Simon Whitehead

Further…

Saturday 2 February – Saturday 1 March 2008

An exhibition of short video works by Pembrokeshire - based Movement Artist, Simon Whitehead

Made over the last 5 years these films present a series of journeys as performance; each sensitive to the conditions of place, the body and light.

“Following a period spent studying and working as a professional dancer in London and New York, he returned to Wales in 1994. Having moved to an unfamiliar rural situation, Whitehead began to develop performance work that is profoundly influenced by the Welsh landscape…His performances, which are distinguished by a rigorous minimalist beauty, are often based on the pedestrian practices of walking and mapping. Whitehead increasingly stages his performances directly in the rural (and occasionally urban) landscapes from which they evolved. Encountering situations at walking pace, his works are sensitive to the places in which they occur and reflective of an ecological concern for interdependence of body and environment. The work poses pertinent questions: how can we find new ways of operating in, and in response to, a natural environment, ways that differ from the traditional practices of dominance and exploitation? How can the experience of a landscape be rendered meaningful to an urban audience? And how may contemporary performance, a form which speaks predominantly of urbanity, reflect our lives today, where identity has been so closely linked to its primarily rural landscapes?”

Heike Roms, New Welsh Review

Simon works locally and internationally. He is a co -founder of Ointment, a local itinerant group of rurally based interdisciplinary artists, making their work in response to rural and environmental change.

He has recently completed two projects funded by a Creative Wales Award;
Walks to Illuminate is a series of nocturnal walks, for which he has developed sculptural light pieces powered by sunlight and worn on the walkers feet; and the book anthology Walking to Work records his practice of the last 12 years, using photographic archive, writing and notebook extracts to provide insight into his creative process.
To purchase a copy of Walking to Work, please speak to a member of Theatr Mwldan’s Box Office staff.

Simon is presently working on an Intercontinental collaboration with sound artist Barnaby Oliver between his home in Abercych and Barnaby’s base in Melbourne. PINGS will be presented live and online in Spring 2008.

Simon Whitehead web links: - www.untitledstates.net

Gallery Opening Times
10am - 8 pm Monday - Sunday

Past & Future Exhibitions | Current Exhibitions | Visual Arts Policy | Gallery Guidelines

For further information, please make enquiries at the box office

Oriel Mwldan Patron Mary Lloyd Jones