Eric Bainbridge

Eric Bainbridge rose to prominence on both sides of the Atlantic following exhibitions at Air Gallery, London (1985), Salvatore Ala Gallery, New York (1985), Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis (1986), Karsten Schubert, London (1987), Salvatore Ala Gallery, New York (1988), the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1988), Riverside Studios, London (1990), and Pittsburgh Centre for the Arts (1994), ‘ACE’, Hayward Gallery (1996), ‘Private View’, Bowes Museum (1996), and ‘Material Culture’, Hayward Gallery (1997). Bainbridge received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Sculpture in 1996.

Recently Eric Bainbridge experienced culture shock in Bangkok. There on a British Council residency Bainbridge speaks of a place of extremes where the sacred and profane coexist and merge, the artist’s awe and terror embodied in Bangkok’s river – the Chao Phraya – a constant brown ooze from the heart of the jungle, a place where you don’t survive. As a result of this trip Bainbridge has produced a series of new ‘Bangkok’ sculptures that present a New Modernism. His cool refined structures articulate space and modernist architectural ideas as a strategy of escape from the engulfing sweaty humidity of a city known as much form a western eye for its cheapness of life and sex industry as it is for its traditional heritage of religion and culture. Despite the artist’s attempts Bangkok seeps back in through the tropical hardwoods of Thai DIY stores, fake melamine, and a cheap looking novelty light bulb winking flirtatiously from purple to blue to green to red…

Well known for his large scale fake fur sculpture of the 80s and his subsequent works using video, bronze, clay, knick-knacks, food, house paint, wax, used furniture and chipboard from the 90’s Bainbridge has again produced a significant body of new work with the usual elegance and sophistication despite his youthful and irreverent approach.

Through our nomination we hope to introduce this significant body of new work by an important and relevant British sculptor.

Paul Moss + Miles Thurlow, Directors, Workplace Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Biography
Eric Bainbridge was born in 1955 and graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic in 1977 and later from the Royal College of Art in 1981 with a MA in Sculpture. He rose to prominence on both sides of the Atlantic following solo exhibitions at Salvatore Ala Gallery, New York (1985 –1994)), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1986), ICA, Boston (1987), the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1990), Cornerhouse, Manchester (1997), DELFINA, London (1997). From 1988-91 he was a Henry Moore Sculpture Fellow at The Slade School of Art and in 1996 received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation prize for Sculpture. Forthcoming exhibitions include MIMA, Middlesbrough 2008. Bainbridge is based in Hartlepool and is Professor of Fine Art at the University of Sunderland.