I’ve been to two great talks this week (and another later today by Eva Berendes at S1). The talks I’ve been this week by Sarah Woodfine at the Graves gallery, and Sonya Dyer at Site Gallery. Both very different artists: Woodfine practice revolves around drawing and spatial concerns and Dyer Sonya Dyer‘s work uses a variety of means and contexts to investigate artists and political agency, rethinking historical and contemporary ideas of Europe and European culture.
Woodfine had been commissioned to produce a work which responded to an existing work in the gallery and she’d chosen the painting Lady of Shallot (1858) by William Maw Egley. The work produced was a sculpture Island. The work at Site Gallery is part of open call Platform programme and the project is called Paul Robeson Research Station.
The main differences of the practices are that Woodfine ‘s work comes very much from herself with her own visual language and of personal concerns and Dyer uses the opportunity for research, for understanding and to educate. Both practices are strong and developed: Dyer’s was exposed, easy to access, and an ongoing process and Woodfine’s is abstract, personal and difficult to access. Access of information and the responsibility of the artist in relation to the audience is one of the key things here. I found Woodfine’s sculpture hard to engage with until she spoke about it and then it beautifully came alive. At Dyers talk there were many people in the audience who already had interest/connections with Robeson and the debate was around politics and art that deals with those subjects. It was very interesting and lively and it also seemed a very popular choice by the number of people in the room.
But one thing irked me a little; Dyer mentioned that she’d never do art that was biographical like Tracy Emin. I thought that this was a bit of a dig at other methods of producing art. Of course, there are really important issues, which are often overlooked and suppressed by the media and history books, and raising these issues is vitally important but this doesn’t mean that ‘biographical’ art is less valid. Woodfine mentioned that she found that being an artist difficult at times, she feels that she has sacrificed things for it e.g. kids and relationships, what recurring motifs and themes were present in her work. It just was a lovely open and honest talk. It seems that these women are two different kind of artists: one that has chosen to use the language of art to understand and promote ideas and the other where being an artist is something that is intrinsic to her whole being.
As my own practice is sculpture based I do have difficulties with projects such as Dyer’s and I wouldn’t go so far in saying that these social projects shouldn’t be in art galleries, it’s just not the sort of thing that I usually enjoy engaging in. But with regards to Woodfine, where the object only came alive when the artist told us about it, this causes problems too (for the audience). Either way, for artists, it can be difficult when taking into account the audience in a piece of work. My own opinion is that you should make art that you want to make and if it leaves space for the audience then that’s great but if it doesn’t it’s still as valid.
In this few weeks since my last blog I’ve not done any actual practical work but have made leaps and bounds in reference to my overall practice. I’ve applied for a studio, turned down the residency in Sheffield, been to some great talks and also applied for 4 exhibition/screening opportunities.
I’m getting really excited about the prospect of having a studio again. I have had one before, at Islington Mill in Salford, which I ended early in 2009. This was fantastic for my practice development but the didn’t find the artistic community that I wanted. Islington mill is a fantastic place but only about a quarter of the studios are for artists (the others being creative practioners). They have the arts club, which do some fantastic things, but I wasn’t allowed to join as I had an arts degree (It’s for people who want to have a non university art education but I just loved what they were doing and wanted to be part of it). Also the studios were self-contained, which was great at the time, but doesn’t give you the chance to see what other people are doing.
The studio that I’ve applied for is at S1 art space in Sheffield and it’s open plan and artists hold all the studios. I have had to apply via application form, with images and a CV, and also have to have an interview this afternoon. This formal procedure could be seen as quite elitist but I think that there should be a sense of protective selection as there’s a community to uphold. The studio holders also have to commit to helping out in the space to for a few hours per week, which I like the idea of. They also have a fantastic gallery and ongoing exhibition programme and the opportunity to get involved in that is really exciting. Fingers crossed.
I’ve been busy doing some new drawings over the last month. They’re obviously very sculptural and mentioned in a previous blog I’m getting urges to start to make things again. I’ve been debating how I could make these, whether I need a studio, where this is taking my practice and it’s still not resolved yet. I am really pleased with the way its going though, doing these drawings has opened up a lovely dialogue in my head about material and spatial concerns. I have been in conversation which a local Sheffield gallery about doing a residency there, but following on from a meeting there I’m not sure that we have the same ideas and needs to what a residency is. It was useful though for me to decide exactly what I want and its just some space to work in. I would like the networking and social aspects of a studio but not sure that I can afford it. We’ll have to see.
It’s interesting thinking about sculpture because it has such a weighty history behind and presently the definitions of sculpture can mean anything. I was interested in the article in Feb’s Art Monthly about feminist performance art and how the artists wanted alternative sites of production and presentation for the work. As well as sites for performances, other places where ideas could be exchanged was in feminist journals and publications. An interesting debate at present is how the artist can use social networking sites. I use my blogs to document my practice and my work, and by putting them on Artists talking I hope they get looked at by an understanding (and knowledable) audience. Using twitter is a different matter. I was initially repulsed by the idea as the only experience was hearing about bland celebrities every move. But now I’m starting to warm to it and I think today I’ve started to utilise it to my own way. By using the twitpic extension I’ve found a place for a series of photographs of readymade sculptures that I’ve been working on.
You can connect with people too, doing the residency in Leeds has made a few new followers, and I even got to meet some of them at the opening. It seems a very useful tool to network and keep in touch with things that are happening. The only thing I’ll have to watch out for though is getting a bit obsessed with tweeting and telling people what I’m having for my tea….!
twitter.com/sarabrannan
