The Tale Continues...

September and October are set to be eventful months! I seldom write posts about art and projects that I am involved in so feel that this one is long overdue but falls at a relevant time to share with you some details of exhibitions and events that are happening at an art venue near you this autumn....

Telling Tales – A Creative Pathways Artists Exhibition

Five years ago, I and four other artists received a bursary and professional development support as part of the Creative Pathways programme created by Somerset Art Works. I have to confess that I didn’t realise that our year, 2011 was the first time that the programme had run and was none-the-less grateful for the opportunity it provided; for myself it put me in contact with the Somerset Heritage Centre and staff who worked there so I could access a wealth of historical farming implements and tools as research and source material for making new work. Without making this sound too much like a testimonial, more than it already is, I was two years out of graduating with my degree and having a support network of other artists and some financial support that it provided were both incredibly useful and confidence enhancing. That year I exhibited work I had made based on that research in an exhibition titled ‘Tool Tales’. Now, five years later I am delighted to be exhibiting and assisting in curating ‘Telling Tales’ (the name of which is a fab coincidence) an exhibition featuring 22 artists that have since 2011 all also participated in the Creative Pathways programme. I like that synchronicity and it is very exciting to be exhibiting with and helping put together this exhibition of artists who have shared the same opportunity. Work-wise there will still be everything you’ve come to expect from my tool-based creations but for now I will leave what that is exactly an incentive (hopefully) for you to come and see the exhibition in person! Telling Tales opens for Somerset Art Weeks on the 23^rd September and will feature a variety of disciplines from film, printmaking, sculpture, participatory projects, drawing and more. It is open Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm, Saturday 12noon -4pm until October 7^th.

The Brewhouse Theatre & Arts Centre Coal Orchard, Taunton, Somerset TA1 1JL
https://www.thebrewhouse.net/event/creative-pathways-telling-tales/

Saturday 23 September 2017 – Saturday 07 October 2017
Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat 12noon-4pm

 

STARRING: Laura AISH / Bronwen BRADSHAW / Elizabeth CAIRES / Simon Lee DICKER / Jon ENGLAND / Veronia GAYLE / Adam GROSE / Kitty HILLIER / Leah HISLOP / Sarah HITCHENS / Sandra JAMES / Chris JELLEY / Mayumi KANEKO / Lucy LEAN / Joy MERRON / Jennifer NEWBURY / Andrea OKE / Natalie PARSLEY / Lucy PENDRICK / Dale PERRETT / Beckie UPTON / Gillian WIDDEN

 

Prospectus

Earlier this year I was invited with six other artists in the South West to participate in a Somerset Art Works project titled, ‘Prospectus’. The purpose, as I understood it, was to explore ways of creating an ‘alternative art school’ for the dispersed community of Somerset. Through workshops, discussion, sharing learning and working together we embarked upon a five day ‘takeover’ of Huish Episcopi School’s Art Department over the Easter holidays, (without the students!) during this time we created things, made mistakes, shared elements of our own practices and learnt from invited artists and one another. This is one example of how we hope future groups of artists could access these facilities and provide a form of peer-led professional development.

With the aim of opening the project out to the wider community, in the second phase of Prospectus we have each individually programmed a series of talks/workshops to take place this autumn. Details of which can be found, here; http://prospectus.somersetartworks.org.uk/events/ 

It seemed both logical and important to have at least one speaker, in a project about ‘art schools’, to actually talk about the subject we were exploring.... I have also been interested in the conversations that we have had (often whilst making) as a group of artists across different generations, on how artists continue to ‘learn’, our own experiences of art schools (what are they?) and the place that art schools serve in our communities, towns and wider art world context.

‘Art School’, as a term, carries a significance greater than the institution it actually describes: a sense of possibility or world view, what they call ‘commitment to working a practice, to a mode of learning which assumes the status of a lifestyle.” ¹

Details of where that quote came from and the talk I have arranged can be seen below:

Professor Matthew Cornford is an artist, researcher and course leader for the BA(Hons) Fine Art Critical Practice course at Brighton University. In association with Professor John Beck, Cornford undertook a research project to find and document the sites of former British Art Schools. Their photographs and findings documented in the 2014 publication ‘The Art School and the Culture Shed’. Cornford will be sharing elements of his practice and research into former Art Schools at the location of Taunton’s original art school, the Victorian, Hunts Court.

Hope you can join us there!

 ^{1 FRITH, S; HORNE, H (1987) Art into Pop. Methuen, London. p28}

Artist Talk: Matthew Cornford - The Art School and the Culture Shed
‘The Den’ at The Cosy Club, Hunts Court, Corporation St, Taunton TA1 4AJ
Thursday 12th October
Time: 18.00 – 20.00
Fee: £3 suggested donation on door /Free to SAW Members & students
http://prospectus.somersetartworks.org.uk/

Young ProspectUs

In a slightly indulgent collision of names I have also been assisting in a learning and education project coordinated by Somerset Art Works called Young ProspectUs in which I have been participating as a blogger, documenter and assistant.

