Charlie Tuesday Gates

After the Excitement of TIME OUT, Christmas and New year were for resting. I did nothing until I got a message from Angela Watrouse, an American writer in London briefly to research the life and work of Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter. She got in touch wondering if I would be doing any taxidermy before she left for America and wanted to witness/semi-participate as to effectively write about Potter, to get a true sense of the sensory details-smells, the way the animals feel ect. I wasn't planing on doing anything but sticking to my new years resolution I said yes. The only thing I had was the head of a Stag, shot before Christmas and left in my freezer. Bit of a tricky one for a first timer but might as well start at the deep end. The giant bloody head didn't seem to phase her so after a little bit of explaining about where to cut, I let her rip! We cut along the underside of the chin type area and then worked back from there. You can see where the skin and the muscle are

TIME OUT Christmas issue p24-26 'Charlie Gates is fast becoming on of the UK'S most talked about young artist. ' Notion Magazine, Dec p42 http://theenvironment.vfolio.co.uk/notion/68/ Front cover of Design Week magazine in November   NEXT D.I.Y TAXIDERMY SPRING 2011

Bonjour Here is a selection of photos from D.I.Y Taxidermy II: Dicing With Death , which have only just come to light. Physical writing about the show & event is a few posts below- It was really dark so picture colour not amazing. Salting the wounds What I keep in my suitcases-never borrow one from me Keep Away From Idiots Look What The Stork Brung! It's clearly funny to draw genitals on children Work space Christine Chambers   A real stinker. Lots of people didn't realize that the skins in this were really fresh and completely untreated.....Thus resulting in the hideous stench of death. Little Bow Peep got eaten by sheep Close up from 'Bird House' A Scientist Fox In The Box Well turned out member of the audience having a stab 'Performance space' If anyone has anymore photos from the event please e-mail them to charlietuesdaywinnergates@gmail.com because I haven't taken any...... Love from Charlie Gates x

Next show FREAKS Shoreditch Basement Gallery, Shoreditch Town Hall. Thursday 9th Dec  I've been so massively busy. More busy then ever. Had 3 shows back to back in November; D.I.Y TaxidermyII:Dicing With Death at Counter Culture , Surreal Nightmares at Shunt and then Ishihara 14  at the Queen of Hoxton... and I had to move house as well. Full on. Been working on a music video for MOWGLI- That hip-hop rapper dude. Nice guy. I was given a kitchen to dress. They wanted me to create this macabre taxidermists lair, animals and shit lying around. I made the most disgusting set ever. Proper dark with all the weird stuff I love. The camera man said it was the most impressive set he'd ever seen! Pictures soon. Another production studio borrowed some stuff for a film they were doing. Dinner party gone wrong sort of thing, I couldn't be there but apparently it went well..... And the next and most amazing thing is tomorrow I'm going to TIME OUT to do something for thei

You can sense and smell death before you see it.... A smell like no other. It is far sweeter than you imagine and lingers for days after the body has been removed. This smell has come to be part of the experience of my work....Some people have been sick after entering the exhibition space where I have been but I think that's just the really sensitive people. You get used to it Dicing With Death was ...well I was nervous. Every time someone asked me how I was feeling I felt worse because they made me actually acknowledge how I was feeling and I was trying my hardest to shut it away. The more you think about things the more obsessed and worried you can become so I try and avoid that by not thinking at all. Gut instinct stuff. So to start off the 'performance' (which was more like a science lesson from a supply teacher who had only read notes before the lesson,) I got out the famous rat in bloody vodka water. It smelt worse than ever. It even smelt through the jar it's in

D.I.Y Taxidermy II: Dicing with Death Private view Nov 15th 7-10pm 7pm 7-9 Crucifix Lane Under the arches of London Bridge ARAB Photography Gates has a fascination with old, discarded objects and of collecting... Even collecting the dead. Digging things out the ground, scraping road kill off the streets of London, practising D.I.Y taxidermy. Gates opens creatures up to reveal their internal worlds, experimenting with preservation, manipulating the decay process using techniques like salt, gloss and shake’n’vac. With what is left she creates macabre sculptures, involving other found and meticulously arranged objects, placed into bizarre surreal assemblages. Creating Freakish characters, a metamorphosis of their discarded lives. Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/charlietuesdaygates#%21/event.php?eid=158806830819178 Facebook: http://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/Charlie-Tuesday-Gates-Artist-person/136474813038151 Review of previous exhibition: http://www.spoonfed.co.uk/spoone

  Acid Fox in a Box            The Living room     My sisters ex frozen Goldfish   Mothers day gift. Mother never lets me take home anything dead. She pointed out this seagull floating in the water with an unfortunate hook in it's mouth, and as a special treat, she let me take it home- Bless The photographer Nathan Whitham came to take pictures of my new Museum House Of Death. Love from Charlie Gates x