This exhibition presents Karen David’s PhD research at the University of Worcester titled Commune of the Viable Essence: Creating Myth in Artistic Studio Practice through Fictional Narrative and is presented as an archive of CoVE with written materials, maps and artworks including oil paintings, acrylic marbling and glazed ceramics.

This PhD examines fiction as a tool for practice-based research through the Commune of the Viable Essence (CoVE): a fiction and a studio device for generating ideas. Through characters resident in an abandoned commune, a search for a mutation of Greenberg’s ‘viable essence’ occurs: a substance that the residents believe holds both material and spiritual qualities. The imaginary commune is activated as David identifies how fiction and materiality might operate together.

Karen David makes, writes, lectures and curates around the theme of fictional narratives, weaving the historical and the imagined together examining in the process belief systems and rituals. She graduated MA Fine Art at Wimbledon College of Arts in 2012. In 2014 she undertook a research trip to Marfa, Texas and Roswell, New Mexico, in 2015 was Artist in Residence at Islington Mill, Manchester, in 2016 won the Artist in Residence award on the BA Painting Wimbledon College of Arts, and in 2018 was a visiting artist at the Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany.

Supported by School of Arts, PITT Studio and Division of Labour
10th-30th November 2023 – visible 24/7 from street level, access by appointment.

Private View:    Tuesday 21 November 2023, 6-8pm

Selected solo exhibitions: The Commune, 2021, University of Worcester, Going Within, Crush Hall, University of Gloucestershire, 2019, Pure Reason Tint of Violet, VITRINE Bermondsey Square, London, 2014, Santa Fe, Art Lacuna, 2014 and Searching for the Viable Essence, Jacob’s Island Gallery, London, 2011.

Selected group exhibitions: The Collector’s Room, JGM Gallery, London, 2020, Liquid Crystal Display at MIMA, Middlesbrough and SITE gallery, Sheffield, 2018-19, The Waiting Room, Wimbledon Space, London, 2018, Godley VC House, Griffin Gallery, London, 2018, In The Future, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London, 2018, MALEVOLENT ELDRITCH SHRIEKING, Attercliffe, Sheffield, 2018, London Art Fair with White Conduit 2016, Without Shores, ASC Gallery, 2015, Anti-Social Realism, Charlie Smith Gallery, 2015, A Union of Voices, Horatio Jr, Gallery, 2014, Tomb, Shrine, Survey-Marker, Enclave Projects, 2014.

Curating: The Mythmaker’s Agency (upcoming), The Collector’s Room (Houdini), 2020, JGM Gallery, London, The Waiting Room, Wimbledon Space, London 2018, Curator of Perimeter Space at Griffin Gallery, London (16m window space for experimental projects) 2016-18 (Do Re Mi Fa So La Te, Mindy Lee & J.A.L.-B., Anne-Marie Creamer, Window Sill, Sarah Baker, Mannequin). Founder of Cork Lined Rooms: artist studio interview project based on the Proust Questionnaire, 2013-present.

Writing: Spirit in the Sky, Sally O’Reilly’s The Open Arms, 2021, Over Me You Cast a Spell and Notes on a Collection, (The Collector’s Room, JGM Gallery), 2020, Anne-Marie Creamer: A Diagram of Waiting, Perimeter Space, Griffin Gallery, 2018, Sarah Baker: Silk Vessel at Perimeter Space, Griffin Gallery, 2017, The Lightness project by artist Katie Goodwin, 2014.