


MateREAL World
by Alice West

This multimedia presentation which focuses on studying and celebrating the rapid contrasting situations which make up our lives and translating them into visual forms. The show consists of a large selection of paintings, ceramics, sculpture and a mural all combined into one ‘smack in the face’ immersion into my chaotic world. I was raised from a young age being introduced to many different cultures (having been brought up in Dubai, England and New Zealand to travel obsessed parents) so has had a sense of the duality of the world from a young age, couple this with an anxiety disorder diagnosis at the age of 8 and; The world has always seemed large and overwhelming to me, so it seems natural that in my early 20’s I would start to try to structuralise it while simultaneously trying to relinquish my habits of control. MateREAL World looks at the never-ending lows and highs of living in the modern world and the constant contradictions that surround us. One minute you are thinking to yourself, ‘wow this world around us is fascinating, I just pulled 3 flavours of frozen yogurt out of the wall and finished them with 11 different toppings” and the next your heart breaks seeing a woman sitting outside the Zara sale asking for money and crying from the cold. Both brushing your teeth at the end of the day and solving the climate crisis are important to us, in very different ways. The world is so cruel and so beautiful at the same time, it makes barely any sense, but of course it is this way. I like to play with pattern heavily as a visual metaphor for this contrast, The simplicity of the recurring image coupled with the overwhelming effect of the pattern when you zoom out. Playing with this contrast, I attempt to walk the narrow and uncomfortable line between this enjoyment and terror, nothing is black and white so I douse my works in sickly sweet colour.





This multimedia presentation which focuses on studying and celebrating the rapid contrasting situations which make up our lives and translating them into visual forms. The show consists of a large selection of paintings, ceramics, sculpture and a mural all combined into one ‘smack in the face’ immersion into my chaotic world. I was raised from a young age being introduced to many different cultures (having been brought up in Dubai, England and New Zealand to travel obsessed parents) so has had a sense of the duality of the world from a young age, couple this with an anxiety disorder diagnosis at the age of 8 and; The world has always seemed large and overwhelming to me, so it seems natural that in my early 20’s I would start to try to structuralise it while simultaneously trying to relinquish my habits of control. MateREAL World looks at the never-ending lows and highs of living in the modern world and the constant contradictions that surround us. One minute you are thinking to yourself, ‘wow this world around us is fascinating, I just pulled 3 flavours of frozen yogurt out of the wall and finished them with 11 different toppings” and the next your heart breaks seeing a woman sitting outside the Zara sale asking for money and crying from the cold. Both brushing your teeth at the end of the day and solving the climate crisis are important to us, in very different ways. The world is so cruel and so beautiful at the same time, it makes barely any sense, but of course it is this way. I like to play with pattern heavily as a visual metaphor for this contrast, The simplicity of the recurring image coupled with the overwhelming effect of the pattern when you zoom out. Playing with this contrast, I attempt to walk the narrow and uncomfortable line between this enjoyment and terror, nothing is black and white so I douse my works in sickly sweet colour.







Cardboard Corner

It is a cardboard construction in a corner. It’s creating an additional place within an existing space. It’s finding shelters in shelters. It’s scrutinizing what is there and then trying to subvert the structures of the built environment by adding another built environment. It is like the joy of using tables as chairs and windows as doors. It’s like the desire to shout with whispers and talk in silence.

This corner will host us while we host a radio. We will go live from within on the 12th of December. While sitting inside the cardboard corner we will broadcast Mushroom Pie, a one day radio show in collaboration with Mushroom Radio and A Finger in Every Pie. We will take you on a tasty and tactile tour for the ears. There will be interviews, readings, chats, observations and sounds from the participating artists of the show. We will be turning the physical exhibition into one that fits the air.



https://radiomushroom.org

It is a cardboard construction in a corner. It’s creating an additional place within an existing space. It’s finding shelters in shelters. It’s scrutinizing what is there and then trying to subvert the structures of the built environment by adding another built environment. It is like the joy of using tables as chairs and windows as doors. It’s like the desire to shout with whispers and talk in silence.

This corner will host us while we host a radio. We will go live from within on the 12th of December. While sitting inside the cardboard corner we will broadcast Mushroom Pie, a one day radio show in collaboration with Mushroom Radio and A Finger in Every Pie. We will take you on a tasty and tactile tour for the ears. There will be interviews, readings, chats, observations and sounds from the participating artists of the show. We will be turning the physical exhibition into one that fits the air.





