Cardiff School of Art & Design

Relationships.

Relationships are such a vital point to my work, I thought it’s best to mention my relationship with two of my favourite artists: Michael Dean, an artist from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who has an exhibition opening at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds this month which I am very excited for. Dean’s work, along with David Hockney are probably my biggest influences at the minute, so I thought I’d write a little about my relationship with their work.

I’ll start with the secular saint of contemporary painting, David Hockney. At the RA show of his work, I experienced something I haven’t felt in quite a while, an affinity, and a real connection with the work. Whether they triggered something from young visits to Saltaire Salt Mill & the surrounding area that I now can’t remember, or whether the images that were constructed had so much graft behind them that I couldn’t help but feel a strong connection. The relationship I’ve had with Hockney’s work has always been joyous; I can remember adoring him aged 14, and adoring him now. His work is, as he said in 93′ at Tate, “pretty” and so accessibility has never been a problem, something I have struggled with. I think accessibility is not a necessity, but for me, is. I cherish the relationship (if any) that the audience has with the work, bad or good, because my work is so personal, to hear outside opinions, whatever they may be, is very beneficial for my progress in a way.

Dean was born in 77′, which makes him about 35. He isn’t bound to one media; he works in photography, sculpture, text and probably many other outlets. He is the kind of artist I want to be at 35 (although I’m fully aware its an awful thing to compare yourself to other artists), still pushing what the limits of sculpture and writing can be, and what they can do together. His book of what I’ll describe as ‘alternative-prose’, “Mountains and Triangles” is so refreshing, and makes the reader see the space in between the text with a newfound importance, very austere, and enrapturing, to the point where it is no longer a book, but a work of visual art in its own right. My relationship with Dean’s work is that he pulls off almost flawlessly an aspect of my practice that has been battled out since I was in college, intimacy. The intimacy of his work is what makes it so interesting; it has a personal flux that leaves him in a very vulnerable state, but that’s what makes it, the symmetry of the artist and the audience, the work and the space.

Degree show meltdowns.

Anyone else had theirs yet? Although im quite in control and know what im doing to a certain extent, anxiety always shows its ugly head.

In better news, The work iv’e been producing on relationships is starting to come along quite nicely, a day of drawing down the bay proved very useful for reference material for some future work, mainly drawings of, and im not sure of the technical term, but the ‘end of a pier, after the rest of a pier’s been taken down’ is just facinating to me, im not sure whether its a sense of nostlagia about them, or the allure of dilapidated architecture, they are just very interesting objects, sat in the shallows.

New age ‘Isle of The Dead’ perhaps?

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.