Had an amazing day yesterday. As part of the residency package I am given 6 mentoring sessions. As one of the sessions I was treated to a trip to London accompanied by 2 ASP artists. The purpose of the trip was to visit some of the smaller galleries, some of which are difficult to find! It proved to be so much more. It was great to get to know Jeannie (http://www.jeanniedriver.com/) and Natalie (http://www.nataliedowse.co.uk/) better and to gain knowlege from their experience as artists-we talked of galleries, trying to make it as an artist, art techniques and discussed the art we saw. Work exhibited in these smaller galleries is very varied and although I did not necessarily like all the work there was something to be gained and learnt from everywhere we went whether it was to do with the art, the titling of work, framing and presentation etc or the gallery spaces themselves. I was encouraged to leave my email details so I will hopefully recieve information from the galleries in the future.
The most inspiring work we saw was an exhibition at the Parasol Unit by Canan Tolon. You can check the work out at http://parasol-unit.org/ I was so impressed I bought the book!! The images and mark making-the layering and overlays was fascinating and something to aspire to in my work. I am also interested in layers(palimpsests) mark making, layering paint but this exhibition highlighted that I still have a lot to learn and a lot of experimentation to do. I feel for the moment I need to concerntrate on work for my exhibition but there will be a life time of exploration after April!!!
In addition to the galleries and discussion we also checked out a framers which was useful and really interesting. This is an area I need to explore and research and I have realised that presentation being important it is something I have to get my head round. Work can be ruined with bad presentation and display. As well as interesting there was the opportunity to buy frames in their sale-I came away with a load which of course I then had to lug around London along with my book!!!! They were such a bargain though it had to be done!
Wandering up the wonderful Brick Lane we found the Atlantis Art supplies shop – good job I was already ladden down as I could have very easily got carried away-it was better than a sweet shop! They do mail order so I will check out their website later. It was good to discover that they do wide canvas which I need for my big stretcher.
Last stop was the Whitechapel Gallery and a welcome cup of tea in the cafe. There was a group from the New Art Centre (Roch Court) so it was good to be able to have a quick chat and a bit of a catch up.
Very wearily we headed to Waterloo by bus and just had time to grab a pasty before we caught the train back to Portsmouth! naughty but yummy!!!
It was a very full and wonderful day and I feel I learnt a lot. Thank you so much to Natalie and Jeannie for looking after me so well and for being such good company.
Today I am really looking forward to going to the studio to work on my new big canvas -later I am on door duty at the Private View of the lastest exhibition at GASP-so another great day ahaed of me! :o)
