Kate Bright, Peter Davies, Matt Franks, Jun Hasegawa, Jim Lambie, Graham Little, Simon Periton, Eva Rothschild, DJ Simpson, David Thorpe, Gary Webb, Clare Woods.

Tailsliding is a new British Council international touring exhibition, featuring 12 young British artists currently creating eclectic work within the conventions of painting and sculpture, selected by Stephen Hepworth, former curator of the Jerwood Gallery, London.

The highly coloured, large, exuberant works draw imagery from a gamut of high and low populist sources; from the gothic fairy tale to contemporary cartoon imagery, acknowledging historical influences along the way. Through contemporary materials, the artists express a joy of making, often playfully evoking ideas centred on our perception of time and place.

Tailsliding is concerned with the fleeting nature of history. Of what went before, and how these events alter our perceptions of place and self in the present. These concerns are reflected through the exhibition title – a skateboarding term for a difficult trick. Art has many parallels with street culture. Transient in nature, erased, written over and superseded by new styles, new names, new colours. Street graffiti recognises history through the places it is written, the act of writing being both an assertion of an individual and a tribute to those that have gone before. It has its own language. Likewise, Tailsliding demonstrates that the languages of painting and sculpture are far from safe options - that they are capable of taking on an extraordinary new direction in the hands of these young practitioners.

A fully illustrated catalogue with texts by Stephen Hepworth and Colin Ledwith, together with interviews with each of the artists, was published to accompany the exhibition. ISBN 0 86355 486 5; available from Cornerhouse www.cornerhouse.org

Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • Contemporary

    Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.

  • Curator

    A person who creates exhibitions or who is employed to look after and research museum objects.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.