Pennicott+Fleming 'Country Air', 2009, Mixed media (MDF, Perspex, acetate, motor, fluorescent lights), 76 x 76 x 76 cm, Courtesy of artists and MASTER PIPER, London

Pennicott+Fleming, 'Country Air', 2009, Mixed media (MDF, Perspex, acetate, motor, fluorescent lights), 76 x 76 x 76 cm, Courtesy of artists and MASTER PIPER, London

Pennicott+Fleming 'Country Air', 2009, Mixed media (MDF, Perspex, acetate, motor, fluorescent lights), 76 x 76 x 76 cm, Courtesy of artists and MASTER PIPER, London

Pennicott+Fleming, 'Country Air', 2009, Mixed media (MDF, Perspex, acetate, motor, fluorescent lights), 76 x 76 x 76 cm, Courtesy of artists and MASTER PIPER, London

Pennicott+Fleming 'The Trinity' (extract), 2009, Lambda print, 50.8 x 40.6 cm x 3, Edition of 3, Courtesy of artists and MASTER PIPER, London

Pennicott+Fleming, 'The Trinity' (extract), 2009, Lambda print, 50.8 x 40.6 cm x 3, Edition of 3, Courtesy of artists and MASTER PIPER, London

Pennicott+Fleming 'The Nearest Faraway Place', 2009, Vinyl print, 6 x 10 m, Courtesy the artists and MASTER PIPER, London

Pennicott+Fleming, 'The Nearest Faraway Place', 2009, Vinyl print, 6 x 10 m, Courtesy the artists and MASTER PIPER, London

Pennicott+Fleming

Tom Fleming & Edwin Pennicott are a collaborative. They are the first collaboration to be accepted to the Royal College of Art.

For their first ‘solo’ show at Master Piper, 'SQUEEZE', Pennicott+Fleming will present a series of new works exploring notions of kitsch, illusion and the relation between the false and the real, the virtual and the physical.

Pennicott+Fleming also featured in ‘These Here United States’ at Master Piper in July 09, and much of the inspiration and imagery for the new work produced originates in a trip the pair made to Texas in 2007. The artists discovered an America that both lived up to and debunked its own stereotypes. Symbols of the Old West sat with varying degrees of authenticity alongside signs of the globalised world, as if the place existed in two very different time periods that could nevertheless be experienced simultaneously. Against a rolling backdrop of desert landscape dotted with roadside buildings created from photographs taken on the road - often from a moving car - the artists can be spotted in the guise of Hollywood cowboys, like slapstick stowaways from a bygone era. Referencing the cheap ‘moving landscape’ gizmos commonly found in pound shops and markets, the form the work takes reflects the perceived ‘tackiness’ inherent in American culture - as seen by the outsider - whilst at the same time offering itself up as an object of desire.

Pennicott+Fleming's work is concerned with the nature of perception, illusion, and the relation between the false and the real, the virtual and the physical. Their work deals with the perceptual capabilities of the camera and how the camera image is interpreted as a representation of a physical environment. The artists play on our assumptions about what we see and question the decisions that determine what we choose to look at.

Referencing cheap souvenirs, religious iconography and everyday items, the artists are interested in destabilising our reading of familiar objects and images. Working from the idea of object as cultural artefact, Pennicott & Fleming explore the implications of various modes of representation and the associations we have with particular forms of imagery.

 

 

featured in

—These Here United States, 9 Jul 2009

—SQUEEZE, 9 Oct 2009

—The World Cup, 11 Jun 2010