15th May – 24th May 2009
Private View Thursday 14th May 6-10pm
Acquire Arts is pleased to present ‘Dreadful Holiday’, the first solo exhibition by Royal College of Art graduate, Bea Turner, whose multi-disciplinary practise spans mechanical sculpture, drawing and video.
‘Dreadful Holiday’ brings together a series of works in which domestic materials and banal objects are animated by mechanisms and reinterpreted with reference to the horror genre. In the upstairs gallery space, Turner shows ‘Black Wire’ and ‘Black Rain’, two new works using found objects. Emphasis is placed on practical items such as electrical plugs and cables, which, once mechanised, present a feeling of the uncanny.
In the dimly lit downstairs gallery, she parodies the emotive techniques used to create tension in slasher films and B-movies. Half-baked illusions bare their internal workings and the rough gestures of the making process are exposed as clues towards the nature of the studio activity.
Turner encourages the viewer to engage with familiar objects in a state of transformation or disintegration and to re-evaluate their function. In ‘Cave Brains’, tin foil and kitchen roll are manipulated to represent human tissue, while ready-mades such as ‘Black Rain’s’ pepper grinder retain their intended use, becoming absurd caricatures in the context of the gallery space.
Bea Turner lives in London, where she works as a technician for Godolphin and Latymer School. She is currently working towards part two of ‘Dreadful Holiday’, which will be shown at Tutu Pan Pan, Salisbury, from the 29th May to 11th June 2009.
Listings Information:
Acquire Arts
155 Battersea Park Road
London, SW8 4BU
www.acquirearts.org
Exhibition Dates: 15th-24th May 2009
Private View: 14th May 6-10pm
Opening hours: Thursday – Sunday 12-6pm
For further information or images, please contact Amanda Scott at amanda@acquirearts.org
Acquire Arts presents a night of Live Music and Performance. 
