Exhibitions
Future / Present / Past
Sunderland Arts and Culture Trail 2024
6th July 2024 - 21st July 2024
Part of a group exhibition held at 17Nineteen - Holy Trinity Church, Sunderland.
Sunderland Arts and Culture Trail brings together local artists, businesses, and cultural points of interest in a self-guided walking tour of one of the North East's finest cities.
This free event, hosted by local businesses and cultural venues, offers the opportunity to experience some of the region's finest contemporary artists and performers.
MA Fine Art Degree Show 2023
23rd September - 29th September 2023
Group Exhibition of MA Visual Practice (Fine Art) and MA Visual Practice (Photography) students held at The Priestman Buliding, Sunderland.
Sunderland Art Trail - Only In Caves
23rd September - 29th September 2023
Group Exhibition at the Abject Gallery, as part of an art trail held in different venues around Sunderland.
Sunderland Arts and Culture Trail brings together local artists, businesses, and cultural points of interest, in a self-guided walking tour of one of the North East's finest cities.
This free event, gives you the opportunity to experience some of the regions finest contemporary artists and performers, hosted by local businesses and cultural venues and guides you around some of the city's rich heritage.
Big Art Show
31st August - 18th November 2023
Group exhibition by Outspoken Arts. Taking place over three floors in The Art Department, Paisley, Glasgow.
This is the second Big Art Show to take place. It is held within a shopping centre and has over 1600 artworks on display. A must-see exhibition that I hope continues to be an anual event.
Now That's What I Call Art 3
7th - 22nd July 2023
Group Exhibition created by System Gallery and Spaghetti Factory. Held at The Auxiliary, Middlesbrough.
This might be the third Now That’s What I Call Art, but it is its first time in Middlesbrough. It is the collaboration of Spaghetti Factory and System Gallery, two North East artist-run projects.
This group exhibition features one artwork (or set of artworks) from 74 artists at all stages.
Now That's What I Call Art 2
6th April - 29th April 2023
Group Exhibition created by System Gallery and Spaghetti Factory. Held at Newcastle Contemporary Art.
'Now That’s What I Call Art 2 wants to foster collaboration between artists. This is in the understanding that collaboration makes everybody a novice as it requires work within each other’s discipline / practice. As such, collaboration enables us to act with resourcefulness and generosity.'
Digital images created using AI software.
/SLab AI
March 2023
A group exhibition based on artificial intelligence. Presented in the Priestman Gallery, Sunderland.
Above Chains Worm is a digital print I created using a set of words inputted to AI software. The words 'above chains worm' are the What3Words location the print was on display. The other words inputted were what I would use to describe my own work - 'bright bold geometric abstract artwork'.
Kitsch 22 - MA Degree Show
September 2022
As part of the University of Sunderland MA Visual Practice Degree Show 2022, I displayed some of my work alongside graduating students. I am half way through my degree and will graduate in October 2023.
Please find the exhibition catalogue here:
Big Art Show, Paisley
26th August - 26 November 2022
I Won't Lie is part of a display of almost 1000 works of art. The exhibition is held at the Big Art Show at The Art Department in Paisley, Scotland. This large-scale group exhibition has been put on by Outspoken Arts.
Flash Flood Of Colour - Hills Arts Centre
19th April - 27th June 2022
This exhibition is the first solo show Backgroundcamel has had.
It is comprised of a collection of pre-existing artwork, all using fluorescent colours on butler finish aluminium composite.
Hills Arts Centre is based at 17-18 Waterloo Place, Sunderland , SR1 3HT. It is home to Grinder Coffee Co of which you have to pass through the gallery space to access. This makes the work more accessible to the public than most private galleries would.
Perfect for Backgroundcamel's work!
This opportunity came from an open call for emerging artists 30+ from Norfolk Street Arts CIC.
Although the exhibition has ended, it can be viewed digitally here:
Make Social Honey - Exhibition Takeover
11th April - 2nd May 2022
University of Sunderland, School of Art and Design's Exhibition Takeover of Vinca Petersen's Make Social Honey - A Collective Search For Joy at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in The National Glass Centre, Sunderland.