‘Transcribing the past - one artifact at a time’

Worlds collide upon creating my work - the influence of the French, American, and Chinese.
Through symbols and cycles in life, my thoughts manifest and materialise over time,
existing as modern-day artifacts - an echo of a past long forgotten, 
appropriating DuChamp’s displacement of the museum and
pillaging Le Guin’s unfinished narratives and finally
propagating into my own, Ellen-esque carrier
That weaves the vessel and all of
the archives together
into one.



Archiving a library is like indoor gardening.
Letters are seeds that repeat constitutions through karma. 
Words are gathered flowers that propagate memories,
Sheltered in books like a glass enclosed rose
transcribed sentences of germinated time;
with hidden thoughts, future unknown.
Collections of relics that emerge from dormant embryos.
Proprietor of my own portable Cabinet of Curiosities
stemming past and future, transformed as a quilt
adorned with pockets that houses my miniatures.
The seeds I sew spend years in their unwoven jackets,
delivering inner silence so the form can begin to exist.






‘Transcribing the past - one artifact at a time’

Worlds collide upon creating my work - the influence of the French, American, and Chinese.

Through symbols and cycles in life, my thoughts manifest and materialise over time,

existing as modern-day artifacts - an echo of a past long forgotten, 

appropriating DuChamp’s displacement of the museum and

pillaging Le Guin’s unfinished narratives and finally

propagating into my own, Ellen-esque carrier

Archiving a library is like indoor gardening.

Letters are seeds that repeat constitutions through karma. 

Words are gathered flowers that propagate memories,

Sheltered in books like a glass enclosed rose

transcribed sentences of germinated time;

Collections of relics that emerge from dormant embryos.

Proprietor of my own portable Cabinet of Curiosities

stemming past and future, transformed as a quilt

adorned with pockets that houses my miniatures.

The seeds I sew spend years in their unwoven jackets,

delivering inner silence so the form can begin to exist.




Jupiter

                                                 
                                               ‘It’s Time to Pay the Piper’

I must start by acknowledging the significance of this opportunity granted to me by Valentino, Arthur and the wider curatorial team. I must also confess I am not a huge fan of pies or most sweet things actually. But every once in a while along comes a pie that just tickles my fancy.


                                                       What’s on show?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………

I am pleased to announce that Universität Hameln has agreed to loan us three major artefacts from its private collection for the purpose of this exhibition.

On display is one of its most precious artefacts– Die flöte der Rattenfänger von Hameln (The Pied Piper of Hamelin’s flute).

By showing these artefacts alongside each other, we aim to provide our audience with an educated insight into the wonder and gloom surrounding the ‘Pied Piper’.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………


                                                                 About
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
In 1284, a town called Hamelin in Germany became subject to a terrible plague.
It was rat-infested.

To solve the issue, the town called on the Pied Piper.
The Pied Piper played a melody so entrancing it lured all of Hamelin’s rats away.

It was agreed the Pied Piper would be paid for its efforts, but when this time came, the town dishonoured this agreement and turned the Pied Piper away.

As the Pied Piper turned to leave, it put it’s flute to its lips once again and played a melody so entrancing it lured all of Hamelin’s children away.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………


                                             Further acknowledgements
…………………………………………………………………………………………………

In 2004 the Piper is featured on a huge collaboration with Jadakiss and Mariah Carey, ‘U Make Me Wanna’. The hit was nominated ‘Best Song Collaboration by Duo or Group’ at the Annual GV Music & Fashion Awards.

In 2005 the piper strikes again laying down a killer riff for 50 Cent on ‘Just a Lil bit’ peaking at number three on the Hot Billboard Chart, the song is a certified platinum project.

In 2011 the Piper is spotted with Kanye West and Jay Z on ‘Gotta Have it’, another platinum hit.

In 2017 the Pied Piper delivers their masterpiece ‘Mask off’ in collaboration with Future, the song becomes an Internet sensation entering the charts in twenty-seven different countries.

The Piper is also responsible for ‘Tunnel Vision’ by Kodak Black (2017), ‘Praise the lord’ by A$AP Rocky and Skepta and ‘RDX’ by Carns Hill and T Mulla (2018).
In the same year, the Pied Piper worked tirelessly on the Soundtrack for Disney’s ‘Black Panther’, featured on songs X, Paramedic and Big Shot.
And the list goes on…
……………………………………………………………………………………………………

PS don't miss the Pied Piper Playlist broadcasted on our radio show!

