From the Kitchen Table
Drew Gallery Projects 1984-90

Do you remember a 60 foot pink ladder on the hill and burning match-stick heads along Canterbury’s high street? Or perhaps strange structures floating along the River Stour and artists welding in the street?

Throughout the 1980s Australian curator Sandra Drew staged a series of ground-breaking exhibitions in locations around Canterbury, inhabiting unusual public sites such as the cathedral crypt, theatres, empty shop units, the bustling high-street and a graveyard; all orchestrated from the epicentre of Sandra’s kitchen table in her family home, under the guise of Drew Gallery Projects.

Drew Gallery Projects existed to support artists in the early stages of their careers, often experimenting with new media and installation, which didn’t resemble what was broadly accepted as ‘sculpture’ at the time (video, found objects, photography, installation, performance and text). Sandra has, until now, remained a significant yet overlooked figure in the history of British Contemporary Art.

This major touring exhibition, curated by CGP London’s Director Judith Carlton, brings together original and related works from these ambitious and impactful shows and source material from the Drew Gallery Projects archive; gifted to and digitised by UCA, Canterbury, to be enjoyed by generations of artists past and present, for many years to come.

The exhibitions across Canterbury, Folkestone and London during 2018-19, their expanded public programme and accompanying publication, celebrates Sandra Drew’s visionary legacy to a whole new generation, a career that has remained modestly observed and yet passionately championed by those artists, students and communities who directly benefited from Drew’s revolutionary curatorial spirit during the 80s and 90s.

The new CGP London publication, From the Kitchen Table, will be launched on the opening night of the Herbert Read exhibition, and features essays by UCA Head of School of Fine Art Dr Terry Perk; artist Sharon Kivland; John Carson, artist and Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University (Art Angel Production Director 1986-91); Thalia Allington-Wood and Edward Chell, artist and Reader in Fine Art at UCA Canterbury. An insightful collection of 40 Artists Voices are included in the publication; providing participating artists’ testimonies throughout this invigorating period of contemporary art.

TOURING EXHIBITION INFORMATION:

Herbert Read Gallery, UCA Canterbury, CT1 3AN
6 October – 9 November 2018
Private view, Book Launch and Film screening: 5 October 2018, 5-8pm

Brewery Tap UCA Project Space, 53 Tontine Street, Folkestone CT20 1JR
16 November - 9 December 2018
Private view and artist talk: 15 November 2018, 5-8pm
www.facebook.com/events/254172548617749

CGP London, Southwark Park, London SE16 2UA
(The Gallery & Dilston Grove)
16 May - 30 June 2019
Private view: 12 May 2019, 3-6pm
www.cgplondon.org

EVENTS PROGRAMME:

In Conversation:
Laura Ford and David Mach with Katie McGown
Sidney Cooper Gallery, 22-23 St Peter’s Street, Canterbury CT1 2BQ
18 October 2018, 6-7.30pm

Symposium: From the Kitchen Table
Including film screening of ‘Almost Out’ by Jayne Parker
Speakers including Karen Di Franco, Kay Watson and Katharine Meynell
Cragg Lecture Theatre, UCA Canterbury, New Dover Road, Canterbury, Kent CT1 3AN
2 November 2018, 10am-4pm 

Bonita Ely in Conversation with Jennifer Thatcher
Brewery Tap UCA Project Space, 53 Tontine Street, Folkestone, Kent CT20 1JR
Thursday 15 November, 5-6pm
Private view continues 6-8pm

For more information, additional images or to arrange an interview with Sandra Drew please contact: Georgie Scott, Project Co-ordinator: georgina.scott@uca.ac.uk

Notes:

Find out more about the Drew Gallery Projects archive here.

The accompanying publication FROM THE KITCHEN TABLE: Drew Gallery Projects 1984-90 is edited by Sandra Drew and Georgie Scott. It is available for purchase at each exhibition and via CGP London’s website.

The publication includes:

FOREWORD Professor Terry Perk
INTRODUCTION Judith Carlton, Director of CGP London
THE EDGE OF ACCEPTABILITY John Carson
“YOU COULDN’T DO THIS IN LONDON!” A conversation between Sandra Drew and Terry Perk
REFLECTIONS ON AN (‘ARCHIVE’) Edward Chell
WOMEN’S SCULPTURE IN THE 1980S AND THE DREW GALLERY PROJECTS Thalia Allington-Wood
A PROMENADE Sharon Kivland

ARTISTS’ VOICES Judith Ahern, Phyllida Barlow, Hamish Black, Sarah Bradpiece, John Cobb, Jody Culkin, Mark Dunhill, Catherine Elwes, Bonita Ely, Rose English, Laura Ford, Hamish Fulton, Shelby Fitzpatrick, Neville Gabie, Rose Garrard, Bruce Gilchrist, Adrian Hall, Jason Hartcup, David Haste, Andy Hazell, Wendy Howard, Tina Keane, Rob Kesseler, Sharon Kivland, David Mach, Euphemia MacTavish, Katharine Meynell, Joanna Mowbray, Jayne Parker, Richard Rome, Mira Schor, Kumiko Shimizu, Maryrose Sinn, Yoko Terauchi, Marion Urch, Alison Wilding, Maeve Woods, Julia Wood, Ellen Woolf, Jerilea Zempel.

This project has been generously supported by the University for the Creative Arts; Arts Council England; Kent County Council; The Henry Moore Foundation; Canterbury Festival; LUX; CGP London; Southwark Council; Sidney Cooper Gallery and Whitstable Biennale.