spatial passages in this exhibition explore the notion of flirtatious architecture within the context of the Eternal City. Thoughts on material, experience and adornment weave themselves into the three concepts of Flirtatious Architecture: Fortuitous, Cognizant and Subliminal.» [Sarah Stead]
Sarah Stead (Rome Scholar in Architecture, October 2005-June 2006). Education: 2002-04, MA Architecture & Interiors, Royal College of Art, London; 1997-2000, 1st Class Honors BSc. Architecture, Bartlett School of Architecture, London. Recent Employment: 2004-05, Branson Coates Architecture, London; 2002-03, MAK Architects, London. Exhibitions: 2005, “Overlap 1”, The British School at Rome; 2004, “Summer Show”, Royal College of Art; 2003, “London Seville: Tale of Two Cities”, University of Andalusia, Seville, Spain.

SHARON THOMAS
«My work employs personal and publicly obtainable references that I weave together with dis-entangled threads of ‘real’ art to make elaborate narratives. These constructs comment on the power play within sexual politics and their setting within the societal matrix.» [Sharon Thomas]
Sharon Thomas Sharon Thomas (Sainsbury Scholar in Painting and Sculpture, October2005-September 2006). Born 1979 in Cheshire, England. Education: 2004, MFA,New York Academy of Art, New York City; 2001, BFA, Glasgow School of Art,Scotland. Selected recent exhibitions: 2006, “Britishness”, part of”British Art Show 6″, Cornerhouse, Manchester; 2005, “Overlap 1”, TheBritish School at Rome; “Member’s Show”, Transmission, Glasgow; “VisualAids-Postcards from the Edge”, Roger Miller Gallery, New York City; 2004,”Reality Check”, Spike Gallery, New York City; “Theme of the Unseen”, TimesSquare Gallery, New York City. Selected recent art fairs: 2005, Art Chicago(Jack the Pelican Presents); Flash Art Fair, Milan (Jack the PelicanPresents).

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