Quilos and the Windmill present - The Prospector
Private View and artists' talk: Thursday 28th August - 6pm to 9pm
Exhibition Continues: 25th – 31st August 2014
‘Equipped with all kinds of gadgets, some of them useless, a prospector comes west’
Mule Machine (2013)
44AD is pleased to announce the forthcoming event:
Quilos and the Windmill present 'The prospector'. For one week only, our Georgian house will be inhabited by the duo Quilos and the Windmill, artist explorers who, travelling light, use whatever they find on their journeys as starting points for humorous and ingenious structures, images, sounds and performances.
Established in 2011, Quilos and the Windmill is a metaphorical site of activity where the two artists collaborate to push their practice without inhibition into new intellectual spaces and places. Their assumed name represents an imaginary artists' studio without walls, an international and boundless space, an experimental space where any thought or action is fully considered. This way of working fosters a creativity that explores relations between spaces: architectural, landscape, formal, informal, actual and imaginal. Drawing from a range of disciplines (including painting, drawing, sculpture, printing, photography, video and writing), as each new work grows it unravels divisions between reality and illusion, action and thought.
A new work usually begins as a small idea, a mundane shape, word, object, sound, action or pattern that might normally go unnoticed, but for Quilos and the Windmill its very ordinariness will be the starting point for a creative journey. Their obsessive methodology - based on chance, play and repetitive activities - involves collecting, reworking, undoing and redoing; the results coming together as an expansive, physical space - a spectacle or tableau.
Mutata (2013)
Quilos and the Windmill investigate ways of existing as artists between spaces here and there, and between times then and now. In imagined and real situations, they work with whatever is to hand wherever and whenever they land: strands and fragments of material, objects, actions, events and memories. In this way ‘realandimagined’ spaces may be discovered in some of the most ordinary and lesser things.
Their work may be read in relation to specific historic and cultural events whilst also hinting at more personal memories and feelings that are explored in the making. The Prospector entered their story while foraging for material in the thrift shops of Saugatuck Michigan (during their joint residency at Oxbow, affiliated with the School of the Arts Institute Chicago in 2013).
On flicking through American history books, the duo came across a small image with the caption:
'equipped with all kinds of gadgets, some of them useless, a prospector comes west'.
This seemed appropriate to their situation and so began the journey that is presented at 44AD.
Quilos and the Windmill adopt different persona depending on where they are and who and what they encounter, which means they are not tied to a particular heritage, gender, age, or time. This freedom means they can appropriate and mix up elements on a whim; their anonymity freeing them up to be nomads, psycho-geographers, playmates and story tellers. Adopting the gaze of the explorer, they cross real and imaginary boundaries, often getting lost and entering dangerous territories, their curiosity pushing them on.
Inspired by writers like Jorge Louis Borges, they are fascinated by fictional beings, human or otherwise, and their most recent work involves building a character and story around the found image of the prospector, building him a 'mule machine' that served as both transport and shelter; a scattered fragmented structure that filled the gallery alongside a smoking fire, thunder storms, an abandoned railroad and giant projected silhouettes of the galleon that carried him to the Americas.
During their Oxbow residency they also wandered deep inside the Michigan forest, tried to become feral, foraging for things that might start another story - another cog in their art machine.
Many of these creations remain at Oxbow in the cabins deep in the forest, aside the lagoon or in the big house, and much has now been remade differently back in England; the original ideas serving as starting points for the environment that you will encounter in the very different, almost genteel space of the Georgian house in Bath.
Gingham Tree (2013) - in the collection of Mary Ann Monforton NY USA.
Quilos and the Windmill will be in residence from 25th August, building their installation which will include: a video performance, structures, paintings, painted objects, sound, text and other creations, and especially for this event have joined forces with Chicago pop artist Peter Mars who they met during their Oxbow residency. Since October 2013 the three artists have been sharing ideas and collaborating long distance and now the collection is ready to come together for the first time 'in the flesh' at 44AD before heading back west to Chicago. They have also commissioned a small oil painting of one of the prospector's dearest possessions by UK artist Connor Ragus.
The Prospector's Drawings (2013)
The house will be open for visitors during the artists' residency between 12 am and 5 pm, and there will be a private view on 28th August 2014 at 6pm when Quilos and the Windmill will be pleased to engage in conversation with visitors about the work and their experiences. They will give a short talk that evening.
Quilos and the Windmill:
Michele Whiting, PhD&
Linda Khatir, PhD
Q&W always value making connections, so if you would like to contact them or arrange a studio visit please email: