Been to the Surface Gallery PV this evening. Really interesting show with a mix of experienced and emerging, local and international artists.
Our holiday was due to start last Saturday but the timing of the CMC on Monday meant we had to delay by a couple of days. We drove directly to a lovely holiday cottage in Cornwall after the meeting. The outcome is another hour long CMC next month with a full time judge. Also ticking along are lots of exciting studio projects. We are having a studio meeting to discuss the open studios in October which will form part of the British Art Show Sideshow this year. Young Kyun Lim who is also showing in New York and Paris will be exhibiting in the Exhibition Space. We are having a ‘Loook East’ season because in September Hyungji Park, will be exhibiting paintings and in November Sooky, an HMS artist will also be showing photographs. The project in Chicago is warming up with the possibility of funding. Closer to home 8 of us are preparing for the Bathing Beauties Beach Huts Festival. Meanwhile Helen Stevenson from HMS will be hanging work at the end of the month. Busy busy busy.
I dropped Robert Luzar and his lovely wife off at the station yesterday afternoon after an amazing weekend of drawing, performance, previews and Pimms… and squirty cream and scones. Robert had arrived on Friday to install his show and Saturday morning was set aside for performance. He also wanted us to participate in a little experiment. Rather than videoing the performance he invited artists to record the event by drawing. He made a series of vertical lines in willow charcoal (about 2 ins apart) from the top of the partitions to the floor, in one corner of the Exhibition space. For about an hour, he ever-so-slowly moved different parts of his body against the charcoal – rubbing and smudging, wiping and gliding. I was one of 3 artists who drew. Robert wore black making his strained and contorted body look very graphic against the straight lines. The resulting smudges softened the background in areas where the body touched. I had an idea of making a series of lines following the right-hand side of the body as it moved (relating to the vertical lines on the wall). One drawing from each of us is now displayed with Robert’s work. ‘Untitled’ is one of three performance based drawings currently on show at Harrington Mill Studios and well worth a trip to Long Eaton to view (see www.harringtonmillstudios.co.uk for details). Saturday evening was spent celebrating the opening of Sarah Key’s show at the Tarpey Gallery at castle Donington. This chocolate box gallery complete with thatched roof is a fairly new venture specialising in contemporary art. Sarah’s work looked great. Robert’s preview took place yesterday, together with a discussion on contemporary drawing. It drew a good crowd despite coinciding with the Wimbledon men’s final.
The builder accidently snipped the telephone cable yesterday so we lost the internet. I could cope without the phone but I’d got an ongoing trail of emails to deal with and… aargh! We now have a temporary fix so all is good. One thing I needed to do was email reminders about the talk and pv on Sunday. Robert Luzar ( www.harringtonmillstudios.co.uk) will be giving a tour of his work at 2pm 4 July followed by a talk on contemporary drawing. The panel includes Rob Van Beek and Martin Lewis. I have been photocpying for England today. I expect there will be more at the weekend. We are organising our case into 9 different sections and have distilled the claim and the counter-claims to the bone. They tell a story – Jem is brilliant at tellling a story – not in a fictional, make-believe way but a narrative and honest easy to understand way.
Painter and studio provider.
