Peter Callesen, Paul Morrison, Vanessa Jane Phaff, Kiki Smith, Annelies Štrba and Janaina Tschäpe

Preview: Friday 27 April, 7-9pm
Blaenwelediad: Dydd Gwener 27 Ebrill, 7-9pm

Exhibition: Saturday 28 April – Sunday 10 June 2007
Arddangosfa: Dydd Sadwrn 28 Ebrill - Dydd Sul 10 Mehefin 2007

“The witch scoured out the kettle with the snakes, which she tied in a knot. She then cut open her breast, and let the black blood drop into the kettle, the steam of which formed such extraordinary figures, enough to frighten any one. Each moment she threw fresh things into the kettle, and when it boiled thoroughly it was like the crying of a crocodile”. ‘The Little Mermaid’, Hans Christian Andersen.

‘Fairy Tale’ includes six artists whose work occupies the same territory as the so-called primitive versions of the fairy tales: bewitching and transgressive, it contains stirring kinds of unpalatable truths and has anti-social reverberations. They touch on escapist and pleasurable states and yet at the same time delight us, disorientate us, and make our present lives strange.

For Chapter, Peter Callesen has been commissioned to create an icy landscape out of one giant piece of paper. This paper world will feature a castle on a hill with the ground covered in giant snowflakes. The exhibition also includes paintings and prints by Paul Morrison and Vanessa Jane Phaff that generate both a sense of anticipation and a dark foreboding, and a series of etchings by Kiki Smith that are charged with danger and eroticism. Annelies Štrba’s video explores an enchanted landscape, a dark wood that contains ‘delicate beings’ seen drifting, dancing and sleeping, while Janaina Tschäpe’s film presents a beautiful woman dressed as a mermaid repeatedly letting rip an angry scream, silenced only by the fact that she is underwater.

‘Fairy Tale’ is a New Art Gallery Walsall Touring Exhibition curated by Angela Kingston.

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, including an introduction by Deborah Robinson from the New Art Gallery Walsall and essays by Angela Kingston and Stella Beddoe, Keeper of Decorative Art at the Royal Pavilion Art Gallery and Museums, Brighton. The catalogue is available from Chapter at £15.

Chapter Cinema will show a series of film screenings inspired by the theme of fairy tales to accompany the exhibition, please visit www.chapter.org for details.

For further information please contact Holly Davey or Elena Schmitz on +44 (0)29 2031 1055, visual.arts@chapter.org.

Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday 12-8pm; Monday 1-5pm.

Image: Janaina Tschäpe, Untitled (Scream), 2004. DVD. Image courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.