The Wildboys Are:
SAM BASU
Sam Basu presents an odd anthropology. He's an obsessive inventor of worlds that don't exist, a heroic explorer in his own mind. Each piece is like an antiquated souvenir, reminiscent of artistic mis-documentation of exploratory ventures. Basu presents models of impossible landscapes, technologies, and wildlife. Rocket-ships, lava palaces, volcanoes, and crustacean aberrations are moulded from dripped candle wax; his drawings show a raw primal urgency, like artefacts from a groovy ancient race. Precious beyond compare, Basu's works are a rare aboriginal collection, deliciously primordial, like gems in the rough.
OLOF BJORNSDOTTIR
Woolenmaiden is Olof Bjornsdottir's alter-ego. Gaining her super-hero strength from wool, Woolenmaiden is easily recognisable by her horrific femme-beast appearance: scraggly hair and monstrous teeth, woollen mini-skirt a nd cardigan, tall wool socks, always stuffed into 6 inch fuck-me pumps. Hailing from the Land of Woolenmaidens, she is only one of a species of her kind, based on a bizarre combination of the wicked mother the Icelandic Santa Claus, Gryla, and Icelandic writer Porbergur Pogarson. In this world, Woolenmaiden's arrival somewhat resembles the dissension of a religious messenger: toting herWoolenmaiden Manifesto, ingenuously titled "The Way to Salvation," from which she preaches her dogmatic opinions which vary from uber-feminism, the hatred of pets, and the absolute power of creation. Creation is Woolenmaiden's message to us all: only through free thinking and actions can the world be a better place.
DAVID BURROWS
Deep in their darkest hearts everyone wants to be a hitman. David Burrows makes 2 dimensional crime scenes out of paper. Lush large format photos show off an orgy of gore and evidence. Party Like It's 1999 is a gala-gone-wrong extravaganza: a goulash of blood and bullet holes, pizza vomit, empty wine bottles and cindering flames all in tribute to a photo of footballer David Beckham (disfigured in way only the mind of a true sicko could muster). Burrow's interest in botany, however, is entirely inspired by OJ Simpson and Carl Andre. Flower Spill (Scatter Piece) is a decadent blood-splattered floral memento of sympathy made from vinyl, plastic and foam; but it's unclear if the sentiment is for the dead wives or their famous murder suspects.
BRIAN CYRIL GRIFFITH
Epic doesn't even infringe upon Brian Cyril Griffith's notion of the romantic. Taking his cues from utopian epitomes, Griffith recreates scenes of the sublime: exact replicas of NASA's control room, lush desert islands, a knight on a rearing steed in a Casper David Frederich-ish landscape. His is the softer side of macho-heroism, entirely constructed from found materials: paper, cardboard boxes, garbage bins, plastic bargain store goods. It's a labour intensive process, creating life-sized pageants of fancy. Griffith presents a heroic accomplishment, a visionary engineering his dreams of escapism.
BEN JUDD
Ben Judd is the worst pornographer ever. His collection of un-sexy work is the world seen through the fictive eyes of an impotent sex-obsessive. A seasoned regular of hire-by-the-hour back-street photo studios, his smutty snaps of not-so-beautiful women in bizarre real porn settings just don't do it. His videos range from the chronicles of a disinterested stalker are horrifically tragicomic: watching girls come off an aeroplane at Heathrow, whilst muttering his faux-memories of them when they all used to be his girlfriends; videotaping women on the street, and replacing their faces for the camera lens with paper cut outs of the heads of women he finds much more attractive, say, Cindy Sherman for example. Judd's latest forays have been in the direction of the more romantic: Cliched 70s couples frolic in the misty rain, which eventually becomes apparent to be a sheet of ice being waved over an illustrated self-help book; disjointed romantic poetry is read to images of lush tropical jungles, which later turn out to be footage shot in the lizard terrarium at the London zoo. Judd's is the ultimate head-fuck: he makes you want to think about sex, but you just can't do it.
ULLI KNALL
Bravely going where no man has gone before, Ulli Knall populates her parallel universe with classical ceramic sculptures of a unique species of space aliens known as Shapeshifters. Knall plays the role of a crazed biologist, inventing the rules of Shapeshifting as she goes along. Shapeshifters in their pure essence are liquid, but they can form into mass in any shape they like (usually in the image of Knall's close friends or favoured celebrities). They are generally distinctive due to their lack of hair. However, it's been discovered that on their home planet (the landscape is oddly similar to the Scottish Highlands where Knall vacationed last summer), these beings usually take the form of fat bellied sex icons with outrageous coifs. Photos from Knall's latest invention, the Gamma-Cam, give some of the best documentation of a foreign life-forms known on Earth.
