Month: February 2016

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Posted on Posted in display, glasgow, kelvingrove, museum, UncategorizedTagged , , , Leave a comment

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So over the weekend I was in Glasgow, which was fantastic. The trip was a mix of partying, seeing friends, seeing Deadpool and seeing Glasgow. A lovely trip away! We were really lucky with the weather on the Sunday when we went to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. There was even some Scottish sunshine to be seen! It made the Kelvingrove building look even more stunning with the red brick against the backdrop of a beautiful blue sky. It really reminded me of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam – oh to go back there!

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The architecture of Kelvingrove could not have been more intricate and visually captivating. I couldn’t help but gasp as I walked in. The space and size of it all was incredible and the way the light fell through the windows only heightened my sense of awe. The building underwent a £27.9million refurbishment a few years back, as it has been in existence and open to the public as a Museum since 1901. So obviously a bit of an update was necessary and wow, what a good job they did!

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As well as being totally blown away by the building, I was also amazed by the breadth of  items on display. There are 22 themed galleries with 8000 objects. The collections are extensive and a real mix ranging from Ancient Egypt, to Arms and Armour, to Scottish History and Archeology, to Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style, to Scottish Art, to Dutch Masters including Van Gogh and Rembrandt – the list goes on forever!

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There was just so much to see, once you got to the end of one section, a whole new one began. I traveled through Egyptian objects and dinosaur bones and animal fossils to arrive at what was unsurprisingly my favourite section; the art. There was a Salvador Dali piece, Van Gogh work, Monet – it was like being in Amsterdam again and admiring all the renowned masters. Like meeting the true artistic celebrities. There was also a collection of the Scottish Colourists, another favourite art movement of mine. Samuel J. Peploe is to me the father of the Scottish Colourists, so much so that I even have a calendar of his work (yes, I am a super art nerd!)

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As well as art there was also music, with an organ recital at 3pm which reverberated through the entire space. As it was Valentines Day there were a lot of people there and it was such a beautiful moment when the organ began and everybody stopped. It was as if time stood still for a moment before people carried on drinking their tea of looking at the map of the floor plan. The music just silenced everyone, especially in that initial moment, as if a spell of amazement had been cast on us all.

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As if there wasn’t already enough to be seen, there was also this sculpture composed of floating heads with varying facial expressions hanging from the ceiling. Light was directed at the heads to make them change colour periodically. This added a sense of serene to what were in some cases very distressed countenances. Despite this is truly was a powerful piece that captured the attention of everyone. 

On the whole this was a brilliant way to spend a day, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone visiting or in Glasgow. If you want a good day of culture, look no further than Kelvingrove!

 

 

B. Wurtz at Baltic

Posted on Posted in exhibition, review, techniques, The Baltic, the everyday, UncategorizedTagged , , , , Leave a comment

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Contemporary art is often controversial in it’s reception. Some people love it, some people hate it. Some people think their children could have done it. Other’s say their child didn’t do it and the artist beat them to it! This artwork is the perfect example of that retort. Wurtz’s practice revolves around taking a simple everyday object and turning it into something beautiful. In this case, he used food trays and painted the shapes on the bottom of them in different colours of acrylic. First off, I had never even noticed there were so many shapes to the bases of these trays. Second off, this is genius!

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It is such an incredibly simple thing but surprisingly elegant too. Who would have thought food trays could look this good?! And together in this form of display they look absolutely brilliant! Walking into the room I half gasped in amazement. Initially I couldn’t figure out what the objects were, but on closer inspection I was stunned to realise it was merely food trays! 

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The way they are all arranged is reminiscent of the way portraits are hung in an old historical castle. They have that sophisticated clustered vibe going on. The colours themselves are very rich and bold, almost like jewels. What Wurtz has succeeded in doing is elevating the most simple commonplace object into an art object. Marcel Duchamp’s urinal here we go again!

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I think what’s so lovely about this is though is the air of playfulness! It’s not trying to be anything fancy or anything that it’s not. It is purely an adaption of a simple material that is undergoing a transformation into something more beautiful. It’s almost like Wurst is the fairy godmother to house hold materials! He does it with other bits and pieces such as plastic bags and shoe laces but the one that really caught my eye was what I call his photographic tree:

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They are little photographic strips hung delicately in this form. Again, so basic but so clever. The best part about all this is it really shows that you don’t need lots of money to make art. Anyone can do it, it’s just about using your imagination and experimenting to see what happens!

