Birds and Houses ~ 4 - 27 january 2008
studio 1.1 london e2		text | images
about  present show  past shows  press  gallery details  contact		Amanda Benson, Andy Cohen Open Friday to Sunday, 12noon - 6pm, or by appointment. Private view: Thursday 3rd January, 6 - 9pm. Running simultaneously with and counter to the vogue for property make-overs Amanda Benson presents Dreamhomes that, although they have their origins in California or Nantucket, are constructed from the primitive materials to be found to hand in a Hackney artist's studio. The gap between Jackie O or Elvis' mansion and the plasticine and cardboard re-interpretations express both a grand and poignant wish-fulfillment and the basic human need for shelter common to both. The everyday materials make up delicate and beautiful structures that pique our imagination, let us re-build the lives of the rich and/or famous in our own image and with whatever means are at our disposal. Andy Cohen produces delicate drawings that might themselves decorate these interiors, while also re-creating a corner of a real caravan, with all its authentic and exquisite paraphernalia, asking us once again: what is it that makes a home 'where the heart is'? The impulse to beautify one's domestic surroundings is basic but need not be primitive. The suite of images documenting a year in the life of that caravan tells the story of an unknowable existence that reaches back through a familiar past. Lived and yet not-lived, they form the shored fragments of the ruin of all our dreams, where aspiration escapes realisation. An examination of the unexamined life. A feature of the show will be Cohen's pub sign 'The Breast' calling us all into the snug, an environment of warmth and comfort, be it ever so humble - there's no place... studio 1.1 For more information or images contact: Michael Keenan on 07952 986 696