The fourth version of "Impromptu presents Late Works", the first incarnation of Late Works, where a group of musicians spontaneously improvised music in response to two painted folding dressing screens.
The musicians are asked to respond for a total of 30 minutes to each screen, with them being rotated midway. The screen itself stands in front of both the audience and the musicians, with everyone - including the musicians - experiencing it simultaneously, and for the first time.
/ɪmˈprɒmp.tʃuː/
• done without being planned or rehearsed
• a short piece of instrumental music, especially a solo, that is reminiscent of an improvisation
Hosted at:
• The panels for the screens should be found by chance, on the side of the road, then assembled and given to the artists to paint. The artists then have exactly a month to finish the work.
• The musicians respond to the first side for roughly 15 minutes, with the screen being turned around at the end at an appropriate moment, allowing the musicians to respond for a further 15 minutes. The performance shouldn’t be interrupted by the turning of the screen.
Artists:
Finlay Abbott Ellwood
Oliver Pearce
Musicians:
Wilf Diamond
Alex Dmochowski
Jordan Hadfield
Jesse Doniach Hughes
Billy Leach
Joe Maclaren
Musicians selected by:
Billy Leach
Filmed by:
Felix Bayley-Higgins
Joe Preston
Sound by:
Enzo Samuel
Concept, editing & screens built by:
Joseph Bradley Hill
With thanks to Sean McClusky at Gallery 46!
Pleached Paper Machine, 2020
123 x 162 cm
made in response to Finlay Abbott Ellwood's screen of the same name
30:37
The Battle Of, 2021
150 x 160 cm
made in response to Oliver Pearce's screen of the same name
32:52
aka / part of
"The relationship between the themes I’m working with and the way I work, is, in its way, a theme in its self, and seems at the moment to be the place where my practice sits, a homogenous set of relations between physical and cognitive. In ways the process of making work about the process of making provides a think tank which at times feels vacuous and confusing and yet still charged with connections. The methodological systems I implement over the given period of time any painting takes to make, means as much to me as the symbols, Sigils and motifs that form the structure of the work. I’m interested in how each layer of the painting Is de-registered as a result of a differing formal axis or fulcrum according to the when, within the space/time continuum, it was made. How the new overlays the old, how the consistency of paint is linked to memory and time. How space gets flattened and time gets extended. How the components and the way their painted have an axial symmetry with the whole picture. How the things within my paintings and the paintings themselves never really mean one thing. Could my paintings be forever in flux, like the tides? How the formal and biological harmony of a painting can reflect the same harmony found in the network of the real world."
Participant in Late Works:
4
aka / part of
Oliver Pearce (b.1996) is a graduate from Camberwell College of Arts, whose artistic practice is rooted in a passion for the history of art, to develop visual striking imagery of varied themes, exploring human psychology and mythologies in rich layers of oil paint.
Participant in Late Works:
Paperweight I, at first sight, By Ear, 4
aka / part of
Alex is a saxophonist based in London.
Participant in Late Works:
ONE, 4
aka / part of
Billy Leach is a composer and musician from London. Billy's event series and group of improvising musicians Impromptu in 2018 inspired Late Works to come into fruition, with the musicians continuing to perform at subsequent Late Works events.
Participant in Late Works:
ONE, TWO, 3, of Noise, 4
aka / part of
A recent graduate of trinity Laban conservatoire achieving a first class Hons’ in Jazz performance, pianist Jesse Doniach joins the wave of young talent emerging from the London jazz scene. Originally hailing from East London himself, he has already built up a vast array of performing experience playing at venues such as Electric Brixton and La Villette in Paris, as well as gigging around England with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. His style drawing on a wide range of influences, he credits the likes of Thelonious Monk and past teachers Ricardo Del Fra and Aaron Parks (whom he studied with during a year spent at Conservatoire de Paris in 2019) as having major impacts on shaping his sound.
Participant in Late Works:
ONE, TWO, 3, 4
aka / part of
Participant in Late Works:
ONE, TWO, 3, 4
aka / part of
Participant in Late Works:
ONE, 3, 4