My work, reasons behind it and what happens to it.

This is the sort of week I’d like to be able to do every week. Having the time to be able to combine the everyday running of a house ( basic tidying, doing the laundry and food shopping) with long walks in the fresh air, meeting up with friends AND producing a fair bit of work. I suppose that’s normal living for a lot of artists and they can take simple pleasures for granted.

With all of the work I’ve managed to create this week though, none of it would bring in money. If it wasn’t for the fact that I am paid to be off, I couldn’t do this.

I did though feel a bit of comfort when reading this : http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2013/feb/21/10-things-art-teachers-wont-teach-you?CMP=twt_gu ( more so the comments – which some hit the nail right on the head!)

Hmmmm…

At the beginning of the week I felt like a rusty machine, unable to get the cogs going again. I’d forced myself to draw, but it just wasn’t coming. I think the main problem was, that I wanted to enter a 2D work for an open exhibition coming up, so I was restricting myself too much with what I thought would be ‘safe enough’ to be accepted. I produced a few works that may fill that criteria, but I just wasn’t happy with them. I think it would be best to not submit anything for this and just carry on with the work I want to do.

So…. as well as drawing, I’ve been making shoes this week from an old IKEA paper lampshade. Although I’ve only made the basic shoe shapes, I’m quite pleased that they are sturdy enough to stand up on their own. I need to build up a few more layers and add items to them, but I’m happy that I can go back to work in a few days with a solid project to keep focussed on.

Second day of my week off and by sheer luck, both days have been sunny . Although good obviously, it means I’m kind of torn between catching up with my own work and spending as much time as I can outside. All of those months cooped up inside an air conditioned building have taken their toll.

Yesterday, I started drawing again as I felt that I needed to get my ideas down on paper rather than going straight into the making – which to be honest, I prefer. I think also I was limiting my exhibiting options with only making installations and I needed to break out more.

Having seen quite a lot of other artists work over the last few months, I was mentally building up a picture of work I really liked and making a scrapbook in my head. When I began drawing, I realised I was subconsciously copying someone else’s style and that worried me a little.

I put the drawings aside for a while and went back to folding and packing up my paper planes (which are heading up to Leeds next month for the DWF festival: http://dwf.uk.com/ )

I’ve managed to condense several boxes of planes into just one, so that now I can either post them up there or just hop on a train with them. I think I’d prefer to take them up there myself as it’ll give me a chance to see the Northern Arts Prize while it’s on.

So the drawing……..I’ll have another stab at it tonight. I’ve had the day away from it and used my walking time in the fresh air, to re think my approach

I found an invitation to exhibit at an art fair (similar to SUPERMARKET ) this morning. It was actually sent a few days ago, but having several email addresses and not knowing what day it is half the time, I only just found it.

Normally I’d shy aware from these things, especially as there is a cost, but it is run by one of the Stockholm exhibitors and they seemed to be reliable.

SUPERMARKET was incredibly rewarding, we met a lot of artists, saw a lot of really interesting art and of course it was fun!

I was sort of winding down the group I went to Sweden with because I didn’t want to be tied down with lots more admin, but I am seriously considering this.

Anyone out there interested? ( or more importantly – anyone out there see any major flaws ? )

Copy of email sent…

I would like to invite you to participate to Platform Project @ Art–Athina at the 18th edition of the International Contemporary Art Fair of Athens ART-ATHINA 2013, 16-19 May 2013. This program is for platforms, art-websites, artists groups, artist-run galleries and other artists’ initiatives. Please find as attachment the invitation letter and the application form with all the information. We hope we will see you at May!!!

The cost of participation amounts to 300 Euros (including VAT) and includes one exhibition space (12 sqm) and the publication of the catalogue and website.

PLATFORM PROJECT @ ART ATHINA has a low participation fee, so as to include interesting platforms, artists groups, art-websites, artist-run galleries and other artists’ initiatives that are non-profit or not yet established from all over the world.