Yvonne Hindle ‘Supertranslations’

Posted on Posted in colour, gallery, Gallery North, painting, review, Uncategorized, yvonne hindleTagged , , , , Leave a comment

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Yvonne Hindle’s ‘Supertranslations’ is an exhibition at Gallery North which sadly ends today. It is truly beautiful and she is clearly a master of paint.  There is so much going on in her paintings, they’re like her own individually created universe. When you look at them you feel as if you are falling and being absorbed by a city of colours. They have so much energy that the paintings seem to pulsate and burst from the wall. What catches your attention first and foremost as you enter are of course the colours; they are truly stunning. What I love is the bold mix, there’s everything from soft yellows and pinks, tame blues, to black-like purples. The contrasts are therefore strong and this is enhanced by how Hindle has segmented them. What looks like a swirling mass of coloured chaos is in fact an orderly and structured arrangement, almost like the stratas of a layer of rocks.

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This is where her interest in the micro comes in. From afar the paintings look like happy accidents; close up they look highly intuitive – no layer or colour has been added without purpose. There is a precision to it all, clear divides between segments and carefully considered colour dilution. Texture also plays a part in it all. Most pieces are relatively smooth, allowing the swirling colours to take centre stage. Others are far more textured and temptingly tactile. Personally, I prefer the smoother ones as that way I can concentrate solely on the colour. I’m not saying however the textured ones aren’t interesting, if anything they make me want to get my modelling paste out and work in a truly impasto style! Which I may do anyway having seen all of this work. The marbled effect of the paint allows me to see it’s movement; how it’s seeped and ebbed together. You feel as the process has the potential to still be going; as if at any minute the colours are going to start moving into each other again.

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What I also like about all the paintings are the edges of them all. The paint starts to tailor off in lot of cases and that is where the layering technique starts to be revealed. The pieces hint at how the colour has been built but at the same time gives nothing away. I also really like the lack of hard edge, I think this works really well in relation to the contents of the paintings. It adds to that sense of chaos ordered as non-chaos. Scale wise it’s perfect too, not too big and overwhelming but not too small to prevent you from viewing the detail. They really are such energetic and lively pieces, if I had a wall of them in my house I’d never be uninspired ever again!

Exposed (Working Title) Series

Posted on Posted in bath, body, nude, performance art, photography, Uncategorized, waterTagged , , , , , Leave a comment

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One of the things I love most about making art is that I constantly surprise myself. If you had told me three years ago that I would be doing a shoot like this I would have laughed in your face. Why? Because it involved getting totally naked in front of someone who was not a lover! Well, ok not totally naked in the sense they saw everything, but the only barrier between myself and them was a beautiful piece of material.

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Prior to the shoot I was slightly nervous and self-conscious at the thought of stripping down. However once we started it felt like the most natural thing in the world. It wasn’t embarassing or awkward, it was purely about making the art. And I loved it! It was a very liberating experience for me and really allowed myself to loosen up about my body. It also added a new dimension of thought for me to contemplate in my art. 

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Sadly in a lot of cases, once you get naked for art that is all your art is suddenly about. That’s all the person reads when viewing it. Which I think is tragic as there’s obviously so much more to it then that. Of course I’m not saying that’s always the case, or that everyone does it. I just know a lot of people do. So let’s look past the nudity and more into what is actually going on here. Firstly, it’s material fascination. My friend has had this material hanging in her studio for ages and her love for it became kind of infectious for me. She was so fascinated by the colours and the way it worked in light that I started to see more and more in it every time I visited the studio. I even started liking how pink it was! It’s a very tactile material which is very appealing but also multi-sensory given the crispy, rustling noise it makes – like the wind drifting through the trees. 

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So of course I started to think about the material in relation to my own body. Through it’s tactility I was already starting to engage with it, but I wanted to further this engagement. That’s when the idea of water came to me. As I mentioned in my last post, I have been thinking a lot about water and time recently and am starting to bring them into my work more. So I asked my friend, given her highly articulate understanding of this material, if she could help me capture these images. And what a perfect job she did! We used my desk lamp as a spotlight, my bath tub, her material and my body to produce these shots. It involved a lot of stretching, balance, holding uncomfortable positions and very cold bath water, but it was worth it! 

