GATESHEAD.- Workplace is presenting Interior Report, a solo exhibition of new and existing work by Susie Green. Green works with a range of media including painting, sculpture and performance to explore the body as a site for pleasure and politics.
Central to Interior Report is a series of new paintings on paper. Acting as vignettes describing moments of intimacy and encounter, each work combines semi figurative shapes with descriptions written in pencil, inviting the viewer into a moment of erotic intimacy. Pictorially the images take an unconventional, non-perspective view, either looking down, as if floating over a scene, or looking up, to surrounding architecture, rendering the experiences as diagrams or plan views.Together the scenes portray a range of encounters with varying levels of emotional connection, from online communication to face to face companionship.
The dichotomy between contact or lack of contact with another is repeated in Kissing Seat (2017), a stained Ash wooden bench inviting two people to sit next to each other but facing in opposite directions, so close that simply turning their heads together would invite a kiss.
Green’s voice is literally at the centre of the exhibition in the form of Gift of Tongues (2017), a 50 minute recorded soundtrack constantly looped throughout the gallery featuring music Green has made in collaboration with Rory Pilgrim (The Brilliant State) and Simon Bayliss (Splash Addict). Consisting of spoken lyrics and field recordings; the sound of heels on a train platform, singing in spaces with high acoustic properties, the drum of rain on glass windows mixed into a repetitive dance beat, Gift of Tongues (2017) is a wandering, unfurling soundscape of different moods and moments.
Interior Report presents a complex discussion around sex, loneliness, and relationships through a combination of candour and humour. Exploring inner and outer worlds Green creates rhythms between image, sound, and object in which small poems and lyrics probe and reveal both the most intimate and internal personal physical space and the detail and beauty of the spaces around us.
Kissing Seat and Gift of Tongues were commissioned by Grand Union as part of Green’s 2017 solo exhibition Pleasure is a Weapon. Gift of Tongues is produced by artist Simon Bayliss.
Susie Green (B. 1979, Shrewsbury UK). Solo exhibitions: Pleasure is a Weapon, Grand Union, Birmingham, 2017; I like the Silver I like the Gold, The Northern Charter, Newcastle, 2014; Wanting It Having it, Satellite, Newcastle, 2009. Selected Group exhibitions: Exhibition of a Dream, Gulbenkian, Paris, 2017; A Room of Our Own, collaboration with CommonRoom, MIMA, Middlesbrough , 2017; Soft Formalities, University of Kent, 2017; Still Life with Flying Objects Rhubaba, Edinburgh, 2016; On the Side, Workplace Gateshead, 2016; Exeter Contemporary Open, Exeter Phoenix , 2016; Doppelgänger Lewisham Arthouse, London , 2016; Nomadic Vitrine, Recent Activity, Birmingham 2016; EXHIBITION Workplace & CIRCA projects, Gateshead, 2015; The Decorator and the Thief, NGCA Sunderland, 2015; Tip of the Iceberg, Contemporary Art Society, London, 2014; Summer Fete, Ceri Hand Gallery, London 2014; Detail Ohne Titel, Hobrechtstraße 26, Berlin, 2012; New Contemporaries, 2009, Small Moments of Fantastic Things, Antje Wachs, Berlin 2009; Visible Hands, Ilmin Museum Seoul, South Korea, 2009.
Green has performed and written lyrics for bands including Silver Fox (Upset the Rhythm, 2013) and Charm Offensive with Dawn Bothwell. She currently collaborates with artists Rory Pilgrim as The Brilliant State and Simon Bayliss as Splash Addict. She has performed at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow International Festival, Fierce Festival, Flat Time House, Eastside Projects, Jupiter Artland, and Spike Island amongst others. In 2016 Green was part of The Syllabus led by Wysing Arts Centre, Eastside Projects, New Contemporaries, Spike Island & Studio Voltaire. Green studied Fine Art at Newcastle University (2002) and Chelsea College of Art & Design (2009). She lives and works in Newcastle.
