Alicia Eggert & Mike Fleming
You are (on) an island
15.03 - 11.05.2013
In 2012 Neon Workshops invited American artists Alicia Eggert and Mike Fleming to bring their collaborative neon project to the UK and present it as a mobile venture to an unsuspecting audience around Yorkshire. In January this year, Eggert and Fleming arrived in Wakefield, installed their poignant statement on the back of a hire van, sparked up the delicate gas-filled glass with a small generator and took to the road.
Richard Wheater and Victoria Lucas, 12 Months of Neon Love
Peter Saville /
Wheater & Bickerstaff
26.09 - 03.10.2012
Celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the first neon light installed in a Parisian barbers, Neon Workshops showcased work by Wheater & Bickerstaff and graphic designer Peter Saville.
Wheater & Bickerstaff collaborated to produce a significant wall mounted poem relating to the medium in which the work is rendered. Peter Saville has had a life long fascination with neon and welcomed the opportunity to support Neon Workshops with their latest workshop Cent ans de Néon. PEOPLE LIKE NEON is spelt out in simple Arial font capitals, each letter represented in a colour of the spectrum blue to red, and the work was also used to create a commemorative limited edition poster of the workshop. Saville is famous for his involvement with Factory Records and the legendary music venue The Haçienda, and known widely for his extraordinary record sleeve design used for Joy Division’s 1979 debut album Unknown Pleasures.
Cattle Brands
Henry Stringer
25.07 - 15.09.2012
“If you are not a brand, you are a commodity.” - Philip Kotler
In this exhibition Stringer developed two angles associated with the title Cattle Brands. In the gallery we see actual brand motifs from ten American cattle ranches, chosen at random and reproduced by the artist in Neon gas filled glass. Outside on the roof, Stringer has chosen one of the world’s most recognisable companies to construct what appears to be a traditional sign, but using salvaged materials. Whilst both ventures celebrate human skill in making and control over material, the concept is arguably less positive where the methods of control over cattle and that of fellow humans become blurred.
Sirens
Richard WIlliam Wheater
30.05 - 14.07.12
New silkscreen prints based on a continuing theme by Richard William Wheater.
Visible Words
From
Invisible People
Pictures taken during the making of the neon pieces. March 2012.
Visible Words
From
Invisible People
28.03 - 19.05.2012
Over a ten week period, a group from Wakefield’s homeless community worked with artist Richard William Wheater on a project that aimed to develop their visual language through light and communicate their predicament to the wider public. The results were a series of extraordinary neon signs which the group and Wheater envision to be temporarily installed on buildings/walls in Wakefield’s high street hopefully later this year.
12 MONTHS OF NEON LOVE
14.02.2011 - 14.02.2012
The collaboration between Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater, which begain on Valentines day last year, saw twelve lyrical statements, borrowed from well-known songs featuring the many configurations of love, presented in large neon red text above the rooftops of Wakefield.