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I’d explained at the beginning how and what it was I wanted to capture, and the more photos we took, the more we evolved and arrived at what it was I was after. The results are sensitive and subtly sensual, but not overly sexual. The images hint at nudity without being too overt, partly because I wanted to avoid that instant jump to ‘naked art’. You would think the contrast between such an artificial material and my skin would be harsh, but the colours of the material dance so beautifully over my skin in the light that the two almost blend together. I think the water helps this, there’s this whole question of what is wet and what is dry and I think that really enhances it. 

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You know you’re doing something good when you start to get really excited about something you make. These photographs are one of those special moments, I feel these are just the tip of the iceberg and hopefully a lot more will come from them!

Current Work; thinking site-specifically

Posted on Posted in gardens, graveyard, my practice, outside, site-specific, UncategorizedTagged 1 Comment

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I haven’t posted about my work in a while and seeing as I’ve been doing lots of it recently, I have a lot to talk about. Starting with this shoot. As I’ve slowly begun to enter the realm of performance art I have had to become increasingly aware of location in relation to my body. Where I place myself is just as important as the actions I carry out in the space. So I’ve been looking into site-specific art and reading various takes on the notion of the ‘white cube’ gallery space; how does placing your work within four white walls limit it? Does this impose an unwanted constrain? It depends on the work of course, some pieces thrive in a gallery setting, others need to expand beyond that. So this is what I’m playing with here. 

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It was an instinctive decision to take my work to a natural based environment in place of the studio. Taking it to other buildings and artificial places such as shopping malls or car parks bring in too many connotations of capitalism and commercialism. Not my intentions by any means. Nature on the other hand sits well alongside my focus on the human body. So when I was back home I took myself to the gardens near my house and played around with the ideas of the artificial within nature and the obscurity of self. 

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I’d actually forgotten that the bridge was painted blue and was really struck by how it stuck out in among the otherwise natural landscape. It was actually the bridge my parents had their wedding photos taken on so as well as complimenting the intentions of my shoot, it also holds a historical attachment for me. This brings in the element of time which I have  been looking at a lot recently, particularly in terms of viewing it as a medium and artistic concept in itself. There are several layers to my exploration of time in my current work which I won’t go into in depth, but a very simple aspect of it in the case of these photos is simply my choice of clothing; it’s very much a 1960s style dress which reverts back to a past era.

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Time also comes into play when we photographed in the graveyard. There are a lot of things present in this, most obviously is the sensitivity of photographing in such a sacred place. Respect is something therefore that plays a big part in this as I was not wanting to be disrespectful in any way. Instead, I wanted to bring out the beauty in a place that is more often associated with grief and pain. Given the conventional associations of a graveyard, it was quite difficult to avoid what felt like an eerie scene. Unlike the gardens which were bursting with life; where there were children playing on the swings, ducks swimming in the pond, water flowing, etc. There were also a lot of people wondering the gardens as we were shooting.

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In contrast to the gardens, the graveyard was empty; completely devoid of life. This felt very poignant as the two settings both reflect what it is they represent. The graveyard was quiet with nobody present, apart from the deceased. Whereas the park was full of youth and water. Water of course is the key to life and represents vitality. It is also another thing alongside time that I have been studying. So although from the outset the shoot kind of looks like I plonked myself in two settings for effect, that is not the case. They are highly considered. Nothing in my work lacks purpose, because otherwise I do not see the point in creating it. By formulating something with meaning, it allows the work to be more emotive and therefore better received. Or at least I hope so as emotive art to me is the most touching and consequently, the most effective. 

Brian Griffiths: ‘BILL MURRAY: A Story of Distance, Size and Sincerity

Posted on Posted in brian griffiths, exhibition, review, The Baltic, UncategorizedTagged , , , Leave a comment

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So this was also at Baltic when I visited. I saw it last time I was there but never got round to writing about it. I think this is because I had so many people say to me “have you seen that Bill Murray exhibition at Baltic?” and so by the time I eventually did get round to seeing it, I was already slightly  sick of it! Even after all they’d said, this was not what I  expected! I don’t really know what I was expecting…cardboard cut outs of him maybe? Or some all singing all dancing video installation? Satellite-like installations and little dolls houses were therefore quite a surprise! 

