Beware All Inexperienced Boatmen is the randomly selected title of a student show in the uni gallery space, swiftly yet thoughtfully curated by our tutor last week. The quote is from the essay, The River Po, from The Shape of a Pocket by John Berger, that I had on my desk. It seemed to make an immediate connection although I felt a little guilty at the haphazard method of choosing it (I did say swiftly). I re-read it. Berger is writing about the film Gente del Po made in the mid 1940’s, by Michelangelo Antonioni. He describes the river as, ‘A sprawling story of regular repetitions and unpredictability’,* with a still surface and hidden currents, and a famously un-penetrable fog that shrouds visibility; hence the warning. The work relates well together all having been previously exhibited separately and is now presented together here at the beginning of our final academic year. A point at which forward motion is necessary and urgent, ‘to negotiate and finally join the beyond.’*
Beware All Inexperienced Boatmen
Buckinghamshire New University Gallery
Saliha Elhoussaini
Gill Gregory
Marion Piper
Cally Shadbolt
* The Shape of a Pocket, John Berger, BloomsburyPublishing Plc, London, 2002.
Mmm… convergence or divergence? a good prompt for a post, thank you David Riley for your comment.
My painting activity at Angelika involves converging points. Elements coming in from different directions, both formally and from source. I’m letting them in and taking their lead. I plan to move these canvasses down the road to the uni studio to work on them there next week. I don’t want there to be a divide between the two spaces.
The work I started at uni has a divergent character. Two canvases begun in the same manner, side by side. The concertina sketchbook shares the same first step and then I have decided to activate the same decision in the book as on the canvas but translate it differently. As the two canvases develop I expect the 17 pairs of pages will also take a other directions. So many things happen on the canvas during painting slipping between the layers. I am interested in the ‘Sliding Doors‘ question and wonder myself what might happen.
Studio spaces have now been allocated for the first six week period, with detailed guidelines and expectations for how they and the shared workspaces are to be used. It is a different way and there may well be some problems. We final year students need to get on with working now and not let it distract us. The reduction in teaching hours for our staff has resulted in a re-plan of the timetable and a re-adjustment to how teaching hours are used. Moving furniture and cleaning up the studio (along with constructing it!) etc are the responsibility of the artist and part of studio life. It is our studio. Use it or loose it.
The first deadline of the year approaches, for 10 minute power point presentation for the Context and Presentation module. This is a practice run for the new contextulisation section of the viva we give at our final. I am finding that this process is far from limiting. It is helping me to identify the heart of my practice. I don’t want to make work ‘like’ anyone but I’m not making in a vacuum either. It’s a multi-lingual visual world out there, witness Frieze, and I suppose I want to know my language well and to communicate it clearly.
I have started two groups of work. In my studio space at Angelika, I am working with the starting point of a small pencil drawing continuing the Massena series. At uni I am pursuing a series using the concertina sketchbook drawing/painting activity I have been doing throughout the course.
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Massena- Standing
Concertina – Moving
Thank you for your comments Richard, David and Sam.
Yes, space = time!
It was felt last year by tutors that 60% of the studio had been underused. This year Fine Art has lost some space to the Foundation course and after completing the first year in the main campus a re-plan was needed. Historically part-timers have had equal space to the full time students, with free access at any other time, w/ends etc. There is a strong ethos of working in the studio and of ongoing studio conversation. My observation is that work made exclusively ‘at home’ always seems to struggle to make it’s way into that conversation. Which echoes David’s and Sam’s concerns about sterile space and time.
There have been mixed emotions about having to build the studio spaces. A modular design of double walled ‘permanent’ structures have been built, and this will save a lot of time for the final degree show build still leaving an open space available for inventive installations. Not wanting to sound overly romantic I do feel this ‘barn raising’ experience has been positive.
My uni focus has been to update my studio practice proposal. Discussions in a group tutorial has opened the door into fellow students proposed working methods and inquiries and has got the dialogue off to a good start.
It has been a rewardingly busy time at Angelika Studios we currently have an exhibition curated for our gallery by Gordon Dalton of Mermaid and Monster http://www.mermaidandmonster.com and I have taken on Tweeting for the studio! http://bit.ly/nhrjzQ
