Tonight @bethlemgallery launches ‘Being Present: an exhibition of new artist collaborations and its 2023 exhibitions programme.

Anxietea and biscuits, and a game of pass the artwork-parcel are two of the artworks exhibited in a new partnership between artists connected to Bethlem Gallery in London and artist-run space Primary, in Nottingham. ‘Being Present’ presents new artworks created through virtual collaborations between eight artists working in pairs during the pandemic, as an antidote to their artistic isolation. The 2023 programme includes two more curated shows and the annual Bethlem Gallery Art Fair.

Artist pairings: Frank Abbott with Mr X, Michelle Bahrier with Chris Lewis-Jones, Courtney with Roger Suckling, and Fatma Durmush with Jo Wheeler.

Developed as a response to combat pandemic imposed isolation, artists from Bethlem Gallery, London and artist-led contemporary visual arts organisation Primary in Nottingham came together in ‘Artist Meets’. This artist-to-artist support project enabled them to share their approaches and ideas and create new work together.

Four Bethlem Gallery artists were selected and paired with four artists from Primary who had similarities in practice and approach. Being Present is an exhibition of paintings, collage, photography, sculpture and performance works created through these new collaborations. The show is accompanied by an artist’s performance and sharing at Primary.

Please go and check out the exhibition which runs 1 February to 13 May 2023.

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About the artists

Frank Abbott & MR X 

Frank Abbot is based at Primary. His work tracks the evolving relationship between media and daily life, producing installations that combine performance with video. Mr X makes structures out of cardboard and found materials that gradually transform, often refashioned over time as part of an iterative process.

From their work together, Frank Abbott and Mr X will feature a vehicle made by Mr X in a ‘surprise’ visit to a small park in Nottingham. The visit takes place in April 2023 during the Being Present sharing event during the blossoming of the cherry trees. For the last five years, a ceremony and ritual have been evolving in the park where Frank Abbott regularly creates interventions often in collaboration. The surprise arrival of Mr X’s latest vehicle hauling a message for the future will be the culmination of the 2023 ritual. At Bethlem Gallery, the artists will show the vehicle, messages for the future and a film of the event. 

Michelle Baharier & Chris Lewis-Jones

Michelle Baharier’s artistic practice is strongly influenced by her everyday experience of disability, addressing barriers and prejudices about dyslexia while exploring her inner conflicts. Chris Lewis-Jones calls himself an artist-flaneur, a hopeful traveller who is excited by the exploration of context. His work is informed by the discourse of psychogeography. 

Their work together titled Teatime Presence explore ideas associated with being, presence, well-being and the Great British Tea Break. The artists will serve tea to visitors at Bethlem Gallery. The names of the teas will evoke psychological conditions: anxietea, hostilitea, hospitalitea serving the tea, biscuits and sandwiches upon retro china. The thoughts and feelings of participants will be recorded and displayed on a ‘tea tree’ and in a tea-zine, produced at Bethlem Gallery. The artists will wear costumes including hats and text-heavy overalls, referencing mental health, Lewis-Carol’s Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and catering jobs. The event will include popular music and tunes played on the accordion.     

Courtney & Roger Suckling

In her ink drawings, Courtney explores and communicates the intricate complexities, contradictions and tensions felt by an individual navigating a psychiatric institution and pathway to recovery. Roger Suckling’s uses photography and moving image to explore place and time around themes of location, place and autobiography, mapping a visual account of an engagement with the urban and natural worlds.

Their collaboration has been challenging due to distance and restricted lines of communication. They project images over objects to explore community, identity and gender. Overcoming these difficulties has been translated into the work for the Bethlem Gallery show, exploring the concept of community and distance. They will project films produced through their collaboration in lockdown onto sculptural pieces, individuals and architecture within the gallery.

Fatma Durmush and Jo Wheeler

Fatma Durmush is a disabled artist, with a prolific practice focused on painting, collage and writing. Jo is a visual artist and producer collaborating with others to consider approaches to support our sense of self and belonging. 

The artists have been exploring an exchange between painting and photographic practice. As a starting point, they parcelled up prints and canvases to post to each other with a loose idea that they’d each respond in some way to what the other offered. Jo Wheeler’s photographs of the scarred floor from an old textile mill were integrated into Fatma Durmush’s collages that reflect deeply rooted memories of childhood and dreams. 

The surface of Fatma’s paintings were closely examined by Wheeler’s photographic lens to explore and reframe Durmush’s mark-making and colour. Another swap and the work began investigating the edges and boundaries of both composition and the collaborative process itself.