William Stein and Philip Wyness

The Vanity Project

22nd October – 4th November 2004, Tue to Sun 11am – 5pm

experiment, Unit 39, Sapcote Trading Centre, Dudden Hill Lane, London NW10

Tel: 0208 830 1072, Fax: 0208 830 3769, info@experimentuk.com

http://www.re-title.com/exhibitions/experiment.asp

The Vanity Project will be a two-week-long two-man exhibition of paintings, drawings and live art scheduled to take place in a new gallery space in North West London at the end of October.

This collaboration between two young emerging artists, William Stein and Philip Wyness, will be a challenging, innovative and playful exploration of philosophical notions of vanity and their relation to individual integrity and commodification in contemporary society. The show will question the artist’s relationship to his work both in terms of subject matter and narration, and also in terms of the possibility of objectivity in artistic practice and issues of control and manipulation of the medium.

Both artists are passionate about the very practice of painting and approach it from a broadly experimental angle, but explore the nature and potentialities of paint in markedly different ways. Stein’s treatment of the subject matter is conveyed through the expressionistic and the figurative, containing pointed metaphors and darkly humorous visual imagery. Wyness’ technique on the other hand stems from a concern with the surface, often glossy and fetishistic, as a way of exploring the economies between working intuitively and empirically. The contrasts between their works will therefore be as much a focus of the show and its thematic content as the similarities in theoretical ideas and approach.

William Stein has pursued and developed his professional practice since graduating with a First from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2000. He has recently been short-listed for the BOC 2004 Emerging Artist Award. He lives and works in London.

Philip Wyness graduated from MMU in 2000, and continued his practice at the Chisenhale Studios in London until 2003. He is currently living and working in Munich, as part of a postgraduate exchange program between Newcastle University and the Academy of Fine Art, Munich.

The Vanity Project will be their first London exhibition.

experiment is a new art project space which aims to promote work that is experimental in nature, making use of the crossover between new and traditional media.

The show is kindly supported by Arts Council England and the European Union Social Fund