LUX, LONDON

JAMIE CREWE: ASHLEY

3 December 2020 – 30 January 2021 (extended).

 

LUX and LUX Scotland are proud to present a solo exhibition by Glasgow-based artist Jamie Crewe featuring their Margaret Tait Award commission Ashley (2020). It is accompanied by Addenda to Ashley.

Dragging a wheelie case behind them, Ashley arrives at an isolated beachside cottage. They hope that this weekend in the countryside might be the change they need: a change from depression, from heartbreak, from the pain of a shifting identity. As the weekend unfolds, however, their hope wavers: things go wrong in their body, or perhaps in their mind — or perhaps there really is something, outside, developing an appetite for them … 

Ashley is a semi-autobiographical rural horror film filmed on the West Coast of Scotland, designed for cinema viewing. Its only character is played onscreen by the artist, and voiced in narration by the poet and performance maker Travis Alabanza. Drawing on the conventions of the rural horror genre (seen in television series such as the BBC’s West Country Tales, 1982–83) and of Margaret Tait’s work in the Scottish landscape tradition, the film takes an experience of modern femininity and mines it for terror. In doing so, it animates the fears, stresses, and vivid transformations of a certain kind of trans life. 

Alongside the film itself, the exhibition includes Ashley’s oil (2020), a room scent co-composed by Jamie, Charlotte Percival, John Turrell, and Tom Turrell, who shot Ashley together in July 2019. Reflecting the landscape of the film, as well as memories of filming it, the oil brings the redolence of wet, woody things into the gallery, as well as citronella to repel midges. 

In the library an untitled collage on a dark grey felt board includes an oil pastel drawing by Jamie, as well as the original title cards filmed for Ashley’s opening, intertitles, and credits.

 

Viewing link for Ashley avalable on request.