Alice Channer… Skins

I’m not talking about the angst-ridden Bristolian teens….I bet you wish I was right?!

So everything used to be much simpler, discrete and easily categorised but this is currently undergoing a major overhaul. Artists are becoming increasingly multi-disciplinarian and the boundaries between the various different artistic areas such as art, fashion, performance and design are beginning to blur. The new Central Saint Martins in King’s Cross perfectly embodies this shift, opting to house all departments under the same room in an attempt to encourage cross-pollination through closer creative contact.

Now with this in mind, Alice Channer is an artist who perfectly demonstrates this seamless fusion of  fashion and art, where clothing as a concept, is her starting point. She “dresses the gallery” as opposed to merely filling it, which alters your relationship to the space treating it more like a person than a room…..well at least I did. But maybe that just says a lot about me! Each work is tailored to its walls, or cut to fit its ceiling and Channer treats her sculptures as you would handle clothing through the movements of folding, draping, pleating and hanging. It’s incredibly difficult for artists to find new ways of negotiating this “art meets fashion” territory, but she manages to create something wholly innovative. I have genuinely never seen an artist respond to an exhibition space as if “dressing” a body.  Totally brilliant.

 

You can definitely draw an analogy between architecture and the body. The works are constantly left with limb or body sized gaps where your mind naturally inserts your own body part. As Channer explains in an interview, “The body itself is never represented, instead, a conscious human body is everywhere that the work is not.” Her bangle works are a great example of this.

 

Channer has started using animal skin print more and more often in her recent exhibitions. GRRRRR…..someone hold this woman down! “I’ve been wondering what it means to wear an animal print. On the animal it’s unique, but as fabric it’s flattened and mass-produced.” She has also developed some works where she introduces pleating which makes the fabric seem more fleshy. I suppose it’s a very simple way of giving something flat like paper, volume and body.

Alice Channer is currently showing at South London Gallery so make sure you get down there and see her “dressed” space.

Forgot to say that she is just the LOVELIST person. Here’s a short interview with her…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUP2XU9-0I1