As the culmination of a two year residency at Mutton Fist Press, David Holah presents:
“Tin-ah Fetch Me-h“
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P.V. Saturday Nov 12TH 6pm-9pm
Opening hours:
11am-5pm Saturday Nov 12th
11am-5pm Sunday Nov 13th
11am-5pm Thursday Nov 17th
11am-5pm Friday Nov 18th
11am-5pm Saturday Nov 19th
11am-5pm Sunday Nov 20th
Other dates and times can be arranged by appointment,
to book and for other enquiries, please email meatbags@muttonfistpress.com
Offset print workshop tbc
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This work is a memorial to Frank and Eric, two important men in David’s Herstory. It’s a lace-front wig slipped down to act as a funeral veil. The show is about the concealment created by this closeness of fabric to face: he can see out, you can’t see in. Viewers are invited to snatch a glimpse of his grief through the teeth of his brother’s zips or the slight of a fluttering, paper hand.
The show is also a celebration of performative pedagogy: at a tbc stage in the show’s unfurling across nine days, David will run an offset printing workshop in Mutton Fist, and in drag.
David and his print mentor Frank played out ‘Mommie Dearest’ together in print lessons; shouting lines from the biopic to each other across the workshop. NO WIRE HANGERS! Is the in-joke, the script of a friendship. TINA! BRING ME THE AXE!!
Within this work, Baby Jane is sucked into the drama, and Bette and Joan’s tensions are played out, trapped together in one body. David’s soft sculptures are dazzle ships: Playing card chimera twirl to show you their embroidered backs, sewn with brother Eric’s threads. Queens of Hearts and other parts. David is your croupier, and a mistress of misdirection. To share space with the sculptures is to become lost in the menacing mock eyes of moth wings. There is a game being played, the cards are marked.
On the walls is a portrait gallery of the mouthless ones: Mediated, monitored managed. David’s work is about obfuscation and camouflage. Mouths unformed are healed gashes. Zippered gobs are for opening up and shutting down. With David as mad scientist, the creatures are recycled icons that speak in Ouija anagrams, and they are beautiful.
ABOUT DAVID HOLAH
After studying fashion & textiles at Middlesex University, David Holah set up the pioneering fashion label BodyMap with business partner Stevie Stewart in 1982. During the 80s and 90s they became costume designers for Michael Clark and Company. BodyMap also designed clothing and prints for fashion brands including Goldie, Benetton and Fiorrucci and was renowned for putting British fashion back on the map. It is still referenced today by fashion magazines and historians.
As an artist, Holah has exhibited work in numerous shows, galleries and public spaces, and continues to be a freelance designer in various fields notably designing a set of prints for Giles Deacon’s fashion show.
He currently works as a printmaking tutor in colleges including Morley College and City Lit, where he has worked on and devised courses that enable a diverse range of students to learn the various techniques of printmaking. With encouragement, Holah has watched learners grow and develop into potent printmakers, as his true passion is to assist people to realise their creative potential.
http://www.muttonfistpress.com/
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Mutton Fist Press & Five Years
Unit 2B
19-15 Elthorne Road
(entrance on Boothby Road)
Archway
London
N19 4AJ
