It’s been far too long since my last post (back in April!). Much has happened in-between, including an exhibition in London at W3 Gallery, a feature in One & Other Magazine, and two commissions (one for the Tour de France, the other for the Access All Areas festival in Accrington). Ironically, despite having had plenty to blog about over the last few months, I felt “too busy” to post about things. In other words, I missed out on tons of perfect opportunities to promote, discuss, and get critical feedback on my work.
I’m hoping not to fall back into that trap again, now that a new set of projects are underway (which I’ll discuss in my next post). As an artist, there’s no excuse for being “too busy” to promote your own work, especially when you’re still trying to get established. As I’ve learned, nobody else is going to do it for you…even the galleries showing your work. In the best of cases, they will produce a nice advertisement – one with your name on it and which gets distributed to all of their contacts – and maybe they’ll put a post on their website. But in many cases, curators and galleries will simply make a generic flyer that makes no mention of who’s actually in the show…sometimes they don’t even do that. Regardless, in all cases the impact is often very brief and fleeting – a few extra hits on your website ahead of the private view…then very little traffic for the duration of the show.
For example, a new group exhibition I’m part of just opened in Sheffield. Unfortunately, there has been very little print or online advertising for the show. So – rather than just let the whole thing pass without any fanfare, I made a poster for the exhibition and sent it to all my contacts, inviting them to the PV. It’s not the first time I’ve made a poster for a show that, for a variety of reasons (likely connected to people being “too busy”) nobody else had promoted.
It’s a big shame when so much work goes unseen because it’s not properly advertised. As mentioned above, I’m definitely guilty of this myself – and I think most artists (and curators) fail at this essential task. It’s hard enough as an artist trying to just make work – let alone get it exhibited. The least we could do – after all of this other struggle – is take a moment to tell the world about it.
So…in case you happen to be near Sheffield during October – here’s the info about the exhibition: It’s called ‘PLAY!’ and features work inspired by video games, including pieces by: Julien Masson, Sonny Barker, Michael Borkowsky, Benjamin Davies, Angela Hardwick, Sharon Haward, Jamie Hodges, Rita Kaisen, Daniel McCabe, Kaety Moon, James Moore, Sharon Mossbeck, and Sally Sheinman.
The exhibition is located at Access Space, Unit 1, Avec Bldg, 3-7 Sidney St, Sheffield, S1 4RG – and runs from 3 October until 31 October. Hope to see you there!
