Went to see Zhao Renhui (the Institute of Critical Zoologists) at Cardiff Chapter…amazing for its mix of fiction and fact and the quality of displays. It added another dimension to the concept of display with the use of diasec for some wall hung photos – they seem to float on the wall…but very expensive. Does this mean I am becoming obsessive about the display when I should be completing the work? The excessive rain has scotched plans for the field trip to Devon so progress on that front is very poor indeed.
I am beginning to think of returning to ‘the glass shelf’ for displaying the ceramics, while using the plinth for some of the fire pieces and some porcelain slip based works (still to be made).
This would mean that the space above the cubes could be dedicated to the documentary photos of the field trip – several of them – with MOSE catalogue entries/numbers (still to be done).
Spent yesterday afternoon painting my light box and plinths. Tried out putting foil round the interior of the light box which made it brighter but also discovered that there was an element of uplighting which will light the prints. However I’m not entirely happy with these and although I will continue work on them I am now thinking of also working on some more ceramic artefacts that could be wall hung…6 weeks to final deadline.
Started printing the 2 x carborundum prints this week over 2 days. The ink was drying more quickly than the work I had done in early February and after thinking about it I decided it was because I was using a different extender…so that the ‘oil paint’ feel of the Feb work was not there. Six layers is producing a deep grey with undertones. More layers are required but I’m planning to use the linseed extender for only the last few layers on the fat over lean principle.
But, feeling a little gloomy..as usual, in this stage of a project..the exciting planningexperimental stage is over and it’s down to the finish/complete. Will the carborundum prints work? Will the weather be good for the photographic work in Devon? Do I need logistics protection from Balinger Freight- transporting ceramics to the sands?
Food for thought in exhibitions this weekend.
Went to an exhibition of Eric Ravilious’ work at the Bristol RWA..how simple life seems!
At Spike Island, again in Bristol, Dewar and Gicquel’s first solo show in UK, Crepe Suzette, contains work they have crafted themselves starting from a position where they had to learn skills. Their stop go videos showing clay in rural environments…heaped up, falling away,,,various movements of the human body all done in unfired clay that will crumble are the opposite of a finely honed and edited video. “The artists see subversive potential in this gap between intention and outcome…because their lack of expertise means they surrender complete control over the things they make” – perhaps this applies to my ceramic work?
The text is a tease…the wall panel text is something that is whirring in my mind a great deal..at 400 word count it’s about the same as an artist’s statement and is being polished and burnished with a tweak here and there as the days go by. Deconstructing it I can see that it is the artist’s statement in the way it contextualises the work (writing the object), but the same time could be seen as an ironic take on the genre. Why else am I ‘polishing’ it…turning it from simple language eg ‘up-to-date mapping tools’ (up-to-date – slang from late 19thC/ mapping – OK from mappa Latin and tool – Old Norse/Old English) to ‘current topographical depictions’ – Latin/Greek? Academic art language (critical discourse) does seem to enjoy the abstraction. So…after that philological meandering..I have been working on the prints with a pastel rendition of approach to Nujema.
The power of studio photography. Some pics of cubes just out of kiln, and bowls.
The first MOSE exhibition is set in the future (3,800) a mere 1,788 years from now (that is if the calendar is even the same – is it human time…who knows?). Two of my prints inspired by neolithic statues from about 5,000 years ago were accepted into the 8th British International Mini-print Exhibition – first show 6 April – 16 June at the London Print Studio and then touring.
They could be the post-humans responsible for the artefacts on the planet Nujema. Theo Wood chrononaut. Fringe is addling the brain.
