Tuesday 28 September 2010

Resistance Gallery First Thursday presents: The Pig Show by Deborah Griffin


Deborah Griffin – ‘The Pig Show’
Solo show of new & recent works
Opening Thursday 7pm October 7th 2010
Resistance Gallery 265 Poyser St, Bethnal Green, E29RF

From her performance roots in the punk-rock tradition of the anarchist-social-realism of playwright Chris Ward’s Wet Paint, and James Charlton’s Fireworks theatre companies in the 1980s, Deborah Griffin achieved iconic status on the London fetish scene from the late 80s throughout the 90s primarily with her cutting-edge and genre-defining work with photographer Trevor Watson.
Their collaborations, with Deborah centre-stage as model, muse and partner-in-crime with her edgy sexually and politically-charged character-play, documented this embryonic scene at a crucial defining stage of its development  in a myriad of published books, magazine front-covers and fashion spreads, and has simply come to define what many people think of when they hear the word ‘fetish’.
 Cover Star of Skin Two Magazine’

The same confrontational politic and exhilarating sense of fun and transgression now informs her current sculptural, installation and image-based art-work.

Deborah Griffin first exhibited at Resistance Gallery in 2008, in the inaugural group show ‘Resistance Rising’ and again in the ‘Iconography Of Mask’ show curated by Jason Atomic and Garry Vanderhorne in 2009, where she exhibited a mask made from the ashes of her own recently deceased father.
God Is Dad With A Mask On

October 2010 at Resistance Gallery sees ‘The Pig Show’, Deborah’s first solo show which unveils five major new works alongside a number of previously exhibited pieces. Amongst the new works will be large installation-based sculptures, image-based work and paintings, thematically linked to the complex, paradoxical and hypocritical relationship we as humans have with animals, primarily pigs. 
Pretty In Pig’
Go Ask Alice

Pigs have historically been the brunt of many a joke and intellectually regarded as a kind of benchmark definition of where ‘animal’ ends and the far more elevated and upright ‘humanity’ begins. English philosopher John Stuart-Mill in his ‘Utilitarianism’ (1836) wrote “...Better to be a discontented Socrates than a contented pig”.

The relationship between what it means to be all-too human or fall fowl (sic) to our basest animal predisposition was never more explicitly laid at the trotters of our pig-cousins than by George Orwell in ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which”.

Working  on a new piece

The British Police have since their inception been referred to as ‘The Pigs”, the feminist movement in the 60s and ‘70s expended much energy exposing “Male-Chauvinist-Pigs” in society, as did left-wing movements worldwide throughout the century with “Fascist Pigs”.
Urban myth has long had it that, according to a variety of cannibal sources, human meat tastes “a bit like pork”.

Exhibition opens 7pm Thursday 7th Oct till Wednesday 27th Oct.
Join us on Facebook, Twitter & MySpace

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Angela Edwards shocks Resistance with unveiling of new horrific collection


This week Resistance Gallery is proud to present in conjunction with Fangtasia London's one year anniversary, the outrageous art of Angela Edwards.

Angela is something of a maverick prolific painter, attacking her work with a ferocity and passion which leaves some critics cowering for cover as they find it difficult to get their heads around some of the gory, sexual and downright horrific themes and attitudes!

Female psycho-sexuality, sex work, rape, drug addiction, duality, overdose, homelessness, all are part of Edwards deep dark bag of influences.

Her raw power needs to be seen for real as her oil on canvas paintings are a terrifying beauty to behold, the latest of which is a 9 metre canvas of nightmarish proportions, just one of 14 pieces now showing at Resistance Gallery for the next week, starting on Fangtasia London's dark anniversary party on Friday 10th Sept.
More detail about True Blood's Fangtasia London, go here!

"Edwards Highly idiosyncratic paintings are characterised by the artists obsessive preoccupation  re shaping the human form.Her archetypal stimulus is the biomorph , and as William Burroughs morphed the body in ways which pushed towards the alien.Edwards figures also appear to be gesticulating through instinctual  primitive ritual of visceral eroticism , a performing subcultural species totally  of Angela's own creation that she has redefined liberated into paint."   
Jeremy Reed, Cult Writer.

"Tackling such hard hitting  social issues as rape homelessness child prostitution , drug addiction , head on , Edwards work offers us a  unique insight into the world of the poverty stricken ignored lower classes of Britain Today. Working with oil on canvass , her grotesque and nightmarish images , along  with her bold dynamic brushwork are reminiscent of the work of Francis Bacon .Unafraid to reveal her feminist principles and her ambivalent feelings towards sexual identity , Edwards purges personal experiences and eye witness accounts from her psyche. Expressing herself in total purity truth  uncompromising like a child in her practice , she brings a  raw energy to her work with is both shocking and mesmerising."
Zoe Hatch. Curator, warehouse gallery. 

For some strange reason we wasnt able to upload any more of Angela's art onto this blog, so to

Monday 6 September 2010

Res Gal Art Boutique Opening is a huge Success!!

Nearly 300, 'in the know' people came along to the opening of Resistance Gallery's Art Boutique Opening and group exhibition.
We send a massive thank you to all that did and to all the incredible artists and designers who we happily represent!

The 4 hours flew past with a great playlist provided by Stuart Vern, Joe Alexander and David de Vynél.

The Art Boutique is now open every Tues to Sat, 1pm till 8pm unless otherwise stated.


xxx