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As was the childlike aesthetic which was particularly evident in the painted house piece. The whole exhibition had this childhood nostalgia to it, I think because dolls houses were present. They were lit from the inside and invited you in. They felt very homey in a way but simultaneously distant, as if they were pushing and pulling you into and away from them. Teasing you. Become a part of it or leave it alone? It was quite exciting peeping in not knowing what you’d see. In most cases it was shells from the ocean which I really liked, as they contrasted nicely with the wooden construction of the pieces. 

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As well as childhood nostalgia, I also felt there was a certain melancholy to it all. I don’t know if that’s because the space felt so big and silent for these sculptures. Although they are fairly sizable in themselves, they are the smallest structures I’ve ever seen on this floor of the Baltic. The silence just seemed so loud because of this, it was almost eerie. Haunting. Like you weren’t meant to be there but of course that’s a contradiction given it’s a gallery where the sole purpose is to view art.

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Most pieces were quite precariously balanced which I think also added to the child-like element. It kind of made me want to get some bits and pieces of my own and start adding to the work! Or bring in some of my own houses to fill out the space and create more liveliness! Bring in one of my old dolls houses. Oooh wow, imagine an exhibition where everyone contributed their old dolls house! In a way it would be kind of creepy. Or maybe that’s just me, sometimes stuff like this freaks me out! 

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I wonder what it’s like to be Bill Murray and have an exhibition  focused on you…Must be truly bizarre – that is, if he even knows about it!

 

Hajra Waheed

Posted on Posted in exhibition, gallery, layout, review, science, techniques, The Baltic, UncategorizedTagged , , , , Leave a comment

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So I had a wee trip down to The Baltic this afternoon thinking there wouldn’t be anything new on given how often I go. But I fancied a walk and some fresh air before the gym so decided to go anyway. I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by Hajra Waheed’s exhibition. Waheed’s work explores the increasing militarization of the sky and how satellite surveillance is becoming more commonplace in our everyday. She works in mixed media ranging from collage to video installation. Her works include archive fragments and field notes which bring an interesting dimension to the artwork as it feels so much more intense with those elements in it. To me that is, maybe to science orientated people it’s more of a natural dialect. 

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I am often fascinated when an artistic practice blends itself with science as that is a theme that differs so greatly from my own. Science and technology are fascinating to me, mostly I think because I have no knowledge about them. To me they are merely the great unknown! Yet strangely in this case I have no urge to make this unknown known, it’s almost as if I prefer it all being a mystery so that I can continue to appreciate it from the outside. Or maybe my brain is already too full with arty stuff, which is probably more accurate if I’m being completely honest!

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What really struck me about this exhibition was the layout; you could tell how much thought had been put into this aspect. There were divides within the space so that some work was hidden when you first entered, there was a separate room and then a little alcove in the wall. There were waist high plinths and then plinths that were just above ground level – the exhibition really forced your eye to travel and it was fantastic! It felt almost like a journey through the artwork. There was also sound playing across the entirety of the room which I think was the sound of materials scraping against the floor as they were being moved. I may be wrong as it was kind of obscure and difficult to pinpoint but given the satellite material laid out on the low-lying plinth, it did suggest the sounds were depicting the movement of these items. If not then I am intrigued by what the sound was capturing; in a way it is this ambiguity that makes it all the more interesting. 

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My photographs sadly, do not justify the exhibition. Because I didn’t think there was a new one on, I just chucked my basic little camera into my bag last minute. Speaking to a member of the Baltic crew, he said Waheed is very particular about how her exhibitions are documented given the thought and time she puts into layout. So she would probably hate me right now with these awful snapshots of her work. They do give you an idea however of the space. The artwork itself did not trigger much response from me I think because I was too fascinated by the arrangement of it all. I particularly liked how she’d arranged all her framed works, it had a satisfying regimental quality to it (photo above). 

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I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed an exhibition where the lighting has made such an impression on me. It was both dramatic and subtle at the same time. There was kind of a blue hue throughout the entire space which created a real sense of calm despite the quite intense subject matter. Waheed grew up on the gated Aramco compound of Saudi Arabia where I myself spent some time when I was growing up. It was interesting looking at her work once I found this out as there are some controversial explorations carried out which I think are heightened by the fact she had lived in Saudi and is not simply an artist observing from the outset. Controversial and highly political and not something I am really wanting to get into given my experiences.

