The Centre

The Centre is an exhibition by artists Patrick Cole and Dominic Watson. The show is set inside the food court of a failing shopping centre. In the middle of the exhibition stands a dilapidated juice bar built by Cole. The circular structure will act as stage and set for a new twenty-minute performance exploring Cole’s interest in the storytelling traditions of ‘the Bard’. Cole’s monologue will discuss the fictional history of the kiosk through personal vignettes and distorted memories. The performed soliloquies will deal with loneliness and anxiety, using humour and pathos to forge a connection with the audience.

Accompanying the kiosk are sculptures made by Watson, a stacked tower of Paper Mache Microwaves. Slowly rotating inside sits a self-portrait of the artist anxiously looking out through the microwave door. He is accompanied by sculptures of food, inflated burgers, plates of ham and eggs perpetually turning. The microwaves function as vitrines, tempting potential consumers to indulge in their visceral pleasure. Two pale white diners made from paper clay are sat sharing an obscenely long sandwich. Their bodies look set in stone, half people half furniture merging into one another. Watson’s sculptures explore the human body through the visceral, grotesque and absurd.

About the artists

Patrick Cole lives and works in south London. He works across performance and sculpture in the traditions of 'the Bard': employing humour and layered narratives to explore ideas of morality, death, loneliness and vegetables. Cole received a BA from Camberwell College of Art in 2005, and gained a Masters of Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art in 2014. 

Recent exhibitions include: Memorial, Southwark Park Galleries, 2019; Restaurant, Whitstable Biennale 2018; Grow, Sunday Painter Gallery, London 2018; Bardism (BBQ), Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh 2017. Patrick was shortlisted for the Converse x Dazed Emerging Artist Award, The Royal Academy, London in 2015; included in the Catlin Guide, 2015; received Performancepreis, Filigran Trägersysteme GmbH & Co KG, 2014 and was included in Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2013.

Dominic Watson was born in Sunderland, UK and lives in London.

He studied sculpture at Camberwell College of Art, London, and then an MFA at the Glasgow School of Art in 2014. After graduating he was selected for New Contemporaries 2013 as well as the London Open 2015. Watson was a recipient of the John Kinross Fellowship, 2014, awarded by the Royal Scottish Academy and received a Fellowship in Contemporary Art Practice from the British School of Rome in 2017. His work is part of the RSA and the Ingram Collections. 

He also co-runs an artist-led project space, PLAZA PLAZA in Elephant and Castle.