whats on?….and where have I been?

Three exhibits that I will be seeing over the next couple of weeks

The Artist studio
Compton Verney
26 September – 13 December 2009

This exhibition, the scope of which will be a first for UK audiences, takes you ‘behind the scenes’ to offer a fascinating insight into the world of the artist’s studio in Britain. Through paintings, photographs, drawings, film, etchings, books and studio furniture, this exhibition will explore the changing function and depiction of the artist’s studio from the 1700s to the present day. Artists in the exhibition include: J. M. W. Turner, Eric Ravilious, Gwen John, Paula Rego, Lisa Milroy and Jeremy Deller. (Compton Verney)

There and Everywhere
6 – 29 Nov 2009
Private View: Thurs 5 Nov
Transition Gallery
London
E8

The impetus for There and Everywhere began with painter David Webb’s focus on his grandmother’s journey made by sea in 1955 from Tanzania to London. This personal history, and his experiences of residencies overseas have led to his making work about travel and ancestry, which he interestingly describes as ‘a turn inwards’. Reflecting on these themes Webb selected Helen Couchman and Liz Harrison to show alongside him in There and Everywhere . Each artist brings a distinct perspective to the project revealing surprising and unexpected connections between their painting, photography and video installation, so that the general somehow becomes the specific. (Transition Gallery)

Artists Anonymous
Riflemaker
‘Lucifer over London’
Monday 21 September – Saturday 21 November 2009
london
W1

Artists Anonymous are a collective of three painters, photographers and filmmakers. They describe themselves as primarily painters but all three media are used in their installations. Often the time-based media of performance and film are utilised in the same way as other artists plan and develop projects through drawing. (Riflemaker)

“We knew each other as artists around Berlin, started to work together in 2001 when we were variously coming out of relationships and giving up drugs. After a while our work became known and we needed a way for people to refer to us. Anonymity means we sacrifice our own names as artists, but it also forces people to concentrate on our work, not us. We thought it might be good if you go and see an art work and not know who did it, not just in terms of who personally, but whether man or woman, old or young. That also fitted with how people like Beuys challenged the view that art was what was well-done by an artist with an ego, and introduced the idea of the duty of the artist to be socially aware. So we thought if we want our art to be about what matters, it can’t be about us”.(AA interviewed by Art World magazine, June 2009).

I have had my eye on Artists Anonymous for a while, I want to experience this work live to come to any real opinion of them.

On a personal note: To any one out there who has picked up that nasty flu bug (it has other names) my sympathy-I’m recovering now. Wow, that thing hits hard. And that explains my online absence for the last couple of weeks.

the ghost

Uninvited-oil on canvas,2009, 152x122cm

Like angels who have bestial eyes
I’ll come again to your alcove
And glide in silence to your side
in shadows of the night, my love;

And I will give to my dark mate
Cold kisses frigid as the moon,
And I’ll caress you like a snake
That slides and writhes around a tomb.

When the livid morning breaks
You will find no one in my place,
And feel a chill til night is near.

Some others by their tenderness
May try to guide your youthfulness,
Myself, I want to rule by fear.
THE GHOST C. Baudelaire

I have debated whether to include the verse or not. As much as I dont want it to define the painting I also dont want to hide away the texts I have been reading and ‘The Ghost’ has been on my mind of late. For me it has prompted thoughts of obsession and addiction.

I stress that I do not set out to illustrate but instead solidify some aspects of my practice. Its difficult because I like to share but at the same time I dont want to confuse the viewer.

JT project 09 at the James taylor gallery

JT project 09
14 Oct – 01 Nov 2009
London
E9

The James Taylor Gallery has invited six local artist-run organisations to each occupy a room within their vast Victorian warehouse…the project provides the opportunity to see shows by these peer organisations simultaneously. *JT 09*

There were a couple of reasons that I wanted to get down to this exhibition. One was that this is a collection of Artist lead organizations, under one roof who, I hoