SELECTED WORKS BY Francis Upritchard
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Francis Upritchard
Save Yourself
2003
Mixed media
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Francis Upritchard’s Save Yourself plays on all the worst b-movie gags – unearthed beneath the gallery is an ‘ancient’ tomb devised by a Pharaoh with a very Ed Wood sense of humour. Her mummy-on-the-cheap (a mass of rags, with a knowing glass eye), unearthed with all his burial treasures – a bar of gold (pack of fags), and earthly treasures (kitschy teapots), comes replete with his own curse: vibrating spasmodically, he might actually be frightening if his electric cord wasn’t in plain view. |
Francis Upritchard
Sloth
2003
modelling material, fake fur, kid gloves, gold and silver rings, wood and glass cabinet
91 x 178 x 58 cm |
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Francis Upritchard’s Sloth looks like something gathering dust in the dark and creepy archives of the Natural History Museum. On closer inspection, it perhaps might have been hidden away for very good reason. Bejewelled, with all-too human hands, this seemingly long-dead relic is unlike anything in the known animal kingdom. Upritchard’s tampering with history again: she’s made a plausible missing link, a falsified curios, playing on horror-movie expectations of a collective consciousness. |
Francis Upritchard
Travellers Collection
2003
Mixed media
91 x 153 x 61 cm |
 
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Francis Upritchard is a doctor of contemporary voodoo. Borrowing her aesthetic from the kinds of weird and wonderful mementos treasured in archives like the Pitt River Museum and the Wellcome Collection, Upritchard forges a dark and twisted history of her own. Haunting and perverse, The Travellers Collection is a curio cabinet: it's shelves house the untold magic of grotesque clay pots, 'shrunken' animal heads (snarling real teeth!), bizarre instruments which seem to be carved (from possibly human!) bones.
A make-shift funerary chamber for her little mummy (with an all-seeing real glass eye), containing all the treasures he will need to accompany him to the afterlife. Upritchard's is an art of falsifying information. Appropriating readymade artefacts, hexing the viewer's imagination to wilfully reinterpret: a car boot sale cookie jar as a mysterious ancient urn, tacky tourist shop paraphernalia as prize trophies from a long lost empire. Upritchard's a magpie Indiana Jones: inventing creepies and curses from stuff that probably exists in your attic. |
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ARTIST INFORMATION
Francis Upritchard's BIOGRAPHY
1976
Born in New Zealand
Lives and works in London
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2005
Francis Upritchard, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
Solo project for Salon 94, New York
Francis Upritchard, The Bakery, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam,
Doomed, Doomed, All Doomed, Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand
2004
Artist in Residence, Camden Arts Centre, London
2003
Francis Upritchard, Kate MacGarry, London
New Work, Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
2001
Ich Dien, Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Untitled (Boxing arms), Rear View, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand
2000
Prince Charles, Antichrist, warehouse space, London
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2005
Hot Spots 05, The Essl Collection, Vienna
Brutal Ornamental, Galerie Kosak Hall, Vienna
Schmuck, with Karl Fritsch, Luitpold Lounge, Munich
The Way We Work Now, Camden Arts Centre, London
2004
The Secret History of Clay, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool
The Death of Romance, London
Ika and thanks for all the Ika, Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand
Albino, (with Rohan Whellans), Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
The Bart Wells Institute of London, Hamish McKay Gallery, New Zealand
New Blood, The Saatchi Gallery, London
Prospect, Wellington City Art Gallery & Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2003
Becks Futures, ICA London, Southampton City Art Gallery, & CCA Glasgow
Curiosity Kills the Gab, Artspace, Auckland
Peter Blake Sculpture, The London Institute, London
Lost Collection, Laing Gallery, Newcastle
Picture Room curated by Goshka Macuga, Gasworks, London
Rollout, curated by Ricky Swallow, Karen Lovegrove Gallery, Los Angeles
Bart Wells Institute, Kapinos Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2002
+64, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
Another Shitty Day in Paradise, Bart Wells Institute, London
Break, Govett-Brewster, New Plymouth, New Zealand
The Only Way Forward, Neon Gallery, London
2001
The Bart Wells Gang, Bart Wells Institute, London
Group show, Neon Gallery, London
Enough Or Too Much, Shop Tactics Gallery, London
Teeth & Trousers, Cell Project Space, London
2000
Outcome of Probability: Francis Upritchard and Saskia Leek, Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Stuffed, Stuff Gallery, London
1999
Hobby Core, Stripp Gallery, curated by Ricky Swallow, Melbourne, Australia
1998
Group show, Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1997
Bland, George Fraser Gallery Auckland, New Zealand
An Attic and Two Rooms, Deans’ House, Historic Trust, Christchurch, New Zealand
Rutherford was a Teenage Sculptor, Science Alive, Christchurch, New Zealand
Accidents, Hungry Eyes Series, Fiat Lux Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1996
Identikit Series, High Street Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
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