Eileen     2008, DVD Installation     Premiering at Gimpel Fils, London 23rd May - 28th June 2008
Gimpel Fils 30 Davies Street London W1K 4NB UK tel. +44 (0)20 7493 2488
http://www.gimpelfils.com    info@gimpelfils.com   Monday - Friday 10.00 am - 5.30 pm    Saturday 11.00 am - 4.00 pm

"On the face of it, Belfast artist Susan MacWilliam breathes life into the obscure history of research into paranormal perception. Straddling the roles of scientific investigator, documentarian and artist, she delivers hauntingly beautiful video-based installations of real case studies. On another level, MacWilliam unravels some of our most basic assumptions about art, authenticity and perception." - Don Carroll , Jack the Pelican, New York

Hailed one of the world's greatest mediums, Eileen Garrett (1893-1970) founded The Parapsychology Foundation in 1951. Eileen features projected images of the Parapsychology Foundation Library in New York, a strobing edit of archival footage of Garrett and a synchronised 3 screen video work featuring academics and family members talking about Garrett. The charismatic and multi-facetted Garrett is conjured through image and anecdote, and video vignettes recall the 'dead ducks', 'the horse riding incident' and 'The Ash Manor Case'. In particular, Garrett is brought to life through the descriptions and gestures of her daughter, Eileen Coly. Although ostensibly about Garrett, Eileen can be understood as being as much about her daughter, now in her 90s.

MacWilliam first worked with The Parapsychology Foundation and the family of Eileen Garrett in 2006. Last year she was artist in residence at The Parapsychology Foundation during which time she lived with Eileen Coly. A number of curious coincidences occurred during MacWilliam's research, including the discovery that in September 1934 some of her own cousins sailed from Southampton to New York on the SS Majestic on the same voyage as Eileen Garrett and her then 18 year old daughter. Garrett's daughter Eileen and her daughter Lisette, will travel from New York for the opening of this exhibition.

Gimpel Fils is pleased to present Susan MacWilliam's first solo show in London. MacWilliam's practice involves the investigation of particular individual case histories and myths, particularly those relating to the paranormal, the supernatural and to perceptual phenomena. She incorporates the fields of psychical research, psychology, physiology, into her artistic practice. Using video, photography and installation, her works explore ideas about the presentation and credibility of an image and question vision and perception, reality and illusion. MacWilliam has made work about materialisation mediums, table tilters, optograms, trance, dermo optical perception and x-ray vision. She produces unique works of art that provide a visual entry point into the history of parapsychology.

In 1999 MacWilliam was shortlisted for the IMMA/Glen Dimplex Artists Award at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and in 2003 was awarded the Perspective Award at Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast. MacWilliam has been artist in residence at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Carribean Centre for Contemporary Arts, Trinidad; and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. In summer 2008 she will travel to Winnipeg for a residency at Platform Centre for Digital and Photographic Arts and will research the Thomas Glendenning Hamilton Spirit Photograph Archive at the University of Manitoba. Her work was most recently exhibited in the group exhibition Seeing is Believing, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 2007 and in a solo show at Jack The Pelican Presents, New York, 2008; A review of her solo show will be published in ArtForum, summer 2008. In 2008 MacWilliam's video works (1998-2007) will be housed in the British Library's 'Sound Archive', London. MacWilliam lives in Belfast.

Gimpel Fils
30 Davies Street London W1K 4NB UK
tel. +44 (0)20 7493 2488 info@gimpelfils.com
http://www.gimpelfils.com

Monday - Friday 10.00 am - 5.30 pm
Saturday 11.00 am - 4.00 pm