-Orah Mark, Sabrina, ‘It’s Time to Pay the Piper’, 2020, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/10/07/its-time-to-pay-the-piper/





                                               ‘It’s Time to Pay the Piper’

I must start by acknowledging the significance of this opportunity granted to me by Valentino, Arthur and the wider curatorial team. I must also confess I am not a huge fan of pies or most sweet things actually. But every once in a while along comes a pie that just tickles my fancy.

                                                       What’s on show?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

I am pleased to announce that Universität Hameln has agreed to loan us three major artefacts from its private collection for the purpose of this exhibition.

On display is one of its most precious artefacts– Die flöte der Rattenfänger von Hameln (The Pied Piper of Hamelin’s flute).

By showing these artefacts alongside each other, we aim to provide our audience with an educated insight into the wonder and gloom surrounding the ‘Pied Piper’.

                                                                 About

In 1284, a town called Hamelin in Germany became subject to a terrible plague.

To solve the issue, the town called on the Pied Piper.

The Pied Piper played a melody so entrancing it lured all of Hamelin’s rats away.

It was agreed the Pied Piper would be paid for its efforts, but when this time came, the town dishonoured this agreement and turned the Pied Piper away.

As the Pied Piper turned to leave, it put it’s flute to its lips once again and played a melody so entrancing it lured all of Hamelin’s children away.

                                             Further acknowledgements

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

In 2004 the Piper is featured on a huge collaboration with Jadakiss and Mariah Carey, ‘U Make Me Wanna’. The hit was nominated ‘Best Song Collaboration by Duo or Group’ at the Annual GV Music & Fashion Awards.

In 2005 the piper strikes again laying down a killer riff for 50 Cent on ‘Just a Lil bit’ peaking at number three on the Hot Billboard Chart, the song is a certified platinum project.

In 2011 the Piper is spotted with Kanye West and Jay Z on ‘Gotta Have it’, another platinum hit.

In 2017 the Pied Piper delivers their masterpiece ‘Mask off’ in collaboration with Future, the song becomes an Internet sensation entering the charts in twenty-seven different countries.

The Piper is also responsible for ‘Tunnel Vision’ by Kodak Black (2017), ‘Praise the lord’ by A$AP Rocky and Skepta and ‘RDX’ by Carns Hill and T Mulla (2018).

In the same year, the Pied Piper worked tirelessly on the Soundtrack for Disney’s ‘Black Panther’, featured on songs X, Paramedic and Big Shot.

PS don't miss the Pied Piper Playlist broadcasted on our radio show!

-Orah Mark, Sabrina, ‘It’s Time to Pay the Piper’, 2020, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/10/07/its-time-to-pay-the-piper/



I am using the video game engine as a medium itself; designing my own virtual environment which is a presentation of real life. In this game, there is only "a journey" without any aim for achievement. Every day, most people are walking towards their goals.

In my game, I am simulating an infinitive world where memes are used to express emotions, camouflage exposes us to the reality of our lack of control, and looping confronts the player. Hidden portals in a repeating space with no beginning and no end: In the game, portals are placed randomly and they continuously send the player to unexpected places.

We walk towards something which we may never find. We constantly make choices, left and right, but around the corner remains an unknown. 

Will we ever be satisfied?

 please wait it might take a few minutes to load the game🦦

Full screen to have better experience (after fullscreen click on screen once to wake your avatar up!)

I am using the video game engine as a medium itself; designing my own virtual environment which is a presentation of real life. In this game, there is only "a journey" without any aim for achievement. Every day, most people are walking towards their goals.

In my game, I am simulating an infinitive world where memes are used to express emotions, camouflage exposes us to the reality of our lack of control, and looping confronts the player. Hidden portals in a repeating space with no beginning and no end: In the game, portals are placed randomly and they continuously send the player to unexpected places.

We walk towards something which we may never find. We constantly make choices, left and right, but around the corner remains an unknown. 





“Theodora and the Flood”

Hey! On December 10th I’m going to tell you a story about two women and flood. Let’s talk a bit about it first.

You know a flood is a flood when there’s egregious amounts of 💦liquids💦.
You know a liquid is a liquid when it fills a 🌫space🌫 .
What liquids are we 🚫not🚫 okay with filling spaces?
Which people are we 🚫not🚫 okay with filling spaces?

