Great day in Dover last Saturday despite the rain. About 50 people turned up for the DAD opening of Resider/Reside (http://www.dadonline.eu/blog/). It’s the conversations triggered on such occasions that really make the day. Art has a way of doing that – getting conversations going.
I’m waiting for some stuff I ordered to turn up and then I’ll be back in the studio making bigger drawings.
Had what CSM calls an academic tutorial the other day. It was very useful and made me think quite hard.
My tutor was quite positive about the stain drawings and the plates though I have to think bigger.
Isn’t it funny how after you’ve first heard of something the concept keeps popping up again and again, because now you recognise it.
There was something about mirror neurons on the radio the other day. I think it is mirror neurons that were meant at the conference, not mirror genes. My error. So I have now found out that mirror neurons are fired when one performs an action and when we observe an action so the neuron mirrors the action and it is as if we were performing it ourselves. So this phenomenon has apparently been useful in rehabilitation of patients, for example.
Even if like many I am sceptical about neuroscience being the answer to all our questions about perception, it is nonetheless interesting to think that the brain might recognise gesture in drawing as a result of mirror neurons firing off.
“There is no way to tell a story that is only about you” (Miller, Nancy K. But enough about me: Why We Read Other Peoples’ Lives, Columbia University Press, New York, 2002)
DAD is very busy at the moment mulling over ideas about audience engagment. All much more emotional than it may seem as Sharon’s blog will testify.
I went to the “thinking through drawing” conference yesterday. Ana Leonor Madeira Rodrigues has a theory that mirror genes (think that is what she said) govern the pleasure associated with recognition when looking at drawings of recognisable things – somehow the brain recognises the physical gestures that make the marks that form the drawing and this is why we enjoy such drawings. I’m sure I’ve oversimplified.
Speaking on observational drawing, Eduardo Corte-Real, said that observational drawings formed part of an archaeology of knowledge, which I thought was nice.
Clare Smith's mixed English/Chinese heritage informs her perspective on issues of identity and categorisation. Her nomadic childhood and early adulthood have meant a somewhat ambivalent relationship to place, reinforced by the sense of ambiguity that comes from her mixed identity. Smith works with drawing, print media, collage and moving image to investigate this ambivalence, with references to craft, the importance of labour and the handmade. Through her choice of materials and approaches, she creates work which attempts to create a sense of unity, an interpretation of Homi Bhabha's "Third Space" - seen as a space in which different parts can come together to challenge dominant ideas of wholeness. Collaboration is part of Smith’s practice and she is also co-founder of Dover Arts Development (DAD) together with painter, Joanna Jones. This involves working with many different artists, curation, organisation, event management, creating networks across East Kent and influencing the public realm in Dover. Clare works from a studio in Dover. She has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