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On the whole I think this was a very successful exhibition. The artwork itself was not exactly to my taste and doesn’t make me want to run off and research her. However the thought and skilled arrangement of it all does. You can tell this is an artist who thinks about the bigger picture when making artwork and I think that’s really important to being successful in today’s art world. 

If Only…

Posted on Posted in Edinburgh, experimentation, gallery, nostalgia, Scottish National Gallery, the body, UncategorizedTagged , , , , Leave a comment

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I was looking through some old photos on my laptop and came across some snaps I’d taken years back at the exhibition ‘From Death to Death and Other Small Tales: Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the D. Daskalopoulos Collection’. I could kick my younger self! If only I could go back and relive this exhibition knowing what I know now! I must have been about…seventeen when I saw this? I think. So only really starting to realise the direction my art would take. This exhibition, although I did not realise it at the some, had some really big names to it. Artists such as Paul McCarthy, Mona Hatoum, Helen Chadwick, Ernesto Neto were all part of it. I have researched and studied them all since being at uni and therefore have an entirely new found appreciation for their work. 

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It gets worse though. Other artist work included belonged to Marina Abramovic – one of THE innovators of performance art. One of the most prominent females in what had previously been a largely male dominated art form. One of my current main influences! Marcel Duchamp as well, one of the pioneers of the Dada movement which not only fueled Surrealism but was the platform for conceptual art. Joseph Beuys, again very revolutionary and brought about a whole new dimension and meaning to the word sculpture. 

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Knowing what I know now, I could not be more frustrated by the naivety of my younger self. I was looking at revolutionary artwork by revolutionary artists and I didn’t even know it! So frustrating…The absolute worst past is that the entire exhibition is centered on the human body which is of course the subject of all my work these days. If only I could see the entire exhibition again!

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I think one of the works I would be most excited to see again is the work of Ernesto Neto (above). I still remember my reaction when I walked into the room. It was not the site that struck me initially; it was the smell. He had filled his installation with a variety of spices to the point that is was almost overwhelming. Yet it was also incredibly exciting as for the first time I was experiencing multi-sensory artwork! It actually inspired me to use spices in my own work. Slight mistake given that at A Level you have to paint your final piece in two days straight. Not good when you’re using spices – I don’t think curry powder has ever given me such a headache!

Empty Walls

Posted on Posted in hanging, photography, studio, techniques, UncategorizedTagged , Leave a comment

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For me presentation of work has become a slight struggle. When I was a painter it was simple, easy. Grab a nail, grab a hammer, make sure your canvas is straight and voila! The piece is hung, the piece looks perfect. With photographs you need to put a lot more thought into it. I was debating for ages about how to hang these works. I didn’t want to frame them as it made them seem too much like a final work, whereas my practice is still very much in the experimental stage. I didn’t just want to stick them to the wall either however, as I felt that was too flat and took away from the movement depicted in the image. 

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So then I started contemplating material such as foam board. If I were to spray glue the images onto that, they would then stand approximately a centimeter off the wall. Again however, it felt too fixed, too held in place. So then I came up with my final mode of presentation; using bull dog clips to hang the photos from nails. This worked well because it allowed the photos to protrude from the wall meaning that when anyone walked past the photos fluttered and danced as a result of human movement. 

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I really like this aspect, the fact that the photos moved in sync with the viewer. It ties in nicely with my concepts of the body and its relations in space. Someone also pointed out to me that this method of hanging reverts back to old analogue photos and how they were hung in the dark room.  I thought this was a very interesting reading and one I had not even considered myself. Quite careless of me if you think about it, yet I was simply fixated on this idea of moving instead of static images. It’s interesting when someone notices something completely different in your work. 

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In fact that is one of my favourite things about making art; when someone takes something of yours and re-interprets it on their own. When they draw their own conclusions and interpretations, which sometimes are the furthest thing from the concept I was working on! Yet there’s nothing more exciting than someone coming to me and talking about how they’ve seen or read something in my pieces and I get to say back to them “I hadn’t even thought of that!” It brings in a whole new dimension for me to consider as I continue on with my experiments.

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After all the debate that surrounded the hanging of these images, it’s nice to have empty walls again! Not for long however as I am completely buzzing with ideas to the point that I can’t create or write them up fast enough! I have been so busy the past week making and editing work that I haven’t even had time to reflect on it all properly!