After the critical and public acclaim of ‘Suddenly After a Long Silence’ a Chapter exhibition by Cardiff-based artist Anthony Shapland, we are delighted to announce that the exhibition is now showing at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea.

'Suddenly After a Long Silence' explores the moments of change and temporal shifts that occur between two defined states and features a series of documentary-style film works that not only observe the ‘real’ or the ‘actual’ but also reference notions of staging, scripting and artifice.

Shapland’s new works include False Dawn, a two-screen work that documents a film crew developing a lighting sequence. The viewer is held between the revelation of the practicalities involved in creating an illusionary and fictional world for the camera, and the desire to believe in the end result as the False Dawn is heralded by a caged canary that greets the ‘day’ with an optimistic song.

Earlier works in the exhibition include A Sign (2006). Filmed from a static viewpoint; the cooly dispassionate eye of the camera observes a discarded Christmas tree that lies abandoned on the side of a road. The tree ignites into flame and eventually burns itself out in an achingly tragic exploration of the search for meaning in everyday life.

Throughout all of the works exhibited here we are held in a sort of twilight space, neither day nor night, fiction nor reality. It is here in this playful uncertainty that the work forces us to reconsider the everyday things we feel sure of.

Biography

Anthony Shapland is a Cardiff-based artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally. He is also Co-Director of g39, an artist-run organisation based in Cardiff. ‘Suddenly After a Long Silence’ is Shapland’s first solo exhibition in the UK.

‘Suddenly After A Long Silence’ is a Chapter Touring exhibition curated by Hannah Firth. The exhibition is supported by The Arts Council of Wales and continues until 22 June 2008.

Image: Anthony Shapland, False Dawn, 2007. Still from DVD. Copyright the artist-courtesy Chapter.