Sunday 15 July 2012

Working the Wire + The Golden Thread





Printing on wire has proved quite difficult, however I am one for a challenge. There are small glitches that happen from time to time - I consider them things to move my work on. These so called happy accidents, if taken in a positive light, help break down the work and take it to another place. I wait for them to happen nowadays. It makes art even more playful and fun.
 Things start clicking into place and in a controlled way, by this I mean, if you know what should be happening, it feels like someone else has the controls and that can lead to some interesting places. It is something I expect within my art process and I am somehow reliant on it.





detail from a screen before rinsing

hooks installed to help with the weight of the screen

latest addition, a drying box for all five screens
this makes a huge difference when working fast
the whole process is a lot easier


half way through a image

five colours 


Adriena Simotova






 Adriena Simotova was born in Prague in 1926. She works with carbon paper, drawing, sculpting, cutting and printing. I discovered her work on a trip to Prague a few years ago and have been interested and influenced by her work ever since.
I think the textures, layers and presentation she uses are what engages me most. More than her subject matter, which is the human body. The way she seemingly climbs inside the work and digs away while she intersects with the surface and beyond allows a lot to be seen and much to be hidden too. She both reveals and covers all at once.
this fragmentation of a work here resonates strongly with my
thoughts and feelings around things left, memory and loss


the approach to presentation, allowing the work to be relaxed onto the floor gives the work a casual unfinished presence.







Exhibition Space



Once a definitive decision is made about what exactly you are making for an exhibition the rest is easy - isn't it ?
There are many things to consider when making these final decisions. 
Where to exhibit? Where to exhibit within the room? How to exhibit? Frame or not to frame? What will I need to enable me to install the work? Who will help with the installing process? and the list goes on . . . plus health and safety are also to be considered at all times of course !



space at Camberwell

 I was lucky enough with my Final Show at Camberwell to get the area I selected when I submitted my proposal. The space is light and has a sense of airiness about it. You cannot always have it your way tho - the basin on the left is an eyesore, however what happens when your work is in place ? -  these things disappear, especially if you don't pay them any attention and get on with the job of showing your work to the best of your ability.


I may have to mark out an area to keep the audience away from the work as it is very fragile

I have noted the area quite well however I am going back for a third time with Richard, http://www.richardsharples.co.uk/


 - an experienced artist who is going to help install my work. Together we will discuss options and details
equipment needed etc. This is best done well in advance to enable a relaxed, successful and most of all enjoyable installation.

the considerations are : will I hang my work or will I leave it on the floor ?
These decisions will be made on the day when I can see the work in situ.

Sarah Sze - Sculptor Using Objects





Sarah Sze sculpts with everyday objects. I went recently to see her work at the Victoria Miro and I was struck by the intricacy of the sculptures, in some cases they feel like experiments left unfinished. In another way they are incredibly playful and fun, almost child like except you know they are perfectly arranged in very way. Threads and rulers arking at just the right length, everything placed just so. Often Sze's work burrows into the walls or uses reflection and shadow to focus the work and the viewer down to one point.
These installations are entertaining, intriguing, ephemeral and busy often referencing instruments of measure and mapping. Many different materials are used to create these small worlds or what at times feel like experiments - testing out 'something'. They climb the gallery walls and include objects such as light bulbs, plastic bottles, ladders, bottle tops, paper, fans etc. Some of the work is kinetic and blows or moves like a swinging plum line which JUST misses everything as it passes around the circular formation of objects.






For me these installations felt intricate, temporary, fun and inclusive. Anyone could relate to them, for many of the objects we use in our daily life. The more you look into them the more they play with ideas such as orientation and disorientation - familiar and unfamiliar. This is perhaps because the objects are taken out of their normal context. 

Wednesday 11 July 2012

About Westland Place Studios

About Westland Place Studios      link

Westland Place Studios are right next door to Jamie Olivers 15 Restaurant  http://www.fifteen.net/. A few weeks ago we had Open Studios and it so happened Jamie Oliver had a Street Festival. This made for a very interesting audience viewing our work.
I had over 80 - 100 people through and all were from various parts of the world. Many engaging conversations were had !


