So its coming up to the end of my residency at Airspace. Very kindly the gallery let me stay on for two months longer, which has been invaluable in terms of really seeing the impact of living in the city of Stoke-on-Trent within my work.
I’ve realised my work is specific in a very indirect way to where it is made when I look back at each place where I’ve had a studio; it seems living in a strange city has struck a chord and made a great impact of some kind, so I am staying in the city indefinitely after the residency to explore this further. Notions of familiarity and unfamiliarity are very important in my process of de-constructing the visual, which is partly why I have called the final show ‘Close’ for its multiple meanings in regards to these ideas.
My painting practice has now shaped and morphed itself into a number of wobbly almost-paintings, written pieces and hanging structures. The show is in two weeks, and I’m really looking forward to it though there’s still a lot to be done. In the gallery it’s going to be very much dependent on the curation, as even after I’ve made the work I’m still actually making the work because the space is part of it; in the studio it will feel right in one place but in the gallery it may feel right somewhere quite different. The formalism of the gallery naturally means that I’m going to be working with props and ‘organic’materials as a setting to lower the contrast between the straight lines of the space and the kind of intimate lopsidedness of the work. Like they were little babies being mothered by the studio and now they’re growing up and creating their own environments and homes. This uncertainty as to what will happen in the space until everything’s in there is very exciting but very nerve-wracking at the same time.
The show opens on the 13th March 6 till 8 pm and then is open 11-5 everyday till the 21st March.
http://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/projects/close_a_solo_exhibition_by_alice_walter
