Diagram Poems

It seems the artwork that I posted yesterday was a little too optimistic. Here’s a companion piece to even things out a little:

It’s maybe off topic, since this blog is supposed to just be about the work I was making for POST’s Whitstable show the other week, here’s my voting day contribution to the remain campaign.

#artistsforIN

So the exhibition (POST’s “Parables Displaced”) was last weekend and a great success with a good 150 visitors or more over two days. Below are a couple of mobile phone photos of my work in situ. I’ve not had a chance to deal with proper photos yet.

Incidentally, there are still a few copies of the booklet of diagram poetry that I created for the show available. I’m selling them in my Etsy shop: matthewjameskay.etsy.com

What’s next? My diagram poems are included in a group exhibition in Denmark this August (“Tastings 3” at KIKssh, Roskilde). I’m showing a selection of devotional objects and diagram poems in a solo exhibition called “This Wonderful Pile of Dirt” on Saturday 27th of August in Greenbelt Festival’s Allotment Gallery (in Kettering). And then there’s Art Rooms in January 2017 – still waiting to hear back on that one…

Tomorrow we install the POST artists exhibition in St Alphege church Whitstable for the Whitstable Biennale Satellite program (details are all here). It’s been a busy couple of weeks of trying out ways to hang the diagram poems so that they work as a collection with an over-arching narrative element.

The plan was to hang them amongst some photos of the choir through the years that are already in the church but when this wasn’t going to be possible I tried hanging the diagram poems as unframed paper objects in a cluster. They’re too flighty, so I’ve framed them in charity shop frames to match the aesthetic of the old framed photos – an aesthetic I’ve found to be common to old churches in many towns and villages.

While there are fourteen diagram poems, I’ve selected seven, for their clear relevance to the life of St Alphege to be printed as a booklet. Once the limited edition of 49 are all dispersed I’ll make the PDF available for printing your own. 49 is not a number of significance – I ordered 50 and one was misprinted.

If you happen to be in Whitstable over the weekend, the exhibiting artists will be holding a public crit at 1pm on Sunday.

Having finished 14 diagram poems I’m ready to start finding order amongst seemingly random stanzas. These are all going to be framed for the exhibition as well as several of them being printed as a limited edition booklet for visitors to take away. Having dwelled on the different allusions created by the words that form each individual piece, this stage is about tracing a connecting line through them as a collection.

I suppose I don’t really have a unified theory of my practice. It’s messy and slightly confusing, just as is the subject matter with which I try to engage. I’m really interested in the narratives that we share, project, make-up and believe to remind us who we are and what we’re about. The process of putting a series of diagram poems in order for publication addresses this concern and questions the authenticity of any (meta)narrative. Maybe it’s about finding the truth that inspires the stories rather than the surface truths that we assume they’re conveying.

POST Artists exhibition as part of the Whitstable Biennial Satellite program is open on Saturday 11th (12:00 – 18:00) and Sunday 12th of (12:00 – 16:00) June with performances at 14:00 and 16:00 on the Saturday and at 14:00 on the Sunday. It’s at St Alphege Church on the High Street. More details HERE