CEDAR LEWISOHN
Anarchy is all the rage; Bad-boy Cedar Lewisohn is kicking ass. Lewisohn is notorious for his situational art: choreographing boxing matches to electro music, a scary basement sound installation blaring the prequel argument to an unsettling domestic scene, and taking out a full page magazine ad to publish his mother as the only (and therefore the greatest) Black woman in the trendy art magazine Freize. His irreverently street-smart abstract paintings make the leap from his subversive career as hip-hop DJ and graffiti aficionado into white cube gallery cool; titles read like teenage birthday party aftermath: Inhale Lighter Fluid, Cheap Buzz, and Take Two and Pass Out. Trading in paint for pen-knife and glue, Lewisohn\rquote s techno collaged designs are a blinding MTV blend of coloured paper, magic marker, and day-glo sales labels. As Lewisohn says: It's "ultraviolet-bubble-gum-abstraction for a crack-crazed Pokamon nation that can no longer distinguish between video-games and what they put in picture frames." In-ya-face.
CAROLINE McCARTHY
Caroline McCarthy is all super-subtle. Finding the weirdest coincidences, McCarthy goes to the ends of the earth to present things that aren\rquote t exactly what they seem. Safari-ing through the pubs of South London to find potato chips the exact same size and shape of luxury Beverly Hills swimming pools she\rquote d clipped from lifestyle magazines; painstakingly hand-painting empty milk bottles, converting their appearance to suggest that of digital video cameras; and attacking Dublin's castle-like Trinity College with hundreds of suction-tipped arrows. Her project in Albania will be high-art survivalism: Filling her luggage with the ultimate necessity (toilet paper), she'll create a juicy and luscious still-life sculpture from that thing needed most.
SASKIA OLDE WOLBERS
Saskia Olde Wolbers is the biggest gossip. She always has the latest on everything : from the smallest local story on the late night news to the tawdriest quip from the seediest tabloids. For Olde Wolbers real-life fodder is 100% pure melodrama; she re-weaves it into an epic saga of human interest and contemporary legend. Hollywood power plays, artificial insemination, iron curtain dating agencies, and virtual reality junkies all play a part in her futuristic styled videos. Olde Wolbers is manufacturing the most intricate current affair soap operas. In her latest video, Kilowatt Dynasty, the story of an unborn child's conception is told to the back drop of the building of the Three Gorges dam in China, and the establishment of the world's first underwater home-shopping network, and a crazed eco-warrior hostage taking. Seemingly computer manipulated perfection, the underwater city is actually a set constructed in miniature with pain-staking detail: filmed with a tiny camera from the insides vegetable oil bottles submersed in a wading pool.
LISA PRIOR
Lisa Prior is one glamorous Wall Street Babe. She's got it all: the pent-house suite, the stock portfolio, a big money job at a blue chip co., and a personal credit line at Ann Demeulemeester. But look out boys - all of this is one carefully constructed Man-Trap. Prior's a.priori corporation is a self-started empire of which she is chairman and under which she markets her grand art schemes from shoe and furniture design, sexy corporate wear; and orchestrates mass art market corruption with secret exhibitions. She's also established The a.priori Fund, a stock portfolio whose profits are allocated to the purchase of art works. The documentary edge of the small-town girl conquering the Big City is laid out in her endless series of made-for-tv biographies. Shot in true Ruby Wax style these news briefs tackle every topic valuable to the single professional woman: psycho-analysis, penis envy, flirting, and how to snag a rich man. So, guys, if you're out there and between 25-45 with marriage on your mind, email your photo, CV, pedigree, and references to a.priori@virgin.net.
NEIL RUMMING
Where biology meets rock n' roll, Neil Rumming is the king. Collaging the most dream-like utopias from back-issues of National Geographic, Rumming uses only the most exotic flowers, starry skies, lush jungles, and phantasmal waterfalls to create his impossible vacation destinations. His poster-style paintings however are all tattoo-dazzling designer gore. Cross sectioning a variety of human and wild-life forms, Rumming paints their insides with groovy techno patterns, derived from an uncanny blend of fashion patterns and anatomical photos. Rendered to almost photo-quality, Rumming's images are a science in themselves. When it comes to beautiful, it just doesn't get any better than this.
BOB & ROBERTA SMITH
Bob & Roberta Smith is an armchair celebrity junkie. From casting vegetables to look like bizarre fertility fetishes, accumulating the record collections of dead people, to painting all of his possessions orange, Smith serves up a home-brew recipe for suc cess: Fame comes from just doing something better than everybody else. His billboard paintings are all hand-made sloppy, letters cut out of coloured paper, his celebrity slogans often riddled with typos, Smith spreads an over-the-back-fence kind of gossip that's so banal it's worthy of our own lives: FOR WEEKS JIM SHAW TRIED TO BORROW HELP ON VIDEO BUT KILIMNICK HAD IT. KEEP IT SHE SAID, THE BEATLES ARE SHIT ANYWAYS. Layed back hip, and intrinsically more-ish, Smith's superstardom begins at home.}