So over the past week or so I have starting working at BayArt Gallery again which I am very happy about, they have an exhibition on at the moment entitled Open Books which is a very interesting exhibition of artists working with the chinese folding books that seem to be very popular at the minute, I reccommend it to anyone interested in the book making or book binding field, it’s good to see how artists fromt he east and west react to the object. The show is also going on tour to China and Australia, picking up more artists along the way. BayArt Gallery is open Tues – Sat, 12-5. I’m there on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, so come say hello then.
On a more mundane note, I now wear glasses after my first visit to the optician, ever. I could see fine before but now everything is in high def. Artists, your eyes are your livelihood, get your eyes checked!
B I T Studios sucessfully hosted Wales’ first Bring your own Beamer night, and what a great response from artists we had! Showing were a range of artists from all over Cardiff as well as Swansea, Bristol & Worcester, with a spectrum of slide projectors, animations, visual mappings, video art, lightboxes, light sculptures and a bit of Alan Partridge briefly. I would like to personally thank Ifan & Winf, all the artists and supporters. As well as Jon Pountney for documenting the night with great hilarity.
WARP have been hosting Peer-to-peer sessions for quite a while now, I first had one with Chris Brown shortly after I graduated and recently had one with Mark Gubb, both have been massively helpful, with the first one I think I had alot of ‘out-of-art-school’ anxiety, and with Mark alot of ‘is-my-art-too-tangential’ anxiety. I see a theme occouring. I had some fantastic discussions with Mark and I’m very thankful that he had the time to be able to do them, and that WARP had time to put them on. I think one on one time with a more established (whatver that means) artist is very good for early practicioners (whatever that means) like myself. We discussed the trials of having a consistent art practice, if that is even appropriate, and what to concentrate on. I also keep thinking that an MFA needs to be treated like a liferaft, rather than a speedboat (if we consider an artist’s trajectory in nautical terms), but I’ve booked a place on an open day at Slade and I’ll be looking around Swansea before too long; a bit of window shopping never hurts..
New Video works.
These pieces have been long in the mix, the first, titled Address is the second piece of work devised from Davida Hewlett’s Introduction to Performance Art Course: Level 2, and began with the brief of performing to camera, to raise awareness of the differences between performing live/ recorded. In response to this brief I made the aforementioned piece, where I read my favourite piece of writing, Sol Lewitt’s letter to Eva Hesse. I made a few adjustments to make it either more inclusive or more anonymous (haven’t quite worked out what yet) but the piece was shot in a very dark room, one as the text is not my own, and therefore I do not want to attach my face to the text, and secondly as in the past I have read the text to motivate myself somewhat, so it works as a motivational letter to myself and every other artist who was gone through the same pitfalls. This, and I wanted to bring the text to as many people’s attention as possible: its a beautiful piece of writing.
https://vimeo.com/64158050
The other new piece, Dawning is a more experimental work, which was created a long time ago but only finished yesterday. I’m holding my cards quite close to my chest about this piece, but its a study into the ‘exhaustion and enjoyment’ scenario. It’s a lot more open to interpretation; I’ll let people make their own decisions on it. Both these new pieces are self-portraits, but on very different spectrums. I don’t know yet whether I use myself in video to be direct, or whether I enjoy the performative side of it, either way; let me know your thoughts.
https://vimeo.com/64151257
A mid-review-writing review.
On my first venture into Newcastle (outside of BALTIC), I was lucky enough to recieve the Interface Bursary to review Matt Calderwood: Paper Over The Cracks at BALTIC39, which I have been currently writing. While I was in toon I went to go see an exhibition called Uncle Vern’s Dog at Gallery North, a great little show with a very refreshing aesthetic and ethic, so I decided to write a small review to break up writing about Matt’s work: which is just beautiful, I am very much looking forward to my second visit in June. Modular sculpture, large scale prints, exterior installations and a grand projection. Very rewarding.
I think another really interesting factor in the visit was to see the Curatorial element of things, with the nature of Matt’s show there are a lot of decisions left open ended, which is quite enjoyable, you get to create your own sort of ficticious past & present decisions. But I’ll talk more about that soon. Highly recommended show for anyone specifically interested in Hans Georg-Gadamer’s texts on play, or modular sculpture.
Uncle Vern’s Dog: Gallery North – http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/3211866
Ceredigion
Over Easter I went to see my better half’s family in what I can probably only describe as the most beautiful place in Wales I have visited in a long time. I’m really looking forward to Gideon Koppel’s exhibition as part of Diffusion festival in May now having seen the place.
I took a few photographs while I was out there, I don’t know if they have any aesthetic merit, but even if they just exist as ‘weekend getaway photos’ thats fine with me. If anyone has any feedback on these photographs (granted they are low-res) I would greatly appreciate it.
Writing:
Last week I was lucky enough to have a place on the writing surgery workshop with David Trigg, which was an absolute godsend, I have never had any critical feedback on any form of my writing, so to hear his thoughts on my review writing has been great. As a result of this, I have decided to re-write my Artes Mundi Review
www.a-n.co.uk/p/2779243
As it appears there are a few things that need fixing, if it is to be taken seriously as a piece of critical writing on an international prize and exhibition. So I will be posting the altered review (for my own, and any readers sake) before too long. Need to remember, clarity is key.
