I am totally on the look out for somewhere to show my paintings. I recently saw Joe Webster's work at Boston Tea Party in Exeter, and it inspired me to try and get some of my languishing work back up on walls. Its not gonna sell wrapped in plastic leant up behind the tv. I've inquired at Boston. If anyone actually reads this, and can think of somewhere else locally that needs a few lively, beautiful images on the walls, please let me know. Cheers! :)
Saturday 22 September 2012
Thursday 13 September 2012
Hugh M. Davies
As part of my dissertation research I have come across a book on installation art, with an introduction by Hugh M. Davies, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. It makes many ingenious points - chiefly that ambitious 3 dimensional art is actually a return to the first kind of art - cave paintings. He also says it is a travesty that while 2 d work sells, the bigger stuff struggles, but that is where the real experiments are taking place. Sorry painters! ;) I really recommend the book - 'Blurring The Boundaries'. Here's one of my favourite quotes: 'Whatever aesthetic bounty experimental artists bag rarely translates into trophy art to hang above the mantel that is likely to turn a tidy profit. "We got in on the Schnabel thing early, snagged a player piece for nothing before the Boone happened, Hung on until the Whitney begged for it, and then turned a tidy profit on the appreciation when the tax window opened. Julian's delighted and so are we. Nifty, this art business." As opposed to... "Gee honey, what would we ever want with an earthwork?, we don't even use the swimming pool."
Sunday 26 August 2012
May Installation
I never really posted any images off of May. I was very proud of what I produced in the end, an installation I'm calling Legacy. It's very personal in subject matter. I hope it will take on another life in a different exhibition. I entered Exeter Contemporary Open for the first time this year. I may also enter the Wells Contemporary Open, which closes in a few weeks, note to self. I think this work deserves another outing. It's top drawer. All puns intended and copyright of the artist.
Thursday 31 May 2012
Crazy Little Thing Called Art
Like last summer, I find myself once again using my spare time to try and make further head way in understanding this crazy mass of relationships, events and history they call the art world. I have been reading 'The Turner Prize and British Art', published in 2007 by Tate. A few chapters took my fancy, but I particularly enjoyed one discussing the phenomenon of prizes in the cultural world, in which Mark Lawson, Grayson Perry and Lionel Shriver bat some thoughts about. I'd like to quote some snippets from it because they seem particularly articulate on the state of things.
GP (The Turner Prize) is contemporary art, yes. Alan Bennett said that there should be a sign outside the National Gallery, saying, you don't have to like everything, and I think that is something that needs to be rammed home again and again to people. You know, come to the Turner Prize, you might like none of it, you might like all of it. People don't feel qualified to discern because it's an alien language to them. The art world has its own language, and all contemporary art, to some extent, even if it's rebelling against it, is addressing the 'lingua franca' of contemporary art. I think you're a fool if you ignore its existence, because it's like someone going to France and shouting in English... You have got to acknowledge that contemporary art has its orthodoxies now. It has its history and its way of doing things. You pick up a kind of thought process of people in the art world from living around it for decades, because it's very isolated. It's not like the literary world where you have to take into consideration popularity, because the people who buy art are insiders on the whole. Most of the collectors want to be part of the difficult - now slightly glamorous - world of art. So in a way it doesn't matter what the public think. They can come along and look at this prize and say, rubbish. The only people who want it to be popular are museums. They want footfall.
ML You talk about centuries of approval and disapproval that have gone into great works of art. I have this argument with people from the Mail and the Telegraph all the time, because it seems to me amazing that they don't realise when they say filth in the Turner Prize or whatever, that middle-class favourites, for example, Judi Dench in Chekhov or Ian McKellan in Strindberg, were just as controversial at first. I mean there were literally riots on the first nights of these plays. Ibsen was accused of bringing sewage out of the streets into the theatres. There doesn't seem any acknowledgement of the process that most art is going to be against the middlebrow conventions of the time, if it's going to be any good.
