Mark Devereux. Photography Stephen Illes.

There are substantial numbers of creatives with the talent, ambition and drive to succeed within the market but lack support and direction to get there. Mark Devereux Projects provides a generous and thoughtful approach to working with artists. This July, CUBE hosts the official launch and exhibition for new Manchester-based organisation, Mark Devereux Projects. Means of Feedback features new and recent works from the organisation’s three inaugural artists: Nicola Dale, David Ogle and Nicola Ellis.

Nicola Dale, Sequel, 2012

As part of Means of Feedback, Manchester-based Nicola Dale is creating The Weight Between Words – a new work consisting of thousands of paper rectangles, each hand-cut with a bookbinding awl to the same size, shape and accumulative weight of a printer’s lead type. In conversation with Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Curator, Helen Pheby [to be included in the accompanying publication], Nicola Dale reflects on how this work first started: “The first piece I picked up wasn’t a letter, but a space – being made of lead, this small rectangle was heavy despite its size and it made me think how once upon a time even a gap, a pause, a breath had some actual weight in the production of knowledge… but now even words themselves are weightless when they pass into digital form.”

David Ogle, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green, 4, 2013

After his recent solo exhibition for this year’s Sculpture Shock and Catlin Art Prize awards in London, David Ogle is developing a new site-specific work especially for Mark Devereux Projects exhibition, Means of Feedback. Exploring materials and notions of how objects are perceived in space, Ogle’s work uses light to create innately ephemeral experiences. Beginning as a strict mathematical procedure, the rules and formulas are then ‘played-out’ within an environment, allowing the physical space to shape and manipulate the work. Ogle states; “Through negating material properties my work seeks a kind of fragility; resting on the edge between a sculptural form and an environmental effect of light that manifests itself within a space, a context from which the work is inseparable.”

Nicola Ellis, Paregro, 2013

Nicola Ellis will be exhibiting new works responding to her recent piece, Paregro part of the FOUR exhibition at Cornerhouse, Manchester. Exploring her fascination with natural and synthetic materials, Ellis has collected thousands of pieces of reclaimed glass from building and demolition sites to create a new sculptural work. In a recent conversation about the process behind the making of her works, Ellis comments: “It’s about finding something out about the material and process, which then explodes into the final work. The origins of the piece are in that discovery process. The spectrum starts broad and is then narrowed down with specific focus on the creation of the work, but once the final piece has been made this process then opens up again.”

Coinciding with Means of Feedback and formed in collaboration with Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, Mark Devereux Projects will be working with Nicola Dale, David Ogle and Nicola Ellis to create new, site-specific and performative responses to the exhibitions in Whitworth Art Gallery for a special After Hours event on Saturday 13 July from 7:30-10:30pm. Further information about this event will be announced on the Mark Devereux Projects website shortly.

Accompanying the launch of Mark Devereux Projects and Means of Feedback, a new publication will be available showcasing the work of Nicola Dale, David Ogle and Nicola Ellis, along with texts from Project Space Leeds’ Director Kerry Harker, Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Curator Helen Pheby, Whitworth Art Gallery’s Curator Mary Griffiths and Mark Devereux.

Initially trained as an artist, Mark Devereux founded and Directed Blank Media Collective in 2006 and was later pivotal in the launch of Manchester’s BLANKSPACE Gallery, before stepping-down from his role as Director & Head of Exhibitions last July. Now concentrating on a focused and dedicated support structure for early-career artists, Devereux comments: “I have spoken to hundreds of artists over the years and one of the key areas that continued to arise was the need for more one-to-one guidance and support. Already, since making my idea public in January, artists from not just the North-West but from around the UK have contacted me and we’ve met to talk about their work.”

Find out more about Mark Devereux Projects on Central Station here. Information about how any early-career artist can join Mark Devereux Projects Associate Membership can be found on the MDP website.

Means of Feedback is at CUBE, 113-115 Portland Street, Manchester, M1 6DW from 12 – 17 July 2013 (Preview: 11 July, 6-9pm).

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Read more about Mark Devereux on Central Station here.