Artist statement
'On the way to the library to write this, I was sure I was going to see an empty packet of Space Raiders by the bus stop, but all I found was an apple core and a green balloon, unblown. Laurie Anderson once said that novels are full of things happening to people, but she wanted to write a novel about the spaces inbetween, where nothing was happening. Narbi's pictures would be perfect illustrations for that book. It takes a certain state of mind to choose a neutral object as your subject, to choose the mundane over the dramatic, the trivial exterior over the florid treasures of the inner world. On one level, there's a disavowal of the grandiose and histrionic, the expressionistic; on another, a gentle subversion of the hierarchy of values that underpins our seeing.
The mundane and banal have had their champions - from Vermeer and Corbet to Lowrie and Hopper, from Roger McGough to Jarvis Cocker and The Royle Family. But Narbi's quiet studies aren't social commentary, pop celebration or living-room bathos. For me, in their carefully crafted blandness, they signify the presence of a willingness to let the world speak for itself. The absence of human subjects and deliberate lack of narrative place the viewer in a unique but uniquely familiar position - alone with the world as it is. The neutral object steers us between the twin magnets of attraction and aversion, and confronts us with something more challenging perhaps - the ambiguity of the everyday, the places we inhabit while nothing's happening.'
(Text by Nev Clay, originally published in part in Summer 2009 show catalogue, August 2009)
Qualifications and training
- 2008 Master of Fine Art, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne
- 1999 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Employment
- 2011 Part Time Lecturer in Fine Art, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Solo exhibitions
- 2011 Narbi Price - Solo Show of Site Specific Work, GalleriaSIX, Milan, Italy
Group exhibitions
- 2013 Luminous Language, Launch F18, New York, USA
- 2012 Group Show, Paper Gallery, Manchester
- 2012 John Moores Painting Prize 2012, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
- 2012 neo:artprize, neo:gallery 22, Bolton
- 2012 Omnia Mea Mecum Porto: Works on Paper, Kotti-Shop, Berlin, Germany
- 2012 Arte Fiera with Marc Bijl, Bologna Exhibition Centre, Bologna, Italy
- 2011 Ink on Paper – Hole Editions, DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery, Aykley Heads, Durham
- 2011 Nothing, Like Something, Happens Anywhere – New Work by Narbi Price and Neil Cammock, Moving Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
- 2010 '9' - ACA Allenheads Contemporary Arts Exhibition, ACAdovetail, Newcastle upon Tyne
- 2010 John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
- 2009 PRINT - An Exhibtion of Works BY Hole Editions, Mushroom Works, Newcastle upon Tyne
- 2009 Laugh? I Nearly Bought One, The Richard Ling Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
- 2009 Quattro Part 2, Lamplight Arts Centre, Stanley
- 2008 The MAs and Other Contemporary Show, Atkinson Gallery, Street, Somerset
Degree shows
- 2010 MFA2010 - MFA Degree Show, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University
- 2009 Summer 2009, MFA Interim Show, Newcastle University
Competitions, prizes and awards
- 2012 John Moores Painting Prize 2012, Prizewinner, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
- 2010 Bartlett Travel Scholarship, Newcastle University, Goa, India
- 2002 Graduate Fellowship In Painting, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne
- 2002 British Airways Travel Scholarship, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Web links - article/press
Personal website
