For one week only
Quilos and the Windmill present
“The Prospector”
‘Equipped with all kinds of gadgets, many of them useless a prospector comes west’
The Mule Machine (2013)
44AD is pleased to announce the forthcoming event:
Quilos and the Windmill present 'The prospector' For one week only our Georgian
house will be inhabited by the duo Quilos and the Windmill, artist explorers who,
travelling light, use whatever they find on their journeys as starting points for
structures, images, sounds and performances.
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www.quilosandthewindmill.com
Established in 2011 Quilos and the Windmill is a metaphorical project space, where
two artists collaborate in order to push their practice without inhibition into new
intellectual spaces. Their assumed name represents an imaginary artist's studio
without walls, an international and boundless space, an experimental space where
any thought or action is fully considered. This way of working fosters a creativity that
explores relations between spaces: architectural, landscape, formal and informal,
actual and imaginal. Drawing from the disciplines of painting, drawing, sculpture,
printing, photography, video and writing, as each new work grows it unravels
divisions between reality and illusion, action and thought.
A new work usually begins as a small idea, a mundane shape, word, object, sound,
action or pattern that might normally go unnoticed, but for Quilos and the Windmill its
very ordinariness will be the starting point for a creative journey. Their obsessive
methodology - based on chance, play and repetitive activities - involves collecting,
reworking, undoing and redoing, the results coming together as an expansive,
physical space - a spectacle or tableau.
Quilos
and
the
Windmill
investigate ways of existing as
artists between spaces here and
there, and between times then
and now.
In imagined and real
situations they work with whatever
is to hand wherever and whenever
they land: strands and fragments
of
material,
objects,
actions,
events and memories. In this way
‘realandimagined’ spaces may be
discovered in some of the most
ordinary and lesser things.
Mutata (2013)
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Their work may be read in relation to specific historic and cultural events whilst also
hinting at more personal memories and feelings that are explored in the making. The
Prospector entered their story during a forage for material in the thrift shops of
Saugatuck Michigan (during their joint residency at Oxbow, affiliated with the School
of the Arts Institute Chicago in 2013).
On flicking through American
history
books,
the
artists
came across a small image
with the caption 'equipped
with all kinds of gadgets,
many of them useless a
prospector comes west' and
this seemed appropriate to
their own situation and so
began the project that is
presented at 44AD.
Quilos and the Windmill adopt different persona depending on where they are and
who and what they encounter, which means they are not tied to a particular heritage,
gender, age, or time. This freedom means they can appropriate and mix up elements
on a whim; their anonymity freeing them up, to be nomads, psycho-geographers,
playmates and story tellers. Adopting the gaze of the explorer, they cross real and
imaginary boundaries, often getting lost and entering dangerous territories, their
curiosity pushing them on.
Inspired by writers like Jorges Louis Borges and others they are fascinated by
fictional beings, whether human or otherwise.
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Their most recent work involves
www.quilosandthewindmill.com
building a character and story around the prospector, building him a 'mule machine'
that serves as both transport and shelter, a scattered fragmented structure that filled
the gallery with a smoking fire, thunder storms, an abandoned railroad and giant
projected silhouettes of the galleon that carried him to the Americas.
During their residency they also wandered deep inside the Michigan forest, tried to
become feral, foraging for things that might start another story, another cog in the art
machine.
Many of these
creations remain at
Oxbow in the wood
cabins, the forest,
aside the lagoon or in
the big house, but
much has now been
remade differently
back in England; the
original works and
ideas serving as a
starting point for the
environment that you
will encounter in the
very different, almost
genteel space of the
Georgian house in
Gingham Tree (2013)
Abbey Street Bath.
Collection of Mary Ann Monforton NYC USA.
Quilos and the Windmill will be in residence during the beginning of the week from
25th August, building the installation which includes:
a video performance,
structures, paintings and painted objects, sound and text and other creations, and for
this event they have joined forces with Chicago pop artist Peter Mars who they met
during their artists' residency in Oxbow Michigan. Since October 2013 the three
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www.quilosandthewindmill.com
artists have been sharing ideas and collaborating long distance and now the
collection is ready to come together for the first time 'in the flesh' at 44AD before
heading west to Chicago. They have also commissioned a small oil painting of one
of the prospector's dearest possessions by Connor Ragus.
The house will be open for visitors during the artists' residency between12 am and 5
pm, and there will be a private view on 28th August 2014 at 6pm when Quilos and the
Windmill will be pleased to engage in conversation with visitors about the work and
their experiences. They will give a short talk that evening.
Quilos and the Windmill are
Michele Whiting PhD, and Linda
Khatir PhD, who always
value making connections, so if
you would like to contact them or
arrange a studio visit just email
[email protected]
The Prospector’s drawings. (2013)
www.44AD.net
www.quilosandthewindmill.com