The Impressionists SOFA Manifesto + Work List

THE IMPRESSIONISTS

BLINDSIDE 17 NOV – 4 DEC 2021

SARAH BRASIER, JEMI GALE, MATTHEW HARRIS, WILLIAM HAWKINS, LOU HUBBARD, MICHAEL KENNEDY, CARLA MILENTIS, SANJA PAHOKI, NAT THOMAS, KALINDA VARY.

CURATED BY SARAH BRASIER + WILLIAM HAWKINS

The Impressionists brings together a group of artists who use humour in their practice under the guise of a fake collective called S.O.F.A. (Society Of Funny Artists).

Each artist submits a work which aims to act as an impression of another artist's work who is also in the collective. The artists in the show will aim to make a work as if they were this artist, rather than mimicking an already existing work. The result is be an exhibition of ‘impressions’, the artist’s actual work will leak into the exhibition by way of parody.

The exhibited works are as lacking in authenticity as the fake collective which frames them.

Each artist contributed a statement for the S.O.F.A. manifesto to accompany the exhibition.

The Impressionists aims to question the aesthetic of authority and legitimacy created by the formation of artist collectives while also providing insight by way of caricature into each artist's individual practice.

The Impressionists aims to draw links between modernist aims of depicting ‘essence’ to comedic practices of caricature and parody.

Society Of Funny Artists (SOFA) Manifesto

I have never made anything silly in my life
Take TWO capsules daily at night. Swallow whole.
Which one do you think is humorous?
A. If we laugh at a third person
B. If you laugh at yourself
C. If you can get someone else to laugh at themselves
Max Frisch in On humour by Simon Critchley (p.64)
I never had a penny to my name, so I changed my name
‘Intellectual Property. What is it and how do we get some?’
Don’t kill off the part of you that’s cringe, kill the part that cringes.
she saidif you can’t get revenge make sculpture
he said sculpture is something you bump into when you back up to look at a painting
I say name it, gild it, square it
like your last meal
a packet of crisps when nothing else will do
if there aren’t palm trees I’m not going.
1. Use synthetic-polymer paint.
2. Don't paint the sides of the stretched canvas, just the front.
3. The style of the painting should resemble a cartoon. Like pop art style.
4. The painting should be treated like a colouring-in book. The paint colour should not go beyond the black lines.
5. Each colour needs to be one solid colour.
6. The face needs to look friendly at the viewer.
Kiss From A Rose by Seal by Michael Kennedy///ceiling rose////rose=-=-from a rose’;’;’;’;ceiling<><>sealing/}{]Seal//___asthma puffers|||sealed my lips_xpuffpuff_x_kiss..xx))))as I gasp for air}}{{seal emerging from water^^^^sealed lips****in silence____joy^%$::or scorn\\\\enjoy’’’’’Carla Mi-chael-entis//Micarl Kennedy - contents from the bottom of a bag - ‘trash bag’. I think this looks like Carla’s. She also made a work which had the contents from the bottom of her bag. I always keep an asthma puffer in the bottom of my bags and jacket pockets lol///Perfect! Don’t touch a thing. clap clap clap 100_ _<3thank(s)y-(L)ou!/////Kiss from a Rose-_.+(Carla Milentis from a Michael Kennedy////