The British Art Show is a touring art exhibition that runs for a whole year every five years. BAS describes itself as being, “widely recognized as the most ambitious and influential exhibition of contemporary British art“. The British Art Show 7 – In the days of the comet, is currently in Glasgow where it will stay until 21st August. It will then move to Plymouth, it’s final destination, until 4th December. Previous venues for BAS7 have been Nottingham and London.

NUD (3)2009 by Sarah Lucas

39 artists have been chosen by curators Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton on the basis of these artists’ contribution to contemporary art over the past five years. The theme of the exhibition is the comet and the ways in which the comet has been interpreted and given meaning by human cultures.

'Our House' (The Object) by Nathaniel Mellors

Of the exhibition theme, the curators write:

“While current scientific theory posits that comets are nothing more than elliptically orbiting clumps of dust, ice and gas, utterly indifferent to our affairs, they remain powerful reminders of the way in which our species has attempted to understand experience through the measuring of time, the writing of history, the belief in cosmological influence, and the notion of a deterministic universe.”

Untitled (2005-2010) by Roger Hiorns

Here is a short video from the British Art Show website, presented by the curators, which gives a feel for the exhibition:

If you would like to find out more about the exhibition, please visit: www.britishartshow.co.uk

To see more work by the artists from the exhibition featured here, please visit:

Sarah Lucas:
www.gladstonegallery.com/lucas.asp
Sarah Lucas on www.tate.org.uk
www.sadiecoles.com/sarah_lucas/index.html

Nathaniel Mellors:
Mellors on www.ica.org.uk
www.mattsgallery.org/artists/mellors/exhibition-1.php

Roger Hiorns:
Hiorns on www.tate.org.uk – exhibitions
Hiorns on www.tate.org.uk – artists
Hiorns on www.artangel.org.uk

Guest feature by Henry Fry – to see Henry’s blog, visit: http://scrawleddownpaperedges.blogspot.com

I first came across Katie’s art at the 2010 Slade Summer Show, when I was drawn to it not only because it was primarily made of animal parts and strip lights arranged in almost totemic configurations, but also because of the smell, which was fairly, how shall I say – visceral?

Aim by Katie Surridge - Mixed Media (wood, strip lighting, basket ball hoops, drift wood, bones, MDF shields, straw matting, string, white gloss paint). Image courtesy of Saatchi Online

Katie encourages you to discover her sculptures – partly through their layout, often forcing you to walk around or between them, and partly through their utilisation of found or dismembered objects. She sources many of the pieces of junk metal and driftwood on the banks of the Thames, pairing them with antlers, horns or stuffed pheasants.

Together Again by Katie Surridge - Mixed media. (Reclaimed wood, railway sleeper, carved log, Thames river finds, strip lighting, wire, drift wood, old bathroom fittings, straw, eggs, string, fur, test tubes, chain). Image courtesy of Saatchi Online

In her own words: “I find pleasure in decorative embellished bricolage, which I carefully combine so that often repulsive soiled items, or items with a deathly aura take on a utopian or mystical feel.”

Katie’s exhibition, Skins, has just closed at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. She was also recently featured as one of four young artists in Channel 4’s New Sensations, an award for Saatchi Online 2010 UK Graduates. The subsequent Three Minute Wonder film made about her by Channel 4, is below:

Katie Louise Surridge from Gramafilm on Vimeo.

To find out more about Katie on this site, please visit: Surridge, Katie – Info

To see more of Katie’s work, please visit:

Katie Surridge’s Slade School of Art Profile

Katie Surridge’s Saatchi Gallery Profile