AWE-TO
New work at 88 Gallery London
“William Waterhouse is a London-based British artist. Known mainly for his kinetic art, his work is process-led, and each piece results from an empirical process that draws on his immense talent as draughtsman, sculptor and mechanic. The hands-on, intuitive aspect of his method is key here, for no technical plans or drawings precede the creation of his artworks which grow without preconceived direction, the organic process vital to the life of each finished piece. “
“William’s work sparks immediate curiosity, and there is a joy and lightness about it that draws the viewer in. The way he plays with form, line and balance touches on something fundamental about perception, and the intricacy of the mechanical processes combined with the delicacy of the resulting choreography of lines, shapes and colours is riveting.”
“William has presented installations both in and out of the gallery context, at events and institutions as diverse as Tate Modern, an allotment shed in Peckham, the Bottle Factory (for London Design Week), a window of Selfridges and now at 88 Gallery London, and his work is attracting ever-increasing attention in the UK and internationally.”
words- 88 Gallery London
Show Opening Times
Monday - Friday 11 am - 6 pm
Saturday 11 am - 5 pm
1st December - 1st January
88 Pimlico Rd, London SW1W 8PL
11:11 curated by Jan Hendzel Studio. 2023 London Design Festival, as part of the Southwark Design District, Staffordshire St ,as part of the group show
showcase the works of 11 established designers, makers and artists, alongside 11 selected emerging artists from the local Southwark area. The exhibition title 11:11, takes cues from New Age and numerological beliefs in the numbers links to synchronicity, chance, new beginnings and opportunities for growth.
The 11 established designers participating in the exhibition are: A Rum Fellow, Alison Crowther, Charlotte Kingsnorth, Daniel Schofield, Grain & Knot, Jan Hendzel Studio, Martino Gamper, Novocastrian, Raw Edges, Sedilia, Simone Brewster and Raw Edges.
The 11 emerging designers are: Alison Adler, Carl Koch, Dominic McHenry, Jacob Marks, Mariangel Talamas Leal, Moss, Silje Loa, Söder Studio, Unu Sohn, William Waterhouse and Woo Jin Joo.
For more information about the exhibition follow this link.
Reading list available here.
click for more kintic works
view more Solenoid Drawings by following this link
CLUSTERCRAFT
OXO TOWER 2021
SOUTHSIDERS
Short documentaries from South East London
William Waterhouse’s intricate mechanical designs invite the viewer to reflect on balance and harmony. You may come across his recent work in a surprising Peckham setting. Part 5 of 8-episode series about artists, designers, makers and culture creators in SE London.
LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL
The Bottle Factory, London Design Festival , Permanent Temporary 2022
exhibiting as part of London Design Festival and Southwark south Design District , New Kinetic art works Were exhibited in an old industrial space The Bottle Factory of the Old Kent Rd. The Five New Kinetic Artworks Used Air to play with The movement of objects , The installation Was open for the duration of the weekend of the London Design Festival. four Floor standing Kinetic art works designed for gallery and living spaces were on display with a bespoke ceiling hung work made as site specific for the space , consisting of 21 coloured acetate squares the work hung 3.5 meters down from the apex of the roof .
(ive had) The Time Of My Life, A site specific Kinetic instillation , Hung in the Ceiling space of the Red Lion |Cafe as part of Deptford X in association with London Design Festival . The Installation comprised of 23 coloured squares giving life to the space much loved by its locals . The work is another piece in William warehouses AirPower machines series that harnesses the air pumped through the hollow structure of the objects.
Triangular Sandwich
Window 135
New Cross Road
London
SE145DJ
bringing new objects to the New Cross rd area of South East London , Made specifically for Window 135 window gallery. The sculptures , Part of Williams Air Powered Machines series Used Light Movement and shadows to create movement viable from the street , as well as a series of new Solinoid drawings displayed in the gallery space inside . this Instillation work helped inform the work in the Red Lion Cafe Later that year
SOLO EXHIBITION - KHANS - PECKHAM 2021
Accompanying Statement
“And Don’t forget to look up”
The work “And don’t forget to look up” is a kinetic sculpture by local artist William Waterhouse, the work on display is part of a series of works titled “Beaufort series” the work explores the control of movement using air, by making the structures from hollow tube the artist is able to pass air through the body and back out to atmosphere.
The artist is interested in how art sits with the everyday. The work has deliberately been placed out of the conventional gallery context. The spectator is unaware and focused on scouring the isles below - head down searching for conveniences, this makes the work suspended above easy to miss, the name “and don’t forget to look up “is an acknowledgment of the work being hard to find. Other than the name serving to sign post the sculpture, it can also be interpreted with much greater weight or meaning – the work alludes to much larger blind spots we need to confront as a society or even a species. Finally, the work gestures to the Art Deco ceiling below which it hangs, it’s a reminder that looking up is where so much of our cities rich architectural heritage can be found. In summary we all need to open our eyes.
