Southwark Park Galleries’ exhibition programme launches this spring with a major new interdisciplinary installation by internationally renowned choreographer & visual artist Florence Peake. Peake will present a monumental painting installation using her distinctive gestural, movement-marking techniques and a series of durational performances.
FACTUAL ACTUAL: Ensemble is co-commissioned by Southwark Park Galleries, London and Towner Eastbourne, in partnership with Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, where the exhibition will tour later in 2023 and 2024.
In Lake Gallery, one continuous 45m long, floor-to-ceiling frieze-style painting, Ensemble, envelops the gallery’s walls and the viewer. Respected for her queer approach and non-hierarchical process, Peake often works with a multitude of collaborators. This new painting was created through a series of workshops held at Southwark Park Galleries in November 2022. Working with some of our regular community groups – over 55s, young people and families – participants were invited to mark the canvas with Peake through their collective movements, which Peake then further developed in her studio over a period of three months.
Re-interpreting and expanding on a performance at the National Gallery in 2021, FACTUAL ACTUAL will respond to the high vaulted ceiling of Dilston Gallery exhibiting seven towering paintings on unstretched canvases that levitate above a mirrored lake-like dance floor. The canvases will be draped like carcasses, waiting to be animated. Five dancers using a rig and pulley system will hoist, lower, collapse, fold and drag the paintings in four-hour durational performances. Shifting between flat and sculptural forms, the paintings create a cacophony of sound, a sea-like sonic soundscape live in the gallery.
This touring commission is made possible with thanks to Arts Council England, Cockayne - Grants for the arts, London Community Foundation and The Paul and Louise Cooke Endowment.
16 April - 2 July 2023
Preview: 15 April, 12-5pm with drinks reception 3-5pm
Performances: 15 April, 29 April, 27 May, 10 June, 12-4pm
Biography:
Florence Peake (b. 1973, based in London) works internationally and across the UK in galleries, theatres and the public realm.
Recent exhibitions and performances have been presented at: British Art Show 9, a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition shown across 12 venues in the cities of Aberdeen, Wolverhampton, Manchester and Plymouth (2021-22); Arsenic Theatre and Sudpol Theatre, Switzerland (2020); 58th Venice Biennale (2019); CRAC Occitanie, Sète, France (2018); London Contemporary Music Festival (2018); Bosse & Baum, London (2019); De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2018); Palais De Tokyo, Paris, France (2018); Hayward Gallery, London (2018); Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge (2017); Studio Leigh, London (2017); Sara Zanin Gallery, Rome, Italy (2017); Serpentine, London (2016); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2016); ICA, London (2016); Modern Art Oxford (2016); BALTIC, Newcastle (2013); Frieze, London (2013); and Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2012).
Peake has an Advanced Teaching Certificate in Skinner Releasing Technique (2011); an MA in Contemporary Performance Making, (Distinction), Brunel University (2007-09); and Diploma in Dance, Lewisham College (1992-94).
Peake is represented by Richard Saltoun Gallery, London.