I think there is nothing like the combination of food and the arts and we will be having another one possibly over Christmas. Listen up as its advertised on Radio One closer to the time.



nothing like a little 'cheeky' self promotion






Monday 2 July 2012

Films - Remnants + Transcription





A few years ago I found my own family Super 8 films in a dusty old box. I had them copied and have since made several works from them. I mainly played with time intervention, slowing and repeating scenes.

Now I am looking towards taking stills from these same films and creating a narrative, a short story.
To enable me to do this I need to go through the film over and over to really 'see' things differently. A kind of dis association and distancing so it becomes less attached to me personally. 
Some of the imagery is very strange and totally alien to most people today - especially in England. I always claimed I would bring a little of Australia to Camberwell College !

The stills can be very degraded which is perfect for my process after all this is what I am always trying to achieve on the matrix of the paper. 
Using these images onto wire will break them down even more and pixelation happens automatically - a kind of John Cage/Sally Mann serendipitous effect.
Below are some stills taken from these films. The selection process has been very interesting. I went from trying to create a REAL sense of Australia to removing that thought and making choices with some kind of narrative.
These below are not what i am using however they represent what I am talking about re subject matter and degradation.












Pop- Up Studio and the setting up process




The time has come to make my final work for the M.A. show at Camberwell College, 5th of September, 6-9pm.
The work I have decided to make is far too fragile to be laying round college and besides I need a lot of room.


 Working alone has always worked well especially when there is a deadline. I find focus very important when I am dealing with measuring etc.  -  figuring stuff out ! 


With the Olympics coming travelling will be difficult so I am investigating finding another place to expose screens, outside of London.


All up it made sense to get a temporary space locally to where I live which is both affordable and has space, running water etc.
The search went on for weeks. However with a lot of viewing and badgering agents, I got the PERFECT location 7 minutes form home.


This perfect space is is 30ft by 12ft and is an old stable, so the odd horse walks by most days! I find this both amusing and enjoyable. Everyone on this property are very busy making and doing which is so comfortable as an environment and makes you want to work hard. On one side of my room is a elderly lady, Carol Mann, who paints and the other side an upholsterer, Derek, who wants me to do silk screening for palaces ( something to consider later ! )
plan for building the printing bed

sundries and inks 

setting up

a tough setting for a studio

carpet rolls for winding on my wire


the drive is 7 minutes from home


this work requires accuracy ++




front of studio with horses as an optional extra





I have put together a comfortable space so far and working like a trojan! I am keeping it minimal as I am not there for long. 
Buying in all the sundries is not cheap, however I now can do both Etching and Screen-printing which leaves the options open. Ad - Colour have been very helpful and engaged. If I need any advice they are only too happy to help out.


the set-up all inclusive with Ozzy dog !
primitive but effective blasting area

I use a garden spray to blast my screens and three heaters to dry them and the work.


It was important to clear all of this with the owner. For example the inks needed to be environmentally friendly.
Laying down a plan to work to is imperative as I have little time left for error now. So far so good.

Traces - Julia Winckler




Working with Traces, Memory and Archives


I recently went to this symposium at the Austrian Cultural Forum, London. Three artists, presented their respective work within the context of their artistic explorations around archives, traces and memory. The main focus being the artist Julia Winckler and her work ' Traces '.


Winckler's works are related to two found photographs which she discovered within a suitcase in the attic of a family home. The photograph is both a very precise, authentic trace of someone or something in time and space - simultaneously its meaning is highly mobile.
Winckler takes the focus in close to some of the characters within the photos. This reminds me of Christian Boltankis imagery. Winckler claims the photos took on a ghostly feel as the faces lost their definition - the element of chance coming into play. She seems to be trying to get to know them. You get the sense she has a burning need to get more out of the surface of the photograph somehow.
The imagery was both haunting and beautiful. 


Downstairs in the gallery there were the sounds of recordings and the actual found suitcase on a plinth, and the documents, passports etc.The suitcase added a certainty and poignancy to this exhibition. It said, 'This really did happen'. 






Overall the symposium and exhibition was extremely moving. Seeing how a generation is still questioning and wanting to know the people who were taken from their family gave a whole sense of immediacy and bought questions about wars, situations currently happening in the world today. It also reinforced for me, just how important 'things' can be. Items and objects discarded from a tragedy take on a different meaning for the people related to them in particular, taking them on a perhaps unexpected journey. For me personally they keep the people close and the memories kindled.