LONDON, ENGLAND.- Beaconsfield presents today “Engineer - Part Two, Susan Collis,” on view through 28 March 2004. Engineer is a project in six consecutive parts, beginning in June 2003 and evolving through to the end of March 2004. For Part Two Susan Collis introduces her preoccupation with artifice to the lower gallery space by superimposing inlay and veneer on existing and installed fixtures and fittings.
While random and incidental marks of wear and tear reveal themselves as having been laboriously crafted by hand, veneer is also imposed to elevate the status of an ordinary material. These surface interventions raise questions concerning aesthetic value, identity, craft and labour.
Susan Collis was the student winner of the Jerwood Drawing Prize and the Pizza Express Prospects Contemporary Drawing Prize in 2002 and of a British Cement Association Award in 2001. Her work is in a number of private collections.
Over the period June 2003 to March 2004, the various exhibition sites at Beaconsfield will be brought into play by individual artists, each piece remaining until the end.