2008
Traceurs:
to trace, to draw, to go fast
Chelsea Futurespace, London, UK
4 June - 21 September 2008
Traceurs: to trace, to draw, to go fast is a collection of twenty black and white films, created using a thermal imaging camera, which capture a series of moments in which traceurs (practitioners of parkour) come into physical contact with the urban fabric. The camera, which sees the world in terms of temperature rather than light, makes visible the glowing white heat residue transferred from hands, fingers and feet onto the surfaces that the traceurs nimbly leap onto, run across and spring off.
Related publication: Traceurs: to trace, to draw, to go fast, Essay by Richard Grayson
Related review: Martin Coomer, Traceurs: to trace, to draw, to go fast, Time Out
Layla Curtis
Ormeau Baths, Belfast, UK
14th March - 3rd May 2008
Featuring video work and drawings made during her Arts Council England International Fellowship to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey in 2005 and collages from the States of Mind series.
2006
Layla Curtis
New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall, UK
21 July - 10 October 2006
Co-curated by VIVID & New Art Gallery Walsall
This exhibition includes work produced as a result Layla Curtis's journey to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey in 2005 along with a new video installation Sky Drawings (Night, Day), commissioned by VIVID, which focuses on vapour trails made by aeroplanes in the sky above the West Midlands.
Related publication: Layla Curtis, published by New Art Gallery Walsall and Locus+
Related essay: A Congregation of Vapours by David Barrett published by ViVID
Polar Wandering
Gimpel Fils, London, UK
9 May - 10 June 2006
Leaving London on Thursday October 27th 2005 Layla Curtis spent 3 months carrying out an extensive geographical exploration with the British Antarctic Survey as part of their Artists and Writers residence programme. Gimpel Fils is pleased to exhibit artworks resulting from her 27,856 mile journey.
Signy Island, limited edition screen print, 2006
2004
States of Mind
Rhodes + Mann, London UK
2 July - 7 August 2004
USA place names such as Wet Beaver Wilderness, Hard Cash and Gun Barrel City inspire a new series of collaged maps and related wall drawing Index, while the installation Souvenirs from Manchester traces USA namesakes.
Related reviews:
Robert Hanks, Pore Over the Map of the Human Heart, The Independent on Sunday (ABC Magazine)
Jessica Lack, Preview: Exhibition, The Guardian (Guide)
Message in a Bottle
from Ramsgate
to the Chatham Islands
Droit House, Margate, UK
27 May - 4 July 2004
A live drawing, updated automatically every 15 minutes, tracks the journey taken by a fleet of bottles released into the sea near Ramsgate and destined for the Chatham Islands.
Project website: www.fromramsgatetothechathamislands.co.uk
Related essay: Message in a Bottle from Ramsgate to the Chatham Islands by Jeremy Millar
Commissioned by Turner Contemporary
2000
Layla Curtis
Milton Keynes Gallery, UK
2 September - 8 October 2000
For her first solo exhibition in a UK public gallery Curtis is showing new works based on maps. The new works make use of sea, road and various world topographical maps, collaged into intriguing hybrid pieces. Some of them are specifically influenced by the grid format of Milton Keynes, one of them turning MK into a rectangular island surrounded by sea. Another new work is a framed text piece, Index (Everywhere I've Ever Been), presented like a hoax index to an atlas, incorporating only places Curtis has been to in her lifetime.
Related review: Paul Usherwood, Alison Turnbull, Layla Curtis, Richard Wright, Art Monthly
Up North
Projection Window, Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK
15 - 22 April 2000
Layla Curtis was commissioned by Site Gallery to make a new work for their Projection Window.
1999
Mapping
AIAV, Akiyoshidai, Japan
9 - 10 January 1999
Layla Curtis will show new work made during her residency at Akiyoshidai international Art village
