KTcontemporary is delighted to present Revenge of the Pleasure Principle – An exhibition of work by Enda Mac Nally & Littlewhitehead.
Private View Friday 7th October 7 - 9pm
Continues until Saturday 29th October.
Enda Mac Nally draws on the rebellious nature of comedy throughout his practice and for this body of work he continues into the murky depths of black humour. Using wit to mask the harsh realities of a callous world he mirrors the underlying pathos and even violence that exists around the act of laughter. For Mac Nally a common bond in humour and horror subsists and therein lays the starting point for much of his work. Most recently he has created a series of pieces made of multiple collages on canvas that present a wealth of jarring visual information, arranged as a fractured ‘whole image’. In these pieces mythical figures from Ancient Greece appear alongside punk singers, images of avant-garde art, clowns, meat, puking frat-boys, surgical implements, models, ice cream, skulls and dismembered limbs all of which reference certain aspects of his investigations and come together to create a certain harmonious vision.
Enda Mac Nally has a BA Fine Art from NCAD, Dublin and has just completed his MA Fine Art at Central St. Martin’s, London. His work is represented in the collection of The Office of Public Works and he has exhibited at The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, The Sebastian Guinness Gallery, Dublin, Monster Truck Gallery, Dublin and The Crypt Gallery, London. In 2007 he won the Lloyd’s TSB Art of Nurture Award.
Hailing from Glasgow, Littlewhitehead are an artist duo (Craig Little and Blake Whitehead) who take inspiration from the city’s working class and post-industrial culture. Using the devices of black comedy, Littlewhitehead produce work that “beats you up visually”, yet remains a serious commentary on contemporary society. Straddling the fine line between this duality, their work often invokes controversy but always garners debate, and this is their primary objection. They aim to attack the comfort of received ideas by realizing the traumatic sights that are so routinely represented by the media and entertainment industries as hyper-real sculptures. The immediacy of the sensory experience upon encountering their work is intended to re-instate the horror of the first hand experience that has become so pacified in modern life. The audience is witness to the reality – or unreality – of the work, and the curious mix of angles, with underlying tones of violence and sordidness make for art that’s both compelling and extremely disconcerting.
Craig Little and Blake Whitehead are both graduates of Glasgow School of Art (BA). Solo exhibitions include Bad News, Marine Contemporary, Los Angeles (2011), London Art Fair (with Sumarria Lunn Gallery), London (2011), Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland (2010), Playing Dog, Gimpel Fils, London (2009) and So Many Fellows Find Themselves, K Gallery, Milan (2009). Group shows include If These Walls Could Talk, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles (2011), Modern British Sculpture, Gimpel Fils, London (2011), Smokefall, Tintype, London (2011), Exteriority, SUMARRIA LUNN, London (2010), Newspeak: British Art Now, Saatchi Gallery, London (2010) and The Hermitage, St Petersburg (2009), Tales That Witness Madness, Elevator Gallery, London (2009), Grey Matter, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (2009) and Bloomberg New Contemporaries, A Foundation, London (2008).
