LONDON.- Danielle Arnaud contemporary art presents Ruth Claxton, Marie-France & Patricia Martin, and Paulette Phillips, on view 7 September - 21 October 2007. Hybridity, natural history, modernism and the supernatural are reflected concerns that link the works selected for this exhibition. The four artists attempt to shift historical meanings through physical and conceptual constructs. Ruth Claxton's work focuses on the deconstruction of existing imagery and the ideas or belief inherent in their original construction. She uses China figurines (Royal Doulton) which are wittily and insolently altered and integrated into complex sculptural installations acting as constructed landscapes. She trained at Nottingham Trent University and the Royal College of Art (MA Sculpture). Her recent exhibitions include: The Collective, Edinburgh, 2006; Arquebuse Gallery, Geneva, 2004; East International, Norwich, 2003. In 2008 she will have solo shows at Spike Island, Bristol and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.

Marie-France & Patricia Martin's video projection Du noir dans le vert presents, in an idyllic landscape (Swiss mountains, Flemish light), two characters - woodchoppers, criminals, amateur ornithologists, clones – gesticulating around walnuts trees, gazing at their own reflection on a pond, running away in terror, repeating pointless chores. Engulfed in fear and madness, the two figures pretend to belong to real life but act as if locked in an abstract fairy tale.

On Sunday 21 October, the artists will also present a performance based on Du noir dans le vert where they will analyse obsessional behaviour and explore time, past or present, real or imaginary. They will pretend...Marie-France and Patricia Martin are from Switzerland. In 2006 they showed at the Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels and were part of the Fashion in Film Festival (Ciné Lumière, ICA).

In The Open (Monster Series), Paulette Phillips presents a series of 7 videos that display animals in captivity within constructed landscapes. The animals and landscapes are collaged from disparate elements collected during the artist's travels over the last five years and reflect her interest in natural history and the complex relationship to colonialism. The footage is shot in zoos and landscapes in Toronto, Montreal, Berlin, London, Rotterdam, Paris, Monaco, San Diego and New York. Her second work, Touche, is an on-going installation that explores the site of an abandoned house, E 1027 built by Eileen Gray in 1929 which sits as a ruin in the South of France. The installation places the conflicting energies, theories and expressions of Le Corbusier and Gray into dynamic relief. Touche will be the first manifestation of an ongoing series of works the artist has been working on since 1999.

Paulette Phillips' film installations construct uncanny experiences that amplify our attachment to voyeuristic pleasure, narrating observation through the use of classical film techniques. Recent exhibitions include: Mois de la Photo, Montreal, The Power Plant Toronto; Diaz Contemporary Art, Toronto, ZKM, Germany; Kunsthaus Graz, Austria; Heidelberger Kunstverein, Germany; Ludwig Museum, Hungary and Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, Italy.