On Wasting Energy + Steelworks Series

Working predominantly in live action and documented performance, Adele Vye’s practice comes from a desire to bring life into an object, react to the history of a place or act on an impulse. Frequently responding to a specific site, the artist intuitively draws on myth, situation and place in a practice that can involve text, print, image, installation and live action. She clearly and directly engages with a political and environmental consciousness, posing specific questions, whilst leaving opportunity for individual response from the audience. Her deliberate use of a filming from a fixed viewpoint and simple editing techniques present a clear documentation of the live work.

Adele is exhibiting two works - On Wasting Energy and Steelworks Series. Each reveal the artist as protagonist as she activates the ‘spaces’ and commits to completing individual actions with honest and direct outcomes. The work can appear humorous and tragic on the surface, but her use of cloaks and other ‘instruments’, often seen on sight, create a deeper level of enquiry incorporating mythology, environmental issues and the summoning of energy.

On Wasting Energy is a documented live action, in which the artist uses a vacuum cleaner as an instrument and her voice as the sound as she ‘vacuums’ the landscape. This humorous action used to address questions about energy and the environmental impact of our needs. On Wasting Energy is a site specific work which formed part of the exhibition Excavations, a collection of reactions to the building of the LNG Gas Pipeline from Pembrokeshire to Gloucester.

Her second film, Steelworks Series shows Vye within an industrial landscape. This time her instrument is a felted cloak and the location is her hometown of Port Talbot. Her childhood home is dominated by the industry of the steel works, playing a role in the employment of the community as well as a symbol of the last remaining industry of South Wales. In this work, we see Vye walking across land and beaches owned by the steel works, and directly engaging with this enormous site. The artist enters the frame and begins to wail, before collapsing in exhaustion. This documented performance presents Vye’s core fascination to act out and document the thoughts and urges created in her mind.

In 2009 Vye was awarded the title of Welsh Artist of The Year in the Time-Based category for On Wasting Energy.

This is a Test Bed exhibition, supporting new and experimental work by artists based in Wales and the Borders.

Supporting new and experimental work by artists based in Wales and the Borders.