This artwork was created specifically for this exhibition as part of the takeover. Themes from the exhibition were used to create the painting. The hexagon shape that features in Vinca Petersen's exhibition was used to create the pattern. Bright colours were used to reflect the feeling of joy to the viewer. The title of the artwork, 'My Head Is Like A Carousel', is a lyric taken from a song entitled Happy Song by Bring Me The Horizon. There is also an abstract interpretation of the chemical structure of serotonin within the image.
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Now That's What I Call Art
Dec 2021-Jan 2022
Group Exhibition created by System Gallery and Spaghetti Factory. Held at Newcastle Contemporary Art (used to be Baltic 69).
'Art and culture should be the common property of everyone, and so the opportunity to shape it should be treated as a fundamental human right. The galleries which house it should present themselves as public, democratic spaces. This is not an ‘open call’; it is an ‘open invitation’. We are excited to see the exhibition transform from an empty white box to a shifting gathering of artworks, ideas and processes.'
Open Fragment
April 2021 - Ongoing
Online group exhibition. Coming from all over the world, the artworks are exhibited in the pink, virtual forest where the visitors encounter these images on a tree, a bush, a rock.
My work (Right Now, I Feel Each & Every Fragment) can be found at 105.
The work is an abstract, digital piece based on the faces of people the artist missed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lit with UV light.
Light:Space Art Trail
8th-27th March 2021
Light:Space is a collaboration of the Wellington Square shopping centre, ARC, Stockton on Tees, and
Wild Vision Collective.
Light:Space brings light and hope in the pandemic and brightens up the darkest time of year, by using the windows of empty shops in Stockton on Tees and ARC, to create an Art Trail of works that use light, video and movement.
Backgroundcamel's window piece, I Don't Need An Excuse, was a site-specific work created to bring light and hope to people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
'Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light.' - Professor Albus Dumbledore
Quintessential
2010
Framed pen & ink sketches in a group exhibition held at Studio Q, Nile Street, Sunderland.
Eclectic
2009
'What Do You See When You Turn Out The Light?...' - full room installation with mirrored floor, light show and sound.
Group exhibiton / Degree Show
WAC 09
2009
'I Hope You Die' and 'Lozenge Composition with Red, Black, Blue, and Yellow (Extended Remix)' - two canvas paintings in a group exhibition held in Arts Centre, Washington.
![Horizons [Prototype]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e36b1f_4ea7e545df024fdcb7d45ba7ea61ae5c~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_735,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Horizons%20%5BPrototype%5D.jpg)
![Horizons [Prototype]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e36b1f_3c5704f2fbc041a4a94bd97d08c531f0~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_1307,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Horizons%20%5BPrototype%5D.jpg)
AV Festival 08
2008
'Horizons [Prototype]' - window projection, light show and sound.
'Any major festival in the north east becomes an important opportunity for creative practitioners in the region to display their work, with a multitude of fringe events organised throughout the festival period. One such event, held outside Sunderland's Reg Vardy Gallery was a particularly pleasing chance encounter. Horizons [prototype] by Ben Gilchrist displayed an expertly choreographed series of coloured projections through the windows on the pathway outside the main gallery space. Moving in perfect synchronisation to a piece of 8-bit chiptune music by Sabrepulse, that was reminiscent of old commodore computer soundtracks, the piece was an unexpected pleasure, and a work that beautifully gelled into the curatorial remit of the festival. Interventions of this nature, not officially held within the program of the festival, but fuelling the debate that surrounded it, give a strong indication as to how artists in the region acknowledge AV's importance.'
- Extract from Davy Smith's review of the AV Festival 08 for a-n.co.uk
New Talent
2008
'Minim' - digital print in a lightbox as part of the New Talent space at Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland.
WAC
2008
Mondrian Remix - canvas painting. Part of a group exhibition held at Arts Centre, Washington.
On Screen In Street
2008
Group exhibition of window projections in Sunniside, Sunderland.
Lifework Caravan
2008
A short digital animation/light show with sound.
Part of a group show of 6 artists' works shown inside a caravan touring the North East of England.
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