Balancing Act

A brilliant week in Athens for The Alternative Art Fair, over 2000 visitors on the first night apparently. Thanks to all those who made it possible from Artemis Potamianou for organising the event at short notice, Jackie Berridge for organising us and the catalogue, Jordan Paraskevopoulos at Nottingham Greek School for translating our information and Athina Nikiforidou at DMU for helping with my translations.  With documenta 14 taking place at the same time, it is a vibrant city just now. My current favourite work is Emeka Ogbah’s The Way Earthly Things Are Going in a space that is so perfectly suited to its resonances.

Last night at Athens School of Fine Art, Jacques Rancière was invited by B-Fest to talk on equality and emancipation. An absolutely packed hall with people of all ages listened to this very highly regarded philosopher on this very apt subject in this city of dis-connections.

All in all, a week of looking, learning, sharing and eating chocolate.

Found an aquarium, neon pink with pink pebbles, what a gloriously kitsch object. Only plastic fish luckily but  castle included. Using it as a basis for sound amplification not quite sure how yet. Looking for a waterproof speaker. Don’t think I will find that on a skip! Hardly any time for studio practice at the moment, work, that is, earning money and art admin. takes a long time and got a micro residency at the end of the month to plan for. Not being in the studio makes me feel dislocated, in a universe that I don’t quite belong in. Still, got the  place for fishes to look forward to!

Went to the see the work of Simon Starling at Nottingham Contemporary this week, a brilliant exhibition if occasionally it appears a little contrived. This gallery also has a begun a programme of music related events such as American Music listening which last week was about Paul Robeson and Music at Work yesterday. As free events,  it is great to have such a variety.

I have spent a lot of time looking at the nature of sculpture through creating sculpture using paint as the medium. I always think it is going to be a problem knowing when something is finished in the abstract but when  it’s done, it’s done. You just know, or, in the worst case scenario, it was finished before you made that last adjustment. However, in this case, I went to the studio and tidied up. It was a subconscious knowledge, I didn’t know I had finished with this line of enquiry. What I have to do now is analyse my results.

Knots lost and found. I have collected found knots for few years now, I love the way they tangle and the interweaving of the colours and textures. Decided to display it as a collector would so it creates a wall of colour and shape. But while it is aesthetically pleasing, this is not what really interests me. For example, how can someone lose a knot? The ideas behind joining two things together and, yes, I know they are not all knots, some are hitches or bends, but as a generic term, knot will do. So have begun delving into knot theory. All my work concerns transitional spaces, the crossing from one thing to another and a knot is a concrete proof of the transition between straight and narrow and twist, between two things becoming one thing. Not totally sure where its all going yet (even after all this time) but my collection grows.