Art Review: ‘A Drawn out Death’ by Creative Youth Network
‘A brave and honest commentary on the subject of death from young artists of The Creative Youth Network’
Words: Linzy Na Nakorn
Housed in Bristol’s 5.75 million pound re-development of the centrally placed The Station (previously The Old Fire Station) the exhibit houses a broad selection of mediums with artwork exploring the literal and the conceptual. Pain’s illustrations explore the theme of Memento Mori or Remember you will die which links to a medieval tradition of taking time to contemplate your own death. Rarely are the young directly questioned to think on their own mortality, Pains work is a calm contemplation on what many, of all ages, find a daunting subject.
Other works within the exhibition take into account the very personal ordeals of encountering death. Drawing from personal experiences of living with cancer and the loss of a loved one, there is no doubt that the artists should be commended for such an honest display of expression; articulated on paper and in conversation. Moving more towards digital mediums, film-maker Tony Puis‘ film documents a taxidermist as she apart and reconstructs a squirrel in what is a charming and compelling film. In discussion Puis highlights the irony that lies within the taxidermy industry; ‘After looking into it, I found out that many of the taxidermists kill the animal themselves before they actually stuff it, its changed my mind about taxidermy as art‘. Introduced to film through a Creative Youth Network run day-course housed at The Station, Curating Death gave Tony the opportunity to hone his film making skills whilst also learning about the art of curating, producing and organizing an exhibition. Although in no hurry to create a solo exhibition anytime soon, Tony states that the skills he has learnt throughout the process will be invaluable to him for the future. As a whole, the project lies under The Creative Youth Networks umbrella of the Creative Careers Programme and it has clearly impassioned many of the artists to pursue the arts. When asking exhibition contributor Sherry Sutcliff about her response to the project she said it had opened up many future directions for her, when The Bristol Cable asked her which directions those were, her reply was ‘all good ones’.
A Drawn Out Death is exhibited:
The Station, Silver Street
5th-28th November, 10am – 5pm
Curating Death is produced by The Creative Youth Network in partnership with Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and is funded by the National Lottery Reaching Communities
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