Cardiff School of Art & Design

Currently up north, just sorting out applications for residencies/internships etc. I was unfortunately on the recieving end of a clamp two days ago, and so created a new piece of work to make me feel better. Its a tongue in cheek piece that looks at the relationship between clamping companies, the vehicles they clamp, and the motorist. Mainly my experience of all three, all at once.

For Sale at £100 to recoup the expenses of aquiring the materials.

Just a short one mentioning a new Cardiff Art Group, BIT. They presented their first show with two of the members, Ifan Lewis Lewis & Tom Winfield. Apparently the show was a great success (I say apparently because I couldnt go as I was 250 miles away) but watch out for them, they’ll be doing more stuff soon!

@bitcardiff

Degree Show.

9th of June, that’s the date of the opening of the Cardiff School of Art Degree Show, this makes it feel very real and not too far away. Exciting. The wood for the stretchers ill be using in the show arrived today, enough to create a series of paintings, from which to choose from. Its all becoming very clear, constant inflection has made everything clarified. I’ll be making more projection platforms, because what they do for me is what propositional sentences (the literary equivalent) cannot, they have this intrinsic ability to have total periphery to everyone except the artist, I’m really enjoying the fact that I am making paintings for myself, as a means of investigation, and at this stage I think that’s what the best route of my practice should be, to understand something, or try and understand something that I find enthralling. I happen to think that the relationship between painting and poetry, or more open, the relationship between image and language is brilliant, its been said that they are both forms of mimesis, but that’s been dismissed throughout the years, its been mentioned somewhere that they are both spiritual connections, but, they’re so much bigger than that. They’re one of the joys of the human condition, and I plan on reveling in that for as long as physically possible. That’s my conviction, anyway.

Just a passing thought.

Today is a ‘sorting out finances’ day, so nothing of creative merit is happening. However I do feel compelled to mention how great it was to have some creative discourse outside of university at the weekend, it came in the form of ‘Tooth & Clawr’, reviewing some texts in relation to Lothar Gotz’ exhibition, although not strictly linked to it, more open than that. There needs to be more things like that throughout Cardiff, XSC and Tooth & Clawr are hopefully setting a trend for more discussion group/critique thingamajiggers (I believe thats the appropriate technical noun). Im still fired up from the ‘…Perils…’ show, it was so professionally done, every credit to Sam, Helen, Alwyn & everyone else who set it up & took part. I am very thankful to of been a small part of it.

Projection Platforms.

It feels like I’ve been making them for the entirety of my practice, but its only now its become apparent that I make projection platforms, these images that for me, help deal with the problem of the eclecticism of images I’m bombarded with, in a way that allows me to strive to create visually exciting and conceptually stimulating work. Essentially they allow me to make personal paintings that deal with ideas or themes that are central and intimate to me, yet might be peripheral to the audience, but still create an exciting platform that allows either emotional or visual projection.

Three are going to be in ‘The Perils of the Modern Alchemists’ and im currently working on a fourth and fifth, which will hopefully be done in the next week or so. Found an artist in the book ‘Berlin Art Now’ who has the same issue as me in their practice (drastically changing every few months or so), Bernhard Martin, he makes visually exciting and conceptually stimulating paintings, a dualism I think all great artwork has; and puts his ethos very clearly, which I’ll paraphrase terribly as I don’t have it to hand, “I wouldn’t want to make a painting concerning something that I didn’t adore.” Or something along those lines. More info on the progress of the projection platforms soon!