Jumping from a tremendous height into an exhibition of Surrealist (with a Greaves influence) paintings and drawings in a Nottingham City Gallery during May 2009. I will make time for a sculpture too.
I am on creative ideas overload and in my element….I need to pace myself more I think.
Setting up on friday brought unexpected delays which caused a us a bit of panic however the paintings were up and the installation, despite no title labels until the evening of private view. The private view was fantastic and a good time was had by all. The relief when everything was in place was palpable.
The last two days have flown by and the exhibition has enjoyed a steady stream of visitors with positive results. The exhibition Cognitive Dissonance and The Broken Chord continues until saturday 23rd May and this is an open invitation to members of air a-n to come along and make themselves known. There might even be a glass of wine left over from the private view so what are you waiting for?
Go to my website for directions www.sheepbridgestudio.com
See you soon
Busy is an understatement, the work is progressing nicely but the preparations for the Exhibition (on the 16th-25th May, NSAT Gallery, St Lukes House, Friars Lane, Nottingham) are pulling me away from the doing and into the planning. What I really need is a PA but that isn't going to happen, so I am just buckling down and moving foward under my own steam…
I am at last acquiring a professional website. www.sheepbridgestudio.co.uk It isn't fully accessible yet as we speak but all the right steps are being taken for me to be online by end of April so I will be beathing a huge sigh of relief when it is up and running.
I have had a particular painting I have been working on for about four weeks. I have to add to it and then put it away as it is pulling me into a an uncomfortable dark place. I have picked it up and put it down numerous times whilst also concentrating on other paintings which are going more with the flow. It is only now near its completion that I can recognise that it is unlike the work already prepared for the exhibition and in a more sombre tone reminiscent of Dada era. And I really didn't intend to do it that way. At one point I almost, but not quite, decided to paint over it and start again.
I have made an effort to get out and visit galleries in and around the area and will be visiting the 'Art Cafe' in Rainworth on tuesday night with fellow artist who has a local Gallery. And also a budding artist in the making who has just arrived in this country all the way from Ireland will be joing us. His celtic paintings are inspirational and very different to how I imagined 'celtic art' would look.
I have in the pipeline another piece of work towards my exhibition. Felt alot calmer when a friend, after seeing some of my drawings expressed a liking for one I had rejected as not suitable to paint. I keep an open mind. Sometimes I become too close to the work I am doing and miss the possibilities I realised earlier but overlooked
I have also a commission for a double portrait to do which I have already made great headway with. I have cognitive dissonance about whether I prefer portraiture to contemporary/surrealism though in my heart of hearts I know that portraiture is deeper in my psyche and was born with me whilst anything coming thereafter has evolved with my lifes experiences.I really don't need to struggle with peferences like this. I love both.
I have to admit that my inspirational overflow and the way I have been tackling it has resulted in zero constructiveness. In future I am not going to follow through other 'non relevant to the present project ideas' by investing too much time drafting them out. One pile of drawings in two days following through one of these 'non relevant ideas' and found that, guess what? they are not relevant!
And contrary to my initial thoughts( that I would feel relieved of them so that I can follow through my 'really relevant ideas') I now have even more 'non relevant ideas and a complete black out. And I wonder if this was meant to be.
Will my 'non relevant ideas' become relevant if I use them as 'really relevant ideas' for the exhibition and carry them through and onto my canvases. Nothing makes sense.
But perhaps that is the whole point.
Being relevant is relative to the time of day and the day of the week even. Today it isn't (relevant) tonight or tomorrow it might be.
