Ella Fleck at Forth

Artist: Ella Fleck

Exhibition title: Four Horsegirls of the Apocalypse

Venue: Forth, Nottingham, UK

Date: September 15 – November 5, 2022

Photography: All images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Forth, Nottingham

“Spit and cum and piss”
“Love and piss and sisterhood”
“Tears and manure and nails of death”
“Blood and ponies and piss and God”

It is a dark and stormy night. In the playground of a derelict school, a gaggle of horse girls sit around a fire, apathetically uniting to meditate, sing and interrupt each other upon their failed quest for community. ‘Four Horsegirls…’ is a comedy and platonic love story, taking cues from the world of influencing, aischrologia and nightmare blunt rotations to tell a tale of naivety and toxic female friendship, the pulls between collaboration and ego and myths of spiritual ascendence.

Ella Fleck (b. 1993, UK) lives and works at former Michael House School in Derbyshire UK. She opened her first exhibition, Doomer Mommy in 2021 following a residency at Newgate Gap in Margate, UK. Group exhibitions and performances: Doing Youth at Gegenwart, Hamburg, Germany; Jumper at Harkawik,
NY, USA; Playground at Artcore, Derby, UK; Airconditions, Seydisfjordur, Iceland; Dating Sim at Raflost (Icelandic Festival of Electronic Arts), Reykjavik, Iceland. Her writing has been published in magazines such as Frieze, Dazed and King Kong.

With other artists and collaborators, Fleck co-founded DARP, an experimental project operating out of the former Michael House School exploring communal practice and living. As part of / on behalf of DARP she has co-presented the project at EASA (European Architecture Students Assembly), June Art Fair (Basel) and Artcore (Derby, UK). She is also one half of the curatorial duo, 650mAh.

The artist and Forth would like to thank Maggie Campbell, Gabriella Pounds, Calum Bowen, Tom Godfrey & Joshua Lockwood-Moran, Pat Antcliff, Alice Reed, Kenichi Iwasa, and Ayse Gayret Yuksel