Freehold Projects

Cry With Laughter features 5 artists working across paint, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture and installation. These works have been brought together to open up a discourse between the apparent solitudes of horror and humour.

On our screens, we are distanced from an uncanny recast as spectacle, and thus a form of entertainment. Caught in the element of fascination, we are absent from the story – it is a representation of fear in a safe space abstracted from reality.

In this exhibition, we hope to showcase the uncanny in organic forms, to sublimate it through an exploration of surreal motifs and transient states. When laughter is released as a defence mechanism the abject is suppressed. But does this reflex leave an uneasy thirst? Does this suppression result in a fascination with horror?

How can laughter face the uncanny as a friend? How do we move beyond a natural reflex that settles our nerves to laughter as an afterthought, rather than affect?

ARTISTS
Ka Bird is visual artist living and working in Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Harry Bland is a painter who lives and works in London
Faye Hadfield is a ceramicist and sculptor who lives and works in Bath.
Beth Hadfield is a painter currently based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Jazmyn Maher is a printmaker living and working in London.