A young artist has taken over the nearby River Garage Studios and is opening this rather wonderful space with an inaugural show, just for the weekend.
The sun can almost be too strong …
even in winter and I will have to move away from the window as the year progresses.
I had some ink leftover on the plate – an old piece of glass from a cold frame I picked up a while ago – and decided to use it up.
This is what happened.
I am very surprised and pleased to be on the Baby Forest long list for their membership and exhibition awards and as such am up for the People’s Choice Award(Vote here).
This is one of the images that got me there!
I am going up to Dalby Forest with fellow artist and co-director of DAD Joanna for an event organised by Selfscapes, a new research cluster at York St John University which aims to investigate both the body and place as sites for interconnected experiences and how this might be mediated through a range of media.
I am really excited and thanks to this opportunity, which came via Joanna, I am beginning to realise that my focus and interest in heterotopias is providing a framework for my practice which I haven’t had before.
This piece is in another exhibition at Brew in Folkestone – collograph and drypoint, variable edition, 2/8.
It comes up as A2 with the border resulting from my attempts to mount it onto additional sheets of Xuan paper using my version of the traditional Chinese wet mounting technique with watery rice/starch paste, learnt by watching a video on Youtube.
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.