Stand (constructed with 3 white panels), basic stand lighting, power supply, insurance of artworks during the fair, 24-hour security, common area and corridor cleaning, wireless Internet connection, standard entry in the official exhibition catalogue, 1 catalogue per exhibitor.

The booths of PLATFORM PROJECT @ ART ATHINA are limited so please inform us as soon as possible if you are interested to participate.

This year on the occasion of the Art-Athina, a number of international curators and writers will be coming in Greece to present and discuss their curatorial methodologies and challenges and they will also be tour at the booths of Platform Project @ Art-Athina :

Juan Gaitan ( Mexico) Curator of the Berlin Biennial 2014, Ricardo Nicolaou, ( Portugal) Deputy to the director , Serralves Museum , Florence Derieux ( France ) director of the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, and curator of Parcours in Art Basel 2013, Chiara Bertola, ( Italy) Director of Hangar Bicocca, ( Pireli Foundation, Milan ) and adjunct curator of Querini Stampalia,Venice, and writers like Kaellen Wilson Goddie ( Beirut) writer and regular contributor of Bidoun, Artforum, Frieze. Filippa Ramos, ( Italy ) writer and sporadic curator, co-author of the book Lost and Found – Crisis of Memory in Contemporary Art (2009), etc.



This time last year I was in Stockholm, nervously displaying my work as part of SUPERMARKET. The build up beforehand and the amount of work involved made January and the beginning of February 2012, fly by. Now I feel a pang of jealousy when I see posts about artists preparing for this years SUPERMARKET event. It was too expensive to do again though and it was only through funding by ACE and other sponsors that we were able to go at all.

I’ve said it before I know, but I did too much last year and I felt burnt out. I had to make the decision to take a bit of a break before I started again, but this decision has made the winter months drag and drag………….

I’ve done my own work less ( due to lack of time) and I’ve brooded more over the unfairness and complexities of art and its favoured groups.

So I was grateful today for the silly tweets I received from Elena Thomas and Sophie Cullinan about the formation of the anti – clique group . It’s all stuff and nonsense out there really and we should be just doing this for ourselves.

I’d saved what was left of my 2012 leave for next week, instead of taking it earlier. Although this has made the winter seem even longer, I’m finally going to have a whole seven days off to sort out my work and to just get on with it!.

What makes good art? I’m struggling with this one as I look up at the works of Sylvia Sleigh and just don’t get it.

There was quite a build up to this exhibition, as we were promised ‘ a realist painter who became an important part of New York’s feminist art scene in the 1960s and beyond. She was particularly well-known for her explicit paintings of male nudes, which challenged the art historical tradition of male artists painting female subjects as objects of desire’. Sounds great…and the images that accompanied the text were quite impressive.

We were given research time to read up about the exhibition, as well as a briefing by one of the curators. Great, fabulous – we were all looking forward to this.

…and then the work arrived.

I thought something was amiss when I heard the art handlers sniggering away as they hung the work. It wasn’t good in ‘real life’ and I’m not alone in thinking that way. There are constant debates in the staff room over her work – the inability to paint features, the use of colour, of light and the way the work is framed. Even the fact that the whole exhibition is hung in a salon style makes it looks the more amateurish. If there were any feminist issues within the work, they were deeply buried between the floral patterns and bizarre use of shadow on the fluffy images of women.

How can there be such a contrast between what is written and the actual work? It really is a difficult one when we have to talk to the public about works of art on display. What do you do when you can’t categorise something? You can’t explain it off as naivety as you may for other artists, it’s not a particular style – a flatness that can be compared to others. It’s just cringe worthily bad! ( sorry Sylvia!!)

It is such a challenge when we are expected to respond to ‘my son/daughter can do that’ etc etc . Usually we can come up with an answer – but with this one…… I can’t help feeling it’s very much an emperor’s clothes syndrome.

Her work cannot possibly be on display because of her connections can it? Surely not.

This really has made me think hard about artist statements!

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/sylvia-sleigh