🌊Floods🌊 can be as 🍯sweet🍯 as the Great Boston Molasses Spill of 1919 or as 🌌dark🌌 as the Pennsylvania Death Fog in 1948. But a 💧flood💧 can also be a huge crowd of 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦people👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 or blowing your 👃nose👃 too hard in January. All we need to know about them is it’s time to ⚠️stand back⚠️

“ Hark! I WILL squirt my pimple juice on you, sir. I will spit on the sidewalk next to your feet and clog your sink with sewage. When you step back I will step forward and when you step forward I will also step forward. This is what it means to flood. “

I’m so 😌happy😌 to be having this 🖼exhibition🖼 for you and I’d like you to come so I can 💩poop💩 in your pants!

Hey! On December 10th I’m going to tell you a story about two women and flood. Let’s talk a bit about it first.

You know a flood is a flood when there’s egregious amounts of 💦liquids💦.

You know a liquid is a liquid when it fills a 🌫space🌫 .

What liquids are we 🚫not🚫 okay with filling spaces?

Which people are we 🚫not🚫 okay with filling spaces?

🌊Floods🌊 can be as 🍯sweet🍯 as the Great Boston Molasses Spill of 1919 or as 🌌dark🌌 as the Pennsylvania Death Fog in 1948. But a 💧flood💧 can also be a huge crowd of 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦people👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 or blowing your 👃nose👃 too hard in January. All we need to know about them is it’s time to ⚠️stand back⚠️

“ Hark! I WILL squirt my pimple juice on you, sir. I will spit on the sidewalk next to your feet and clog your sink with sewage. When you step back I will step forward and when you step forward I will also step forward. This is what it means to flood. “

I’m so 😌happy😌 to be having this 🖼exhibition🖼 for you and I’d like you to come so I can 💩poop💩 in your pants!




Stop fucking about. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop doing nothing when you should be doing something. Get busy living or get busy dying. Hey little rich girl, you’ve done too much - much too young (1). You’re married with a kid when you should be having fun with me! (2) Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.

My entire artistic practice is concerned with the image. After the camera, you can’t be a painter with only paint. To ignore the digital image, the ‘poor image’, the ‘Wretched of the Screen’, would be a big mistake. There are also jokes. I am a serious painter but will always play with what a painting really is. A painting with a photograph of an older painting glued onto another painting. A high resolution image exported, converted, zoomed in, printed, glued, and presented. ‘The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital connections, compressed, reproduced, ripped, remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other channels of distribution.’ I also introduce no hierarchy in my works. The poorest image might be a freeze-framed pixelated print out of a Tik Tok video - the richest, a 300 year old oil painting. I will hang both here. A cheap and indulgent piece of popular culture, greasy and glutinous steak and eggs, glamorous child pageant queens alongside a forgotten photograph of an unknown young wartime nurse, a nun, a saint. All humility and humbleness. I will hang both here. To me they are the same.

Sometimes you’ve got to trick an eye to go where you want it to. I use linear brutalist architecture in my paintings both from a love for them passed down from my architect father, an enjoyment in the way shadow and light behave on flat planes and right angles, and because of the authority they demand. I’m also interested in gender and the visual stereotypes we assign them, misguided or not. The costumes we put on. The buildings somehow represent the masculine to me, the landscapes demand a wide perspective and therefore dignified respect. I want to show you that the vapid, hyper-feminine, badly-behaved women I collect deserve the same respect. Visually I can trick you (sir) into taking me seriously, but suddenly - what’s that? in the bottom right corner… she’s got her tits out!

‘The poor image is no longer about the real thing—the originary original. Instead, it is about its own real conditions of existence: about swarm circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible temporalities. It is about defiance and appropriation just as it is about conformism and exploitation.
In short: it is about reality.’    -   Steyerl, Hito. In Defence of the Poor Image. 2009. e-flux. (3)

1.The Specials. Hey Little Rich Girl. 2 Tone Records, Oct. 1980

2.The Specials. Too Much Too Young. 2 Tone Records, Jan. 1980

3.Steyerl, Hito. In Defence of the Poor Image. 2009. e-flux.






Stop fucking about. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop doing nothing when you should be doing something. Get busy living or get busy dying. Hey little rich girl, you’ve done too much - much too young (1). You’re married with a kid when you should be having fun with me! (2) Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.

