LINE DRAWINGS Ella Medley-Whitfield
EXHIBITION 30 JANUARY - 23 FEBRUARY 2008
SOUND CONDITIONING For the first half of this exhibition, Ella Medley- Whitfield has comprised an audio installation featuring artist and voiceover to the London Underground, Emma Clarke. Whilst normally used to hearing Clarke instruct phrases such as "Mind the gap", "Alight here", "Please mind the doors", here the audience is presented with Clarke reciting playground rhymes collected by Medley- Whitfield on research trips in primary schools around London, as well as a role reversal of the children reciting what would usually be Clarke’s instructions. The piece is an emotive exploration of age, innocence and conditioning.
LINE DRAWINGS Medley-Whitfield here has created a selection of images by cutting out sections of fabric from the seats of the London Underground’s twelve lines, and taking the fabric into a scientific laboratory to expose them under a microscope. The intent for this series is to highlight the beauty in what is otherwise regarded as dirt and grime.
ARTIST STATEMENT Ella Medley- Whitfield was born in 1986. Originally from Leamington Spa, she studied at Brighton City College and is currently in the process of completing a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. This is her first solo exhibition in London. Ella undergoes investigations that stem from a fascination with humans as a whole. She looks to see poetic beauty in elements of life that may otherwise be ignored. By exploring the systems in place that run our everyday, she focuses particularly on the way we interact with them. She questions the preconceived notions we associate with these systems by manipulating them and turning them on their head.
The diversity of this subject matter allows Ella to work via a range of media, through film, photography, sound, sculpture, installation, drawing and painting. However the processes of production and the distances she travels and records during these studies are much part of the work as the final product. We are constantly reminded of our place in society and our own conditioning and consciously or unconsciously, are conceivably ‘reconditioned’ to appreciate the strangeness and beauty in small aspects of the society we inhabit.
