Matthew Darbyshire / Kettle's Yard Associate Artist / Monday 2nd July

Biography

Matthew Darbyshire (1977, Cambridge) studied at the Slade under the acclaimed British sculptor Phyllida Barlow, alongside other rising British talents Spartacus Chetwynd and Pablo Bronstein. Darbyshire is best known for installations that draw heavily on the aesthetic language of today’s commodity culture and the aspirational lifestyles it promotes. He is interested in the fact that bright CMYK dots are the logo for an estate agent and a cinema, as well as a NHS walk-in centre; that Arne Jacobsen egg chairs can be found in London’s Zetter boutique hotel as well as in recently rebranded McDonald’s restaurants. He explores design as a barometer of social change within the complex visual environment of contemporary Britain.

Darbyshire’s work has been included in recent exhibitions at the Miro Foundation in Barcelona, Turner Contemporary in Margate, (both 2011). He was included in The British Art Show 7 and Newspeak at the Saatchi Gallery (both London, 2010), and Altermodern: the Tate Triennial at Tate Britain (London, 2009). Darbyshire has also had a string of solo exhibitions in London in recent years: at Gasworks and as part of the Nought to Sixty programme at the Institute of Contemporary Art (both 2008), Hayward Gallery Project Space (2009) and Frieze Projects (2010). His largest public exhibition to date, T Rooms opened in January 2012 at Tramway in Glasgow.

In 2010-11, Darbyshire was the Stanley Picker Fellow in Fine Art at Kingston University, London. He teaches regularly at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford and is based in Rochester, Kent.

View his Matthew’s website

Video from the Guardian:

You can read about our Curator’s, Lizzie Fisher, trip to see Matthew Darbyshire’s studio here .

Read a review about the show on the Frieze Magazine blog .

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Matei Bejenaru / Kettle's Yard Associate Artist / Monday 2nd July

Biography

Drawing particularly on his own experience of postcommunist life, Matei Bejenaru (b. 1963, Suceava, Romania) is interested in how historical, socio-political and cultural contexts shape everyday life and dictate the conditions of artistic practice. His poignant and poetic work often brings different artistic languages together; it can take the form of a travel guide to the UK for illegal Romanian immigrants (Travelling Guide, 2005-2007) or a modernist interpretation of choir music. Songs for a Better Future (developed in collaboration with composer Will Dutta and premiered at the Drawing Room and Tate Modern in London in 2010) draws on musical themes from proletarian choir songs to electronic music of the 1970s.

Bejenaru works and exhibits internationally, including recent projects at the Tirana Biennial (2003), Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art, Vienna (2006), Tate Modern, London (2007), the Taipei Biennial 2 (2008), The Drawing Room, London (2010), Glasgow School of Art and The Western Front, Vancouver (both 2011). He is based in Iasi, Romania, where he established the Periferic Biennial (http://www.periferic.org/) in 1997, initially a performance festival and now an international art event. He is also a founding member of the Vector Association, which promotes contemporary art in local contexts.

Bejenaru teaches photography and video art at the ‘George Enescu’ Art University, Iasi, and is currently Visiting Professor in visual arts at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada.

You can watch the artist discuss his travel guide at Tate Modern here .

View more of Matei’s work:

Frieze Magazine blog

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Matei Bejenaru, Alexandru cel Bun, 1994-2003 :