Chess Club was made on the invitation from Sean Edwards to contribute a piece of work to his ongoing project, ‘portrait (for a screenplay) of Beth Harmon’. For the project individuals are asked to make a work in response to reading ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ by Walter Tevis, a novel that tells the story of a child chess prodigy from the death of her parents at age 8 to chess grandmaster. Chess Club is one of two films made for this project that directly reference a found image of a young chess player Sean has used in several contexts.

Chess Club records a girl sitting at a chess board thinking, planning her next moves, a process that is described brilliantly by Walter Tevis in the novel. The audience are placed in opposition to this image of the young chess player, while also becoming a mirror, reflecting elements of her thought processes in thinking about the art work projected on the screen before them.

For O4W Chess Club has been blown up from it’s original 16mm film format to 35mm for projection in a cinema. The film will be projected for two hours, a duration that suggests both that of a feature film, and of a game of chess.

Richard would like to thank Frank Gulley and the pupils of Temple Sutton Primary School for their help and input in the making of the films.

Richard Bevan is an artist who predominantly works with film. Born in Maesteg (1980) completed his BA in Fine Art Printmaking at UWIC (2002) and his MA in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art (2008). Recent solo exhibitions and screenings include; The Difference Between The Name Of Something And What It Does, Cell Projects, London (2011), PP, Limoncello, London (2011), ‘A’ is not equal to ‘A’, Quare, London (2010), g39, Cardiff (2009). Recent group exhibitions include; Young British Art II, Dienstgebäude, Zürich (2012), The Islets of Langerhans, Hosted in Athens, Athens (2012), Finger, Hidde Van Seggelen, London (2012), 16mm Film screening, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes (2012). He was awarded the Young Artist Scholarship at the National Eisteddfod of Wales (2002) and was artist-in-residence for the Eisteddfod, Newport (2004). In January 2013 he will put-together Setsuko Hara at Oriel Sycharth, Wrexham. To coincide with the exhibition the book, Sesuko Hara, made in collaboration with Tamsin Clark will be published by The Block, London.

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