Aaron McPeake: Cast
When I first heard one of Aaron McPeake’s bronzes struck, the sound transported me to a navigation buoy anchored at the mouth of Sag Harbour on Long Island. All that distance I thought, and the bowl still firmly on the table in South London. Some time after this first hearing I thought they must have had either the same or a very similar wavelength, the bowl, the bell and McPeake, that is.
“Cast” which is what McPeake’s bronzes and
shadows are, is a broad brush of a word that takes us from
lost souls on desert islands, to groups of actors held together
by a script, through fortune telling and expulsion, to fishing
lines. From hot to cold from containment to reaching out.
It must be the cross between the energy that sits within molten
metal and the use of the word in conjunction with a shaping
process that enables it to connect the really hot to cool shade.
Sound, heat and light find their way to us through the air
we breathe. Sound travels at about half the muzzle velocity
of an AK47 bullet and light about half a million times faster
than the same bullet, understanding what’s going on in
an artists work I suspect comes more slowly.
What I like about McPeake’s work is the way it presents
big themes in apparently humble poetically tied packages.
Like orthodox icons his sculptures and photographs serve to
focus our thoughts and to make us think reflectively. The
chime and the shadow work within McPeake’s work, act,
as passing distillations of their objects and in doing so,
become in my mind mono-tonal auto-portraits of, both the objects
and their maker.
Stephen Farthing
Pimlico, 28th March 2012
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Aaron McPeake, Biography
Dr Aaron McPeake (MRsS, FHEA)
b. 1965, Belfast, N Ireland
In 2002, McPeake had to abandon a long career in stage lighting design due to the loss of most of his eyesight and returned to arts education and practice on a full time basis. He received a first class Honours Degree in Arts, Design and Environment from Central Saint Martins (2005).
His 2012 exhibition was part of his PhD submission and viva at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Works could be viewed in: The Grounds, The Morgue, Room CG10 and The Old College Library at Chelsea.
McPeake works with numerous media from bronze casting to film, photography and sound. His work places emphasis on the possibility for many types of readings and he views the process of making artwork as akin to writing poetry - where the visual imagination is integral to both its making and reception.
McPeake’s PhD thesis, Nibbling at Clouds - The Visual Artist Encounters Aventitious Blindness, is an holistic study of the impacts vision loss has on the visual artist. The thesis draws on the experiences of a panel of artists (who lost eyesight in later life) and includes his own experience as well as how he has developed his own practice. The resulting artworks are a consequence of engaging with subjective themes and making processes which have been mutually informative.
He has received a number of private and public art and design commissions and has exhibited widely since 1997. In 2011 he won the Cass Sculpture Prize with his bell bronze works: Some Cuts Resonate and in 2013 McPeake was commissioned by Camden Arts Centre, London.
Conferences
2013
Drawing Out Program, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Writing, Drawing and Memory
An exploration of the significance of writing and drawing written and experienced from a visually impaired perspective
(read more)
Thames Danube, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, UK
Contextualising Recalculating
A collaboration between CCW Graduate School, University of the Arts London, and the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Doctorate School
(read more)
Exhibitions include:
2018
VII Bienial de Arte Contemporaneo
Centro Centro, Madrid, Spain
Collaborative Experiments
The Old Castlemaine Gaol, Victoria, Australia
Sensing Culture
The Beaney Museum, Canterbury
2017
Same Same but Different
Yinka Shonibare's Guest Projects, London
2016
Sheep Bell Orchestra
El Arreciado, Toledo, Spain
Sweet Gongs Vibrating
San Diego Art Institute, Group Show
Shape Open
Yinka Shonibare Guest Projects, Group Show
Staff Show
Triangle Gallery, Group Show
2015
The Sound of their Deaths in Australia
Henry Moore Plinth, Millbank, London
Toll
Camden Arts Centre, London, Solo Installation
2014
Residency Outcomes
Spike Island, Bristol & Shape Gallery, London
12 Apostles
St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, Solo Installation
2013
Toll
Camden Arts Centre, London, Solo Installation (read more)
2012
Hospitable Plains
Brussels Art Factory, Group Show
Singing Bowl Chamber Orchestra
CHELSEA space, Solo Show
(sound clips can be heard here / read more)
Bullet Bells for Cape Farewell
Triangle Gallery, Group Show
2011
Some Cuts Resonate
Cass Prize, Cass Sculpture Foundation
2010
Borders and Edges
Wimbledon Space
Untitled (Wishes 1-4)
Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground, Solo Show
2008
Exhibition & Screening
Curzon Soho, Solo work
Translating Memories
Chelsea Silent Reading Room, Solo Show
2006
Directions
Lethaby Gallery, Group Show
2005
Out of Reach
The Window Gallery, London, Solo Show
2004
Horse as a Figure of Space
Hanbury Gallery, London (for Hermés)
Thought Crime
The Tram Tunnel (Holborn London), Group Show
2003
Overseas Development
The Window Gallery, London, Solo Show
1997
Love, The Thames and Other Things
Nottingham Playhouse, Solo Show
Davies Street Gallery London Institute
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Aaron McPeake:
Please Touch the Art
Mosesian Center for the Arts, Boston, USA
May – Sept 2019
VII Bienal de Arte Contemporáneo
Centro Centro, Madrid
June – Sept 2018
Collaborative Experiments
The Old Castlemaine Gaol, Victoria, Australia
2018 – 2019
Sensing Culture
The Beaney Museum Canterbury
January – March 2018
Same Same But Different
Guest Projects Space
November 2017
Sweet Gongs Vibrating
San Diego Art Institute
March – May 2016
Garden Commission
Camden Arts Centre, London (read more)
Residency at Spike Island, Bristol
January – March 2014
Toll
26 April – 27 October 2013
Extended into 2014
Winner of Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary 2013
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