I have another exhibition opportunity coming up on Monday. It is set up by the Offquay collective – a group consisting mostly of recent Northumbria graduates – and is in celebration of their newly opening studio and project space (www.offquayarthouse.co.uk). I submitted a piece for this absolutely ages ago so it is interesting to revisit an old piece of work, even if at the time I didn’t actually think it was that successful.
At the time of creating the work I was struggling with the fact that my work wasn’t conveying the conceptual elements of my practice. By confronting this I created some experimental work that dealt with the direct transfer of information, in this case in the form of a paper hand-out full of environmental facts and figures.
I recently went to the Ed Ruscha exhibition at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle University and it made me rethink the power of text in artworks. While before I had tried to directly convey information, unsuccesfully, I think that I now have the opportunity to create a work that could abstract text. This could therefore use the power of conveyance that text can bring and utilse this to put forward my concerns. I have a couple of days to work out exactly what I will submit (and actually make the work) so we shall see what happens come Monday!
