WE SELL SOUL

Richard Proffitt
ADMISSION FREE
Coinciding with Mikala Dwyer’s exhibition, Project Arts Centre will inaugurate a new experimental portal – the Grotto – with an installation by Richard Proffitt (UK).
With We Sell Soul, Richard Proffitt will work with the idea of the cabinet as a ‘kiosk’, a personalised space, and a psychedelic cabin full of hippie memorabilia, tropes of counterculture, the occult and Vietnam paraphernalia.
Throughout the year, more emerging artists will be selected in relation to the main exhibition program, and given carte blanche in how they re-imagine the Grotto.
The Grotto can be located in the lower Foyer between the box-office and the Cube.
Biography
Richard Proffitt (1985, Liverpool) works primarily in installation and sculpture. Subject matters of particular interest include spaghetti westerns, ghost towns, American sub-culture, anthropology, ancient civilizations, travellers, den making, folklore and urban myth. Proffitt is a collector of objects and ephemera that are associated with, or evoke feelings of these particular subjects. During the making process these inspirations, subject matters and objects become intertwined and their meaning becomes mangled. Differences between fact and fiction disintegrate to produce work that is absurd, funny, dark and mysterious. The work will often become realised as make-shift ceremonial relics or ritualistic hang-outs.
Education
2008
MA Fine Art, Manchester School of Art, UK
2007
BA Visual Arts, University of Salford, UK
Solo Exhibitions
2011
Saguaro, Wolstenholme Creative Space, Liverpool, UK
2008
Sundowner, Vault Gallery, Lancaster, UK
Group Exhibitions
2012
Lost is Found, Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK
2011
Rendez Vous 11, Institut D’Art Contemporain, Lyon, France
Shooting The Breeze II, 4 Piccadilly Place, Manchester, UK
Parts Unknown, Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
Liverpool Art Prize, Metal at Edge Hill, Liverpool, UK
2010
Global Studio, The Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK
All Change, Rogue Project Space, Manchester, UK
2009
Fear and Optimism, Bloc Projects/Workstation, Sheffield, UK
4 Artists, FAFA Galleria, Helsinki, Finland2008 Origins of Nine, Islington Mill, Salford, UK
Publications
Bike Mag (Issue 1), May 2011 (Co-Founder and Contributor)
Drawing Paper #1, May 2010 (Featured Artist)
Other
2011
Shortlisted for the Liverpool Art Prize
www.richardproffitt.co.uk