West London Contemporary Art in Focus: Insite Brentford Open Studios

By Pandora Mather-Lees

Brentford Bank Holiday May weekend and the capital is sweltering.  Nevertheless, Mint Magazine ventured out to take in some contemporary art in West London.  XYZ Brentford Open Studios opened up the Watermans Park building on the canal for the weekend.  Over the three days visitors explored a wide range of contemporary culture from painting to sculpture, photography and installations. Resident artists include Catriona Robertson , Michael Henley, Matthew Dardart, Tom Georgeson, Ryszard Rybick, Wendy Mackenzie, Coral Churchill and Mr.Pierce among others.

Extending the breadth of multi-media on show, textiles also played a part both in artwork hangings and at Studio Flox which conducts classes, upholstery, sewing and other arts and crafts bringing the wider community together.

Amid this mix of practices and personalities, the contemporary art team headed into the studio of Mr. Mr. Pierce (AKA Mark Pierce), who also masterminds Brentford’s Creative Arts Trail weekend each autumn. His studio practice includes printmaking, collage, sculpture, installation and participatory art. The work explores colour psychology, ritual, the natural world and materials experimentation. Here the image is a framed collage created from gilded and bronzed paper, shredded and carefully applied to the substrate with meticulous perseverance. 

In addition to these assemblage pieces, also executed in copper strips, the artist enjoys working with oil sticks to create large graffiti-style ritual abstracts, as in the tribal photo shown here. Having studied at the Slade School of Art and Cornwall’s Newlyn School, where he experimented with cyanotype printing, Mr. Mr. Pierce’s work reveals the influence of psychotherapy training, altered states of consciousness, repetition and varied materials.It reminds us that studio and indeed cultural experiences must look beyond the surface.