I know its not quite what Mark Lawson is talking about, but I find it interesting that within my little year group at college, the people whose art I really objected to, only 6 months ago, are the people who actually now inspire me to 'go further'. As for Grayson Perry's argument, I usually use a similar analogy myself when explaining to people that art has its own language, that you really need to be versed in, before you can make an informed opinion. And actually its a bit arrogant to think that any tom, dick or harry, can take it at face value and write a letter of disgust to the Sun about it. I usually use the analogy of wine though. I can say I don't like the taste of a particular bottle... but it might be considered the best by a wine buff... something like that.
GP (The Turner Prize) is contemporary art, yes. Alan Bennett said that there should be a sign outside the National Gallery, saying, you don't have to like everything, and I think that is something that needs to be rammed home again and again to people. You know, come to the Turner Prize, you might like none of it, you might like all of it. People don't feel qualified to discern because it's an alien language to them. The art world has its own language, and all contemporary art, to some extent, even if it's rebelling against it, is addressing the 'lingua franca' of contemporary art. I think you're a fool if you ignore its existence, because it's like someone going to France and shouting in English... You have got to acknowledge that contemporary art has its orthodoxies now. It has its history and its way of doing things. You pick up a kind of thought process of people in the art world from living around it for decades, because it's very isolated. It's not like the literary world where you have to take into consideration popularity, because the people who buy art are insiders on the whole. Most of the collectors want to be part of the difficult - now slightly glamorous - world of art. So in a way it doesn't matter what the public think. They can come along and look at this prize and say, rubbish. The only people who want it to be popular are museums. They want footfall.
ML You talk about centuries of approval and disapproval that have gone into great works of art. I have this argument with people from the Mail and the Telegraph all the time, because it seems to me amazing that they don't realise when they say filth in the Turner Prize or whatever, that middle-class favourites, for example, Judi Dench in Chekhov or Ian McKellan in Strindberg, were just as controversial at first. I mean there were literally riots on the first nights of these plays. Ibsen was accused of bringing sewage out of the streets into the theatres. There doesn't seem any acknowledgement of the process that most art is going to be against the middlebrow conventions of the time, if it's going to be any good.
I know its not quite what Mark Lawson is talking about, but I find it interesting that within my little year group at college, the people whose art I really objected to, only 6 months ago, are the people who actually now inspire me to 'go further'. As for Grayson Perry's argument, I usually use a similar analogy myself when explaining to people that art has its own language, that you really need to be versed in, before you can make an informed opinion. And actually its a bit arrogant to think that any tom, dick or harry, can take it at face value and write a letter of disgust to the Sun about it. I usually use the analogy of wine though. I can say I don't like the taste of a particular bottle... but it might be considered the best by a wine buff... something like that.
Tuesday 8 May 2012
Some Images To Complement The Words...
These images won't make sense out of context, but they all demonstrate my style.. pretty versatile.. pretty lo-fi, and pretty cerebral!
...And Down We Go Again...
I never knew this career path would involve so much struggle, both internal & external. There's the struggle that goes on in the studio, documented in the sketchbook, as you try and unravel and tap into your ideas and logic. Then you've got the fact that trying to find out how to make a living from Art is like trying to find the holy grail. I mean man cannot live on fine ideas and beauty alone. I don't want to be an artist that sells little knick knacks for £30 each at the annual open studios. I want to be the artist having a major show in London :/
Monday 9 April 2012
Re-Inspired, Phew!
After a week of feeling a bit deflated about the direction I am going in, I feel re-inspired, hurrah! I had fallen into a familiar groove of questioning whether the Fine Art degree was a total fool's errand. I know I am getting into debt and I'm never quite sure if its going to 'pay off'. This doubt and introspection commonly occurs when you are rudely kicked out of college for these periods they call 'holidays'. Without the everyday structure, you suddenly slip into DOOOOOOOM!, wondering whether you should just go and get a job at the local electricity firm like everybody else. And maybe get a house on a new build estate. And maybe start wearing a tie. Anyway, a quick look today at the various Arts jobs bulletins around has reassured me that getting a Fine Art degree can only be a good thing, and that I still have the work experience accrued before returning to University. And even if I have to start at the bottom of the pile next year when I graduate, I will only be 33, which isn't really that old (is it? is it?), not in this day and age. And actually 33 is pretty early to find yourself where you want to be. I think in general, I need to weather set backs a bit better, and keep in mind my long term goals. Just don't ask for any great detail on what they are. Fuck wearing a tie.
