Opening Reception Friday 17 April, 6 – 8pm

Lismore Castle Arts is delighted to present Feel Up, a collaborative exhibition between Eddie Peake and Prem Sahib, two of the most exciting artists working in the UK at present. Feel Up is the first time either artist has exhibited in Ireland.

Borne of ongoing collaborative conversations between Sahib and Peake, Feel Up extends from their performance Darkroom, first realized in a club night in London in 2011. In a development of themes found in the Darkroom performance, Feel Up is a room installation of accompanying elements – a silent video is installed in relationship to a large wall sculpture, golden fronted and reflective, through which originally composed audio plays from in-built speakers.

The shining surface of the Feel Up audio wall, cutting through the gallery space, holds the reflection of the historic architectural features of St Carthage Hall and prominently, the video, with its imagery of participants then viewed alongside the actual visitors to the space, conveying a sense of invitation, physical participation, witnessing the gallery filling up. Supporting this sense of presence is the audio track, combining electronic dance music with sounds of human effusions – laughing, breathing and spitting. Behind the wall, its supports are exposed and the space occupied by a jungle of bamboo, which in turn invites interaction with the gallery.

Surface lustre and animation through reflection or human reference is underscored in the second element of the show, where individual works by the artists are installed discretely but in natural dialogue. Sahib’s anodised aluminium panels ‘sweat’ with resin painted drops, while Peake’s spray painted mirror works reflect their viewer, bringing them in amongst the swagger, self-reference and poetry of the surface-filling text.  Peake’s life-size sculpture of a body that looks as though it has been peeled from a cartoon steam-roller has a plexiglass box, stuffed with detritus, for a head – a portrait of the artist’s mind.  Sahib’s cool, minimal column is autobiographical in a more oblique way, its smooth reflective tiles echoing the decor of the sauna or bathhouse, and standing in for interactions that take place there.

St Carthage Hall is located on Chapel Street, Lismore (behind Lismore Heritage Centre) and is open Friday, Saturday & Sunday from 1pm-6pm. Admission is free.

This exhibition is kindly supported by Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Roma

About the artists

Eddie Peake, born London, 1981. Peake’s solo show at the Barbican Gallery, London, opens this October.  Recent solo exhibitions include A Historical Masturbators, Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Rome, 2015; Video, Focal Point Gallery, Southend, and Adjective Machine Gun, White Cube, London, 2013.  In 2013 Peake created a major performance work for the Performa Biennial in New York.  In 2012 he inaugurated the Tate Modern Tanks space with a specially commissioned work, with a companion piece presented at Chisenhale Gallery.  Other performances have been staged at David Roberts Foundation, the Royal Academy and Cell Projects in London. 

Prem Sahib, born London, 1982. Sahib’s solo show opens at the ICA, London, in September this year.  In 2014 Sahib’s work was included in the Gwangju Biennial as well as in Independent Projects, New York.  Sahib’s work was shown at the David Roberts Foundation in London in 2013; at the Royal Academy of Arts (2012), at the Centre for Recent Drawing, London (2008), and Prague Biennale (2005). Solo exhibitions include night files, Southard Reid, London, Back Chat, Galleria Lorcan O’Neill Roma, Rome, 2013, He Looked Me Up, Marian Cramer Projects, Amsterdam, Home From Home, Arts & Jobs, London, 2012. Performances: Woman to Woman, Gallery Vela, London, 2012, Bijou, IBID Projects, London, and Darkroom with E. Peake, 2011.

About Lismore Castle Arts: St Carthage Hall

In 2011 Lismore Castle Arts: St Carthage Hall was opened as a second exhibition venue, for Lismore Castle Arts, in the town of Lismore. The hall was built in the late nineteenth century as a place of worship. To date artists who have exhibited include Dorothy Cross Camille Henrot, William McKeown, Roman Signer, Superflex, TJ Wilcox and Corban Walker.