Day 12
Artist Brunch
The artists who were selected from the portfolio review came to Node today for a brunch meet and greet.
Of the 20 or so artists who were invited, 11 were in attendance.
After a period of welcoming the artists to the Node space – eating cured meats, cheese and fruit, drinking coffee and generally mingling with our guests – we gave each artist the opportunity to present their work to the group.
There was a interesting balance between the types of artists who had been invited to the brunch. I think this served to illustrate the differences in taste between all the residents. I’m still trying to figure everybody out after 4 weeks. There was a dominance of viedo being used by the artists. Some were using video purely for documentation purposes, such as for documenting performance, while others were using video in more experimental ways.
I enjoyed talking with every artist. They all had very intersting backgrounds and approaches to their work. The work of Ed Spence was very impressive and equally interesting. Taking found images he edits them by hand, through cutting and rearranging small sections of the image, to appear as though digitally distorted. Other facets to his practice include illustration, both in the traditional sense and as site specific street art.
Martin Llavaneras‘ Hangingout series consists of beautfully constructed compositions that on first inspection appear to be still images. Prolongued viweing will reveal that you are actually looking at a video. Within the frame you will find a human figure hanging (off walls, cars or statues), holding an awkward pose and remaining perfectly still. This stillness amplifies tranquility while also expressing would must be immense exertion from the figure holding the pose. With the video lopped this pose seems endless and gradually more painful. What was more interesting about Martin was his emphasis on the method of display. During his presentation he became frustrated by quality of sound output available to him. He also highlighted that his videos would never be displayed on a monitor, but always as a projection. His passion for small detail came across, perhaps unintentionally, and impressed those listening to him.
I always find it far more interesting to hear what artists actually has to say in person about their work, compared to what they may have written for a statement in a CV or on a website. Artist statements are, in general, very dry in terms of the language used. Although often well constructed – usually due to it being a heavily edited and considered piece of text – it remains difficult to ascertain exaclty where an artist is coming from through reading their statements.
In contrast, when an artist has to respond to questions on the spot about their work, they do not have time to consider the correct terminology. It is at this moment that I feel the artist really begins to tell you what their work is about.
One artist whose absence disappointed me was Dave Ball, the Welsh artist mentioned in a previous post. We have scheduled another event for the coming week to which we will invite the absent artists and hopefully we will get to listen to Ball talk about his work.