“The aim of Young ProspectUs is to facilitate the opportunity for a small number of young people within Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) in Taunton to experience the values of the arts and education, to informally explore the college environment via SAW’s community engagement work.”

During the months this project ran I have learnt so much from both the participating artists and relevantly for me, the students themselves. From April until May six workshops took place [one a week] at Northfield and Taunton Centre Pupil Referral Units in Taunton. Artists, Jacky Oliver, Karina Thompson, Megan Players, Rick Crane and Jane Mowat ran sessions corresponding to their practices of; metalwork, sewing, sculpting, graphics and wood carving/printmaking. It has been immensely rewarding for me to participate in these and I feel that I have not only learnt new techniques but have also experienced how they are taught and how the artists have adapted to working with the students. To read more about this project and see what the students made please click on the link below.

https://youngprospectus.wordpress.com/

HIVE

 

Meanwhile, subversively somewhere in space and time the independent visual arts zine-machine that is HIVE ventures forth with Chris Dart at the helm toward its fifth outing.... Coming soon #March18  

Distinct lack of snakes in an exhibition of ladders at The Brewhouse...

Ladders, ladders everywhere you look. Hmmm...I think it’s fair to say there is a clear theme in Andy Davey’s exhibition currently on at The Brewhouse! The show features over 30 mixed media drawings, three massive paintings as well as several actual ladders on the wall – if merely looking at a ladder gives you feelings of vertigo then look away now!

 

As a fellow artist whose own work features agricultural and hand tools, I can understand how easy it is to become obsessed with drawing/and re-drawing the seemingly mundane. The simple fact of the matter is, the more you spend time looking at these objects [ladders/tools] the more reason you find to be fascinated by them. Initially for me, it was the formal qualities of tools that appealed to me; their shape, texture, colour and surfaces were something I wanted to make art about. My ‘relationship’ with tools in my own work later gained greater significance as I developed my practice and began to question it more whilst studying. With Davey’s drawings [some of which more fragmented and abstract than others] I get the impression that it is also the formal qualities of, in this case, ladders that is the basis for his work. The negative shapes and spaces in and around the ladder are deconstructed and reassembled amongst the (also fragmented) forms of the ladder itself.

Part of me did wonder if maybe Andy starts these drawings by chopping up an actual ladder and sticking it back together. Regardless of the exact process he may use the results are exciting, dynamic and lively compositions that almost quiver with a sense of movement and rhythm more familiar to the design of jazz posters than a ladder. These kinds of work, I anticipate, possibly leave your average viewer thinking, ‘What? That’s a ladder?!’ Who ever knew that the humble ladder could be so dynamic! Despite the places my work has taken me, what has always appealed to me about art has always been the same and that’s arts ability to give new perspective on things that we know well/are familiar with. So it is very refreshing to be reminded of this in Davey’s exhibition of work.

 

If anything the exhibition isn’t really about ladders at all, it’s about drawing and as the title suggests, ‘work’ and ‘surface’ which Davey has done even to the extent of drawing on the gallery walls themselves! The painted surfaces are layered, dragged and scrapped through revealing and disguising the structure of the ladder in the work so despite the dominance of the ladder as a ‘grid-like’ structure the work doesn’t look as geometric and slick as you might expect. They are much more gestural and expressive with the ladder often emerging out of a cloud-like vapour. Yet despite all the symbolism that the ladder and the cloud-like forms in some of the drawings could suggest I don’t, personally, read too much into them metaphorically. They could quite easily become, ladders to heaven, ladders to earth, Jacob’s ladder and many other sorts of associations (and maybe to some people they do) but for me they are more formal than that, a more compositional thing used to create an image/mark making/expressive. Who knows? Maybe they have personal significance or attachment to Andy, we’ll find out at the artist’s talk on February 6^th (see note below). I find myself making links between Davey’s drawings and the work of,  Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers and Richard Hamilton’s paintings all of whom have depicted objects in their work but they’re [the objects] are always a kind of trace of the whole thing and it’s often not entirely clear what you are looking at. I prefer Andy’s more black and white drawings, as I’m not so keen on some of the colour combinations on some of the coloured works –which could just be down to a matter of taste. I’d like to know how he does choose his colours, a question I will save for Wednesday 6^th. The only other thing was that I wouldn’t have minded a ladder of my own so I could see some of the drawings close up as they are hung high (mostly because there are so many and the hanging also mimics the height of the actual ladder on the adjacent wall) but then maybe I just need grow taller!

 Andy Davey’s, ‘Work : Surface’ can be seen at The Brewhouse until, February 23^rd. Or come along on Wednesday 6^th February to an artist’s talk, with the artist himself! More details can be found on:

http://www.thebrewhouse.net/exhibitions/1483/work-surface