Wysing Arts Centre’s exhibition The Fifth Artist, features new work by Alice Theobald, Olivier Castel, Jesse Darling, and Crabtree & Evans who were in-residence together at Wysing in the autumn of 2014, working within the theme of The Future.

Throughout their period in-residence the artists lived together in Wysing’s farmhouse during the dark months and shortened days of November and December 2014. During this intense period, away from the city and its routine of toil and commerce, they worked independently in studios, coming together for evening meals and occasional trips out.

A ghost story, recounted early in their residency, created a part-believed, part-ridiculed ripple throughout conversations, continuing even into post-residency as the story’s mythology continued to evolve.

The slippage between fiction and reality becomes intensified during times like this; an unusual situation to be located within, sharing a home and thoughts with a group strangers brought together by a person, or persons, also unknown to them. This heightened intensity became part of the residency day-to-day; moving across the unlit site, in and out of artificial light and intense darkness, from studio to house, occasional visits to the city and back again. Perhaps it is unsurprising that the phantom of The Fifth Artist emerged as a symbol of an unknown presence, and also perhaps a liminal space; a threshold.

The Fifth Artist is the title of this exhibition but the act of naming, giving it material form, also makes it a contributor to the exhibition. The Fifth Artist is the unknown and the unknowable, the shadows without, the oppressiveness of an uncertain future and also perhaps an enquiry into the condition of being human.

The Fifth Artist
24 May – 5 July 2015
Exhibition launch: Saturday 23 May, 6-8 pm
Wysing Arts Centre
Fox Road
Bourn, Cambridge CB23 2TX

Transport from Cambridge train station for exhibition launch is available. Booking essential.
For more information