Christopher Gray has been awarded the XL Catlin Art Prize 2016 for his film Death by Chair winning 拢5,000. Jamie Fitzpatrick has won the Visitor Vote, taking away 拢2,000.
Gray鈥檚 work explores the simultaneous fear and fascination evoked by violence. Set in a medieval torture chamber, Death by Chair utilises hand puppets made from latex chicken skin in order to replicate human flesh. Gray states: 鈥渙nce you put violence in a different context, you become sensitive to it again鈥. Death by Chair is an attempt to contextualise violence in a sensitive-evoking way. Gray also comments: 鈥渟ociety to a large extent has become de-sensitised to violence鈥 and audiences are led to question why worse levels of violence in cinema don鈥檛 disturb viewers as much as the puppet violence depicted in Death by Chair.
Jamie Fitzpatrick鈥檚 (loudly) chomp, chomp, chomp features a series of moving sculptures satirising and reworking statues around London. These look at the rhetoric of image making and how totemic monuments, flags, statues and plinths are used to impose power, authority and control.
The XL Catlin Art Prize 2016 was curated by Justin Hammond and decided by a panel of three judges: former Turner Prize nominee Mark Tichner; Senior Curator of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Helen Phelby PhD; and founder and director of Carlos/Ishikawa, Vanessa Carlos. The prize, celebrating its tenth year, gives the most promising UK art graduates an opportunity to realise new projects and showcase their work. All finalists were selected from the annual XL Catlin Art Guide for their outstanding quality of work and their potential to impact the art world over the next decade.
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Credits:
1. Christopher Gray, Death Chair. Installation view. Courtesy of XL Catlin Prize.聽
