Artists
Iris Priest
Images by Iris Priest
Iris Priest is an artist, writer and facilitator concerned with discourse, the cross-pollination of ideas and critique of institutional taxonomies and ideologies.
In 2011 she founded CANNED magazine – a quarterly publication of art and cultural criticism edited and published through The NewBridge Project where she currently holds a studio. Iris has worked extensively with artists and arts organisations throughout the North East and for journals including Corridor8, Artists Newsletter and this is tomorrow. In 2012 Iris was a recipient of Northumbria University’s AA2A residency and her visual work has been featured in both Art Review and Frieze Magazine.
Artist Statement for Returning to the Philosophers’ Table:
“We must not forget that an object is the best messenger of a world above that of nature: one can easily see in an object at once a perfection and an absence of origin, a closure and a brilliance, a transformation of life into matter (matter is much more magical than life), and in a word ‘silence’ which belongs to the realm of fairy tales”
Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1972)
In Returning to the Philosophers’ Table I am interested in how the objects gifted to the early Literary and Philosophical society can be unearthed and re-examined in a post-disciplinary space where significance and explanation is manifold and mutable.
For the exhibition in June I will be presenting an audio work which offers a playful, open approach to history and poetic-archaeological interpretations of the Lit & Phil’s original collection of objects as a means to invite a reimagining and a re-enchantment of these objects and their potential narratives.
Her work can be found at:
https://soundcloud.com/iris-aspinall-priest