15 March 2012

 

For Trade's second exhibition in the series 'Short Sharp Blow to the Head..,', Yelena Popova presents a new video 'Particulate Matter', conceived during her Red Mansion residency in Beijing, and a collection of paintings by local amateur artist J.W. Hill (Grandad Bill Hill).

The exhibition reflects on our industrial past and the uneasy interrelationship between both East and West and Capitalism and Communism in the global economy. Past, present and improbable future come together, raising complex moral questions about the absence of independent trade unions in China, the nature of social progress and organisation in relation to the environment, climate change and economic expansion.

Grandad Hill's paintings of collieries and lone cottages represent a familiar local industrial history - a personal account of his life in the Nottinghamshire landscape. Bill Hill was born in 1920, and his life spans a period in which the number of mines in Britain has gone from 170 (The start of the miners' strike in March 1984) to just a handful of functioning mines.

Yelena Popova is a Russian born artist, living and working in Nottingham at Primary Studios. Yelena graduated from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2011. She was awarded the Red Mansion Prize and residency in Beijing, China (September 2011).

Yelena's painting installation was exhibited at New Sensations in London (October 2011) and her film 'Unnamed' was screened at Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011 at the ICA, London and in Sheffield. Yelena also took part in Moscow Young Artists' Biennale in 2008 and 2010.