Oliver Hoffmeister, Abi Hampsey & Mark Bletcher: Three's a Crowd

MARK BLETCHER, ABI HAMPSEY, OLIVER HOFFMEISTER: THREE’S A CROWD
28th January - 5th March 2022

Preview: Thursday 27th January 5.30 - 7.30pm

Three’s a Crowd is an exhibition of recent work by Mark Bletcher, Abi Hampsey and Oliver Hoffmesiter, artists and friends who met at Newcastle University on the Fine Art course. In 2020 the group founded a project called Minutes on Painting in response to the pandemic, as a platform to create conversations between artists about painting and to raise funds for charity. They have also recently shown work together at Safe House 1 in London. This new group show at Gallagher and Turner continues to explore their joint interest into figurative painting from individual perspectives.
 

Mark Bletcher
Mark Bletcher's paintings describe encounters with magical realism. They are underpinned by a continued investigation into painting's conceptual and material ability to capture expanded perception as way to consider the emotional, metaphorical, and remembered worlds within realism. This approach is inspired by magical realist authors, but also reflects a response to contemporary painting’s struggle in the 21st century. 

Since graduating in 2019, Mark has been awarded the Final Year Achievement Prize for outstanding academic achievement from Newcastle University and the Gwen May Recent Graduate Award from The Royal Society for Painter-Printmakers. He was also shortlisted for the Woon Foundation Prize, FBA Futures and the Contemporary Young Artist Award. He is currently a member of Newbridge Studios in Newcastle, where he lives and works.

Abi Hampsey
Interested in the notion of truth, trickery, the real and the fake, Abigail’s work acts like that of the vaudeville stage, characters, locations, and mediums change from scene to scene creating layers of narrative that reflect the source of the imagery. She uses paint as a physical tool to conceal and then reveal past sections of a work–reflecting the layering of narrative while acknowledging the decision-making process of painting itself. Creating images which draw on her own experiences and memory, as well as art historical and literary sources, Abigail seeks to create her own stories in a new type of narrative painting. The work Abigail has chosen for the show are her most recent paintings that explore sense of place through the lens of memory.

Since graduating from Newcastle University in 2019, Abigail has been awarded The Hatton Award for outstanding degree show presentation, The Forshaw Foundation Residency at The British School at Rome and most recently the The Basil H.Alkazzi Scholarship Award in painting, funding Abigail’s MA studies at the Royal College of Art. She has been part of numerous group shows in London and Manchester. Abi is a studio holder at V.0 Curations and is currently living and working in London.

Oliver Hoffmeister
Oliver Hoffmeister (b.1995 Chesterfield) is a Newcastle based painter-printmaker. His work focuses upon the obscure nature of the imagined image, with particular reference to the artist's conceived imagery. Attempting to create works that could be seen as ‘oddities’, he wishes to conjure a sense of uncertainty that leaves the viewer in a state of flux. His work in ‘Three’s a Crowd’ is from a more experimental, recent body of work in which Hoffmeister attempts to delve into his creative process and re-think his paintings, the imagery he makes and the manners in which he works.  

Since graduating in 2018, Oliver has shown work as part of The Ingram Collection Young Contemporary Talent Award in London, Middlesbrough Art Weekender at MIMA, and Ghosts That Live Amongst Us in 155a Gallery, London. Alongside this Hoffmeister worked on a commission for Kielder Arts and Architecture and was awarded a bursary and a commission from Northern Print and The Hatton Prize for his degree show work. More recently he has produced his first solo exhibition with Berwick Visual Arts at Gymnasium Gallery in Berwick upon Tweed.

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