My entire artistic practice is concerned with the image. After the camera, you can’t be a painter with only paint. To ignore the digital image, the ‘poor image’, the ‘Wretched of the Screen’, would be a big mistake. There are also jokes. I am a serious painter but will always play with what a painting really is. A painting with a photograph of an older painting glued onto another painting. A high resolution image exported, converted, zoomed in, printed, glued, and presented. ‘The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital connections, compressed, reproduced, ripped, remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other channels of distribution.’ I also introduce no hierarchy in my works. The poorest image might be a freeze-framed pixelated print out of a Tik Tok video - the richest, a 300 year old oil painting. I will hang both here. A cheap and indulgent piece of popular culture, greasy and glutinous steak and eggs, glamorous child pageant queens alongside a forgotten photograph of an unknown young wartime nurse, a nun, a saint. All humility and humbleness. I will hang both here. To me they are the same.

Sometimes you’ve got to trick an eye to go where you want it to. I use linear brutalist architecture in my paintings both from a love for them passed down from my architect father, an enjoyment in the way shadow and light behave on flat planes and right angles, and because of the authority they demand. I’m also interested in gender and the visual stereotypes we assign them, misguided or not. The costumes we put on. The buildings somehow represent the masculine to me, the landscapes demand a wide perspective and therefore dignified respect. I want to show you that the vapid, hyper-feminine, badly-behaved women I collect deserve the same respect. Visually I can trick you (sir) into taking me seriously, but suddenly - what’s that? in the bottom right corner… she’s got her tits out!

‘The poor image is no longer about the real thing—the originary original. Instead, it is about its own real conditions of existence: about swarm circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible temporalities. It is about defiance and appropriation just as it is about conformism and exploitation.

In short: it is about reality.’    -   Steyerl, Hito. In Defence of the Poor Image. 2009. e-flux. (3)

1.The Specials. Hey Little Rich Girl. 2 Tone Records, Oct. 1980

2.The Specials. Too Much Too Young. 2 Tone Records, Jan. 1980

3.Steyerl, Hito. In Defence of the Poor Image. 2009. e-flux.



It all seemed so perfect, it all seemed so fine, until it was not (Attempt 2）

Monday Blues.
Oh I think that’s true.
But it could happen any day of the week
and I don’t think I've ever woken up
feeling extremely ecstatic,
with no care in the world,
almost with a smile on my face.
I'd be lying to myself,
deluded almost,
to think that everything will be ok
if I wake up feeling like this.
No.
I don't think I could do that,
at least not now
when we’ve got another set of issues
coming our way.

It all seemed so perfect, it all seemed so fine, until it was not (7 works of epiphany) Soundtrack



It all seemed so perfect, it all seemed so fine, until it was not (Attempt 2）

It all seemed so perfect, it all seemed so fine, until it was not (7 works of epiphany) Soundtrack





‘I want to retire to some private island to be made a good boy’


I hunger not for personal salvation but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, or personal well-being, health and psychic security… everything but salvation! I guess I'm not haunted by guilt but by anxiety. I assume I have no interest in the future because, in part, I have so little interest in the past. What good does it bring me? Must I feel nostalgic then? Only if this nostalgia is a marketable commodity though. I hope to try and restore some primitive pact with pure feeling to regain the archaic calm without cultural sin that existed before, well, you know who. I hope I don’t drown in irony and cynicism on the way there, some nameless Eden.

‘I want to retire to some private island to be made a good boy’

I hunger not for personal salvation but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, or personal well-being, health and psychic security… everything but salvation! I guess I'm not haunted by guilt but by anxiety. I assume I have no interest in the future because, in part, I have so little interest in the past. What good does it bring me? Must I feel nostalgic then? Only if this nostalgia is a marketable commodity though. I hope to try and restore some primitive pact with pure feeling to regain the archaic calm without cultural sin that existed before, well, you know who. I hope I don’t drown in irony and cynicism on the way there, some nameless Eden.






Stillness expanded slowly

indulging patience perseverance

pulled down in time

lines drawn slow

and pencil as evidence of a hand

alighting on paper

remembered

as light as a memory of a time

time repeated

speaking in reflections

concentrated sharpness of shame and resistance

narrowed by the shadows of ordinary beauty

drawing as magic warding against careless judgements and harsh moralities

looking as listening

paper as thinking

light as remembering

as light as

marking time.



(the soundcloud player has a recording of a spoken word piece that was part of the exhibition on Mushroom Pie radio during the "a finger in every pie" exhibition)




concentrated sharpness of shame and resistance

narrowed by the shadows of ordinary beauty

drawing as magic warding against careless judgements and harsh moralities

(the soundcloud player has a recording of a spoken word piece that was part of the exhibition on Mushroom Pie radio during the "a finger in every pie" exhibition)