University of Wales, Aberystwyth

The dust has now settled, so there’s a bit of spare time available to compile some form of write-up. Sorry for the delay but I’ve had one final piece of written work to do and that has been taking all my time and effort. Well, that’s now out of the way, the final result rests in the lap of the gods (and the University authorities of course.)

Saturday evening was, as expected, a bit of a scrummage – but I suppose for an opening night that is infinitely preferable to rattling around in an empty gallery, trying to look interested and enthusiastic. Apart from parents and offspring (God bless ’em) there were a good number of unconnected interested parties casting a critical eye over proceedings. Those tasked with wine dispensing were pushed to the limit as consumption reached an all-time high. Amazing the affect the word ‘free’ has on people’s capacity. By the end of the evening several red spots had appeared against exhibits and some six exhibitors had been chosen by a selector from the Exposure Gallery in Swansea for their work to be shown there. Many congratulations to those concerned.

The variety and quality of work was amazing. I had spent the previous two weeks head down slaving away in my own little world so it was good to come out on opening evening and witness the work of others. Charlotte’s choice of toilets as a backdrop to her photography certainly paid off judging by the comments I heard!

My own exhibit soon became known as ‘the black room’ (not my intention, but at least it showed that people were visiting it.) Unfortunately owing to the stream of visitors to the room it proved impossible to close the door and gain the full impact of the environment, but comments I heard suggested a favourable response all the same.

And the future? Well the exhibition comes down 2nd June and the pieces get packed away until the next time (if that happens). I’ve certainly learned a lot of lessons from the experience and have got some improvements/alterations etc. in mind as a result.

Oh, by the way it seems that I will get more time in this beautiful place. I’ve been offered (and accepted) a Postgraduate place at Aber starting September. Remember what I said a week ago about putting myself through it again?

Two frantic days of racing against time are finally over, and despite a few last minute changes and hitches everything’s up and running (I’ve just typed ruining – some form of intuition?). Doors are now closed at the School of Art and the next time anyone’s allowed in will be at 6.30 on Saturday when the show opens.

Has it been worth it? I think so – even though there were times when I vowed never to put myself through this again. But then, I seem to remember saying the same thing on many occasions before, and look, here I am again. (Stupid or what?).

The room looks pretty sepulchral now that the lighting levels have been lowered. In fact with the door closed the atmosphere gets pretty spooky. Talking of atmosphere there has been an added bonus that I never imagined. The combined smells of hessian and paint within the room give that little ‘je ne sais quoi’ – not unpleasant but just a little bit strange; you can almost feel the dust of age – just right! As I said in one of my earlier blogs there are more questions than answers within the room, so I am preparing myself for the inevitable ‘what’s it all about? which is bound to happen at quite regular intervals.

The main theme to my work is how the interpretation of facts becomes twisted and changed over time and how it is not only the written word that brings about such changes, but also our own perceptions of the evidence supplied. At the same time the innate conditioning we are all subjects of ensures a particular – in most cases a predictable – reaction to any given set of stimuli and this can be further manipulated by the method of presentation used.

The installation ‘Wherein Lies the Truth’ presents fragments of fabricated tiles, some bearing script, which represent ‘facts’. The assemblage is set on a triangular floor which, when viewed from the front, provides a perspectival image. The lighting for the whole is diffused through hessian, making the work indistinct and requiring concentration to view properly.

The second piece ‘Orphanage’ is a glasstop display case containing the modified object, some of which have already appeared as images in my blog. These are the enigmatic orphans whose past is unknown and whose identity is catalogued by a cryptic caption only. Make of them what you will. You can create your own past for them, and who knows, if your story is convincing enough, then maybe everyone else will come to believe what you say, even though it only started out as a figment of your imagination.

Finally, the series of paintings, ‘Hard Facts’. These take up one complete wall of the room; each is individually uplit, and again because of the low lighting intensity, indistinct and enigmatic. White stone fragments float on multi-coloured backgrounds; simple pieces in a complex world. A closer inspection reveals gradations of shading; simple shapes become more subtle – the simple fact takes on a deeper meaning.

Anyway that’s some thoughts about what it’s all about. They are my thoughts and it will be interesting to see what others make of it on Saturday. Hope to give some feedback on how it went early next week. Until then – wish me luck!

Well here we are then – the last few days of mad panic before the opening this Saturday night. In fact we have to be all done and dusted by 5 on Thursday so those last minute little tweaks will have to be either done earlier or forgotten about all together. I’m still short of four boards in my exhibition space so this one is going to go right down to the wire. Everything else, well the major stuff anyway, is more or less done now (or will be by the end of today).

If this blog sounds a little tense (or is it terse? – both probably) then it’s probably because however hard you plan something will always pop up to confuse, confound or just generally throw a spanner in the works. Yesterday was one of those days. Started off by attempting to amputate a finger with a Stanley knife, then the rain came down just as I was trying to get my work into the back of the car, then the car decided to try and boil over. (Do you ever get the feeling that someone’s trying to tell you something?). It doesn’t seem to matter how hard you try to tell yourself that it will all be alright eventually, there’s still that monkey on your back making life b***dy difficult for you. Ah well, such is life. 

The heat is really on now – all those days of thinking about what to do have gone – now it’s action time!

Construction of my exhibition space has gone to plan (Many thanks Phil, Barry and Phil – I owe you.) Some of the panels are still missing from the complete layout but it should be possible to fit them in later on. Luckily there has been little prep work to be done on the panels (some small holes to be filled, and only a few of those dreaded sticky pads to be scraped off), so, it’s paintbrush, roller and black paint time! Over the next three days the lovely white and shining lighting studio has to be transformed into a dark, mysterious space that poses more questions that it provides answers.

Can it be done? I think so, but cannot be absolutely sure. (What? Where’s your confidence gone? Get on with it, you wimp!). Mental anguish is a strange thing – you think that you’ve got it all buttoned up then, bingo, it creeps up on you and twists your guts again. What’s the problem anyway? The worst that can happen is that it won’t appear quite as you thought it might – but that’s no sweat because unless you’ve had a lobotomy no one else can see inside your head, so they will take it as they see it. There you are – problem solved!

Well here we are. The month of May has arrived and with it the awful realisation that there are now less than three weeks to go to our Opening Night. A tremendous amount of planning has taken place, and now it’s time to put it into practice. The studio spaces will soon come down and be morphed into exhibition areas, then it’s all hands to the pump to try and clean up the boards and re-emulsion them to a fine white. (Those calculations, comments, shopping lists et al. casually written up in pencil and crayon over the year will now have an annoying habit of coming back to haunt.) The problem in this instance will not be one for me to contend with (Smart Ass!) as my boards will be black, but there is probably some equally loathsome glitch about to strike. That warm glow of anticipation, for so long a comfort over those cold winter nights, is now rapidly changing into a cold sweat of dread – what if it all goes horribly wrong? Too late for all that now, teeth and buttocks clenched, and it’s over the top…. What’s that funny smell?