By Alfred Kubin – https://www.wikiart.org/, Public Domain, at wikipedia.

Nottingham’s favourite concrete bunker has notched up yet another UK ‘first’ in exhibiting Francis Upritchard collection, ‘A Hand of Cards’. Upritchard’s recent works feature human figures on elaborate bases that come in acid-bright colours or clothed in woven textiles. This exhibition includes 20 new works, 9 of which are ‘soldier’ figures which taps nicely into the medieval myths of the area – the gallery itself, remember, is the site of both a Saxon fort and the medieval town hall. It wasn’t always just about Delilah’s and Jamie.

There are also 11 melancholy hippies, or “holy fools”, that appear to be marooned in an alternative universe and represent the failure of the Woodstock generation to find an alternative means of living and clearly haven’t heard about the Sumac Centre in Forest Fields. One massive blue figure looks like an extra that didn’t quite make it on to Avatar, and instead sits, with legs akimbo, as if wondering when his time will come (don’t worry mate, they’re doing a sequel). The collection also sees collaborations with her husband, the renowned furniture designer Martino Gamper (we reckon, to save on cash) as well as contemporary writers such as Ali Smith. So there’s a little bit for everyone in this collection.

Alfred Kubin began scribbling around the 1900s and as you would expect from that period, his work is pretty disturbing. His drawings deal with violent death and psychic trauma and were influenced by the nihilistic ideas of Nietzsche and My Happy Pants personified – Schopenhauer. So if the weather and our rammel performance in the Euros wasn’t enough to get you down, this certainly will. Kubin had a pretty messed-up adolescence after his mam popped her clogs and then a pregnant woman tried it on with him. But it didn’t stop there. At 19 there was a failed suicide attempt followed by a complete nervous breakdown at 20. To ordinary folk out there, this would be the perfect excuse to get kaylide and then confess all on Trisha. But Kubin opted for a different route. He jumped on a train to Munich, studied art and then began knocking out these amazing drawings. Misery and misfortune to an artist are like bacon, eggs and tom to a hungry builder. He wolfed down these experiences and began to create works that would go on to influence the dystopian world of Kafka’s The Castle as well as anticipating the dreamworlds of both the surrealists and the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund ‘I loves me cock’ Freud. So next time things aren’t going your way, don’t lamp the nearest youth you see. Get out a pen and start drawing.

This preview was published in issue 48 of LeftLion

Nottingham Contemporary website

Francis Upritchard A Hand of Cards & Alfred Kubin The Other Side  Nottingham Contemporary 21 July – 30 September 2012