Dean Reddick - Flatpack Art Therapy

The good thing about being in a collective is that interesting exhibitions like this one seem to spring up from nowhere but have obviously been gestating for a long period. It is also convenient when there is a change in plan. So while Stuart has been called away on urgent business I've been thrown into the breach and that is where we find our 3rd Social Advent door today.

Queen Elizabeth Hall
Southbank

Nestled in the side of Waterloo Bridge and just behind the Queen Elizabeth Hall we find Dean Reddick's first submission to the Cardboard City exhibition, 'House Advent No.1".

Dean Reddick - House Advent No.1

Dean Reddick has been an integral member of our community since the first magnet exhibition, 'Open Fridge' at Gallery 89 in Barnet, 2010 and he's been a loyal organiser and participant ever since. He has an eclectic portfolio of work for his day job which revolves around his practice as an Art Therapist and tutor at Goldsmiths College. As a curator his Hidebird exhibition is often the talk of Walthamstow when the E17 Art Trail is in full swing. His art practice is usually inspired by nature and he can be found regularly at the foot of the huge trees in Epping Forest.

Dean Reddick

Despite Dean's interest in Nature or quite possibly because of it, he possesses an addiction to mathematics. As a student I remember his work at Coventry School of Art & Design being heavily influenced by mathematical nets and it seems this passion has not left him. When I view the work for Cardboard City, I see the flatpack world of desirability and IKEA. Here is something we all seem to obsess about, quite rightly so when we consider the emotive qualities of a home, but should we be bartering, gambling and gazumping with such zeal. A week doesn't go by at the moment without the News reporting that our society's financial wellbeing is improving because house prices continue to climb.

Maybe the image is something much simpler, a child's view of a house, which we could make with a roll of Sellotape and scissors. I do know that this may be the advent of a new exhibition for Dean Reddick and hopefully one that he will run with CollectConnect in 2014.

Keep 'em peel'd for a double header from Stuart Simler over the next two days, numbers 4 and 5 on the way.

AL.