Khans Bargains is a touchstone for local communities new and old, it appears to be everybody’s secret and the artist feels it’s well worth celebrating, “I wanted to be part of the triumphant endeavours of proprietor Akbar Khan in celebrating the rich heritage of our Cities Architecture. Akbar Khan and Benny O’Loony worked together to expose the Art deco ceiling above the shop floor”. The ceiling is of huge architectural value Designed by TP Bennet’s as HOLDRENS department store 1935, and It’s an important surviving example of Peckham art Deco Quarter. Nothing is forever. Head to the pickles in aisle 5 “and don’t forget to look up”.
Khans 135 Rye Ln, London SE15 4ST
Art deco ceiling rediscovered in Peckham – BBC London News
EPIC WIN
UAL 2020
Epic Win , kinetic drawing project , Wimbledon gallery , London 2020
Link to Wernergram archive
Accompanying Statement
by Clair Mitten
EPIC WIN is part of an on-going series of work by artist William Waterhouse, and is the result of a series of one-to-one “play dates” with colleagues and friends.
EPIC WIN aims to please and ask questions later. Low-fi, painted, MDF cut-outs form the building blocks of shanty structures destined to fall. A prescribed logic informs the activities carried out by the participants, allowing for a freedom within its constraints.
The work is unashamedly accessible, pandering to the spectator’s desire for stimulus, predictable outcomes and repetition. The work shares a language more recognisable to that found within the feed of a social media app or an “epic win compilation” on a video-streaming platform. Yet the tangible, analogue nature, and the overt presence of the architects of this compositional alchemy, ask the viewer to consider their relationship to the work in a way that Angry Birds does not.
In this latest work, the artist is focused on the presence of the figure in his films and to what extent the work will become a portrait of the collaborator and documentation of an event.
William Waterhouse (b.1981, England) is a multi-disciplinary artist and kinetic designer, producing installations, products, functional and non-functional objects in London. An alumnus of Wimbledon College of Arts, he graduated with BA Hons Fine Art Sculpture in 2004. William’s process is an empirical exploration of materials driven by a thirst for new techniques and logics. Movement and mechanisation characterise his work. His design ethos is driven by a simple, playful curiosity, an approach that has made him a frequent collaborator with other artists and design studios including James Plumb and The New Craftsmen.
Image: William Waterhouse, Epic Win, 2019.
words from the Reason For Being Campaign The New Craftsmen
If I really think about the situation we are in it seem surprising that we are making work at all, it seems quite illogical when the rest of my waking existence is spent asking questions like; how do I keep my family safe? Where’s the next food delivery coming from? How on earth do we educate our daughter? yet here I am repetitively blowing down a brass tube trying to control how a little bit of yellow fabric moves on the other end. Am I loosing the plot or is there some value in what I am doing over and over and over again? Am I working right now or is this play? I don’t know but when I achieve my goal of controlling the little bit of yellow fabric I am quite pleased with myself and when I show Flo she seems impressed also, so I guess its got some value. This is definitely the right thing to be doing for my sanity.
I make my way back to the house. Lu is upstairs in her studio printing with potatoes and kitchen cutlery? Could the isolation be getting to her too? Her prints are beautiful and they fill me with an energy, Lu’s been printing with our daughter all morning and it occurred to me how well our house is working together in isolation. There is a beautiful symbiosis forming, we teach our daughter how to be an adult and she teaches us how to be a child; or something along those lines. Lu and myself chat over our ideas for a while and decide to collaborate on making a chess set!! I will calve the pieces from a potato and bake them till they are varying shades of black and Lu will print the board on a piece of fabric (with a potato of course), we congratulate our selves on a productive morning and head down stairs to make biscuits with our daughter. She is standing on the chair in the living room watering her seedlings on the windowsill; I take my phone out to film the moment. I try to get the cellophane rainbow on the window in the shot for posterity. The rainbow has become a symbol of hope in these new times. I just hope we can hold on to some of the good bits.
Tate exchange 2018
Tate Exchange – Arts work of the Future is on 6-11 MARCH 2018 at Tate Modern, 5th Floor, Blavatnik Building, SE1 9TG. Opening hours are 12.00-6.00pm
Tate Exchange is an annual programme that brings together international artists and over 60 partners who work with visitors to take them on a journey of discovery into the different ways that art has become active over the last 60 years and how artists have changed our understanding of what art can be and what it can do.
To find out more about the the Digital Maker Collective’s involvement in the Tate Exchange visit the gallery’s webpages.
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