1) Welcome! The Introduction.
Phew, you would not believe how tricky it is to begin a blog. (See note 1). The internet is hardly a Winnie The Pooh diary tucked under bed, not that I possess one. So, to all family, (hi Mum! Am on the web!), friends, tutors, future curators/collaborators, and anyone else who knows me; remember, degree show is an incredibly stressful time and nothing I blog or present should be held against me during degree assessment or otherwise, thanks.
Over the next few weeks, I hope to give a glimpse into the run up of my degree and a wee voice to a mostly unheard final year fine art student experience. This opportunity with A-N is undoubtedly a good beginning to my art journey as I prepare to feel the force of institution boot up a tender backside into the big unknown. (Guess I am Working that Net as so heavily emphasised in our supporting practice lectures.)
So if this is my final year, and my Uni’s show opens 19th May, that’s in 44 days, (almost 40 days and nights, almost correlated with thin cows and suffering. Must be a sign.) How is it then that I am not feeling particularly stressed? In fact, assessment begins in just over four weeks, (What, really?…) I even find myself, dare I say, happy? Worrying. Yesterday, I even caught myself whistling whilst drilling neon scoobs into my plaster blobs (more details later) and contentedly hammering away at my wooden construction. Obviously the calm before broken plaster, exploding technology and artritis.
Luckily, there’s therapy in the art.
Right:
WHY ART?
Five years ago, I was fresh out of a fantastic French degree experience from Sheffield University. Seduced by London’s glory I got with ID Magazine, followed by a fully-fledged career in PR. Not long after, it dawned on me that I cared not for how lastminute.com could be, in fact, I was secretly willing the implosion of one of my software clients as its global domination continues.
Moreover, a painful hunger was ferociously gnawing at my belly; a compulsive urge to create.
So, thanks to support from friends, I packed my bags, grew a beard, and contemplated my life direction. It was in China, on an un-sterotypical teach English/find self mission that I resolved to follow my (he)Art like some bad 80’s T’Pau ballad.
It was also in China that much of the concept behind my art practice stems. Unable to speak Mandarin, a student’s bemusing banana accusation “Yellow on the Outside white on the inside” propelled me to confront my own BBC (British Born Chinese) displacement. Indeed, my cross-disciplinary approach defies any attempt of categorisation. My sculptures, doodles, video pieces, performances and installations move action beyond the canvas; a bid to engage the viewer and engender different ways of looking. I am concerned by our obsession with spirituality and exposing our search for jouissance in this post everything era of top 100 lists.
Anyway, at that strapline, that’s where I’ll leave you today. Here’s 5 images I feel are key to the development of my early practice (from years one and two out of my three year degree course).
So for now, hope I have given you a taster of my artlife; meet you at the next entry.
Jay
Future blog entries; a rough plan that I don’t intend to stick to:
2-4 All About My Work- Practice Breakdown (hopefully in the synopsis sense), exhibtions
5 Now
6-7 Installation: Upper Foyer Gallery space
8 The Show!!!!
9 The Future…
10 Blogging Off
You can expect only 5 images per blog- binary digits have limits too.
(Note 1: Besides being relatively tech savvy, I only just uncovered the term “blogging” last summer, thanks to a wizardry motion graphic I watched; Baghdad Blog- from those geniuses at onedotzero.)
