Annotations 5 Launch. Devlin Shea: Getting Closer

Drawing Room is delighted to announce the launch of its fifth Annotations commission by London-based artist Devlin Shea. Join us for a conversation with the artist and a new, live work by artist and writer Amelia Barratt.

Shea’s Annotations commission explores her experience of spending time with books in Outset Study.  The artist has selected materials that imbue the work with the sensation of handling books and leafing through them: ‘I wanted the materials to feel tactile, similar to picking up a book and the level of intimacy that can unfold’.

To launch the commission, Devlin Shea has invited artist and writer Amelia Barratt to devise a new, live work in response to Getting Closer.  Sharing an interest in intimacy, human connection, humour, lightness and heaviness, the artists began a dialogue at the Slade School of Fine Art, where they both studied. This collaboration, their first, will demonstrate diverse methodologies, informed by cultural and generational difference. Shea is American and completed her BA in the late 1990s in New York State, where video was her focus alongside drawing and painting. She emigrated to Sweden and spent time in Iceland before settling in London. Barratt was born in England in the 1980s and studied in Glasgow before moving to London to practice as a painter, which has informed her current focus on writing and performance.

Framed by the installation of drawings, Amelia Barratt will read from a script comprising short visual episodes, stories of affection, shame, miscommunication, pleasure and memory that reflect on the tensions within human interaction explored in Shea's work. The two artists have worked in collaboration to stage the performance with sensitivity to the context of the library.

The short performance will be at 6.45pm and repeated at 7.15pm, followed by a conversation with the artists at 7.30pm.

This event is free, but booking is recommended.

Annotations Outset Study Commissions are supported by Veronique Parke and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.