Saturday 4 February 2012
2nd Year, End of Year Show, Work in Progress
Thought I would take a minute to post about what I'm working on in the studio. I began the term, thinking about notions of loss and family. I attended my grandad's funeral in January and was interested to learn that he had been a draughtsman. On top of this, one of the readings at the funeral was an extract from one of my Dad's plays. My Dad has had Dementia since he was 50 so has long since become divorced from the person he once was. There are three strands of work currently in development in the studio which attempt to digest these ideas.. of heritage.. loss.. the 'fleeting-ness' of life, and how any truth about life can be so hard to pin down. Just when you've made an attempt to process it, it gets away from you again. I have been creating a sculpture by shredding a variety of fresh and found materials - remnants of fabric from my own stash and bought in from fabric shops, and flotsam and jetsom collected on walks around Exeter. The idea is that this pile of matter could be tucked into edges and corners at the exhibition, maybe where the wall meets the floor, or up and down the staircases. Another piece of work involves projecting a blurry photograph of this matter in situ. I may even try and get the projector to shake, emphasising this sense of the fleeting and elliptical nature of life. The third strand is some 'poetry'. Quotes from other artists and writers, text messages, random thoughts and graffitti created in moments of frustration. When all this text work has simmered down, I hope to have some concise words to intersperse with my objects for an installation.
Friday 27 January 2012
End of Year Show, May 2012
Great week! Knackering and up and down as ever but I'm getting a lot of energy from the fact our end of year exhibition seems to be coming together. We've found a venue and have visited it a number of times over the past week. There are three empty buildings in a pedestrianised area of Taunton town centre. They have been furnished for use as offices, so there are hairy blue carpets, those nasty vertical blinds and strip lights in odd aluminium shells.. but it has great natural light, is not too overlooked by other buildings, is in a central location and for the past two weeks has been home to an arts project which has created a lot of local interest. There are three floors to each building and some interconnecting doors between them, meaning a potentially interesting, labyrinthine experience for the audience and a real opportunity for the curators and artists.
Today, our year group attended the wrap up session of the lively arts project that's been taking place in said buildings. Artists have been inhabiting the space, and interacting with the community with the aim of formulating a vision for some kind of arts establishment in Taunton. They also canvassed opinion on what the community think of recent regeneration plans. During this occupation, young people have had the opportunity to make films and music, and passersby have been able to 'get creative' using the resources set up by the artists.
Hopefully some of the ideas generated by the project will feed into future action through the town council and the various arts organisations already in existence in Taunton. Better partnership working and more focus on shared agendas was definitely being advocated today. For example, an arts diary for Taunton was suggested.
For us students, we now have three and a half months to make some work for the show. Can't wait!
Here are some shots of the location, just to give a feel :)
It has been great to meet Nic Brace, a passionate musician and arts facilitator and to continue to work with Tim Martin, the arts bod at the Brewhouse.
Today, our year group attended the wrap up session of the lively arts project that's been taking place in said buildings. Artists have been inhabiting the space, and interacting with the community with the aim of formulating a vision for some kind of arts establishment in Taunton. They also canvassed opinion on what the community think of recent regeneration plans. During this occupation, young people have had the opportunity to make films and music, and passersby have been able to 'get creative' using the resources set up by the artists.
Hopefully some of the ideas generated by the project will feed into future action through the town council and the various arts organisations already in existence in Taunton. Better partnership working and more focus on shared agendas was definitely being advocated today. For example, an arts diary for Taunton was suggested.
For us students, we now have three and a half months to make some work for the show. Can't wait!
Here are some shots of the location, just to give a feel :)
It has been great to meet Nic Brace, a passionate musician and arts facilitator and to continue to work with Tim Martin, the arts bod at the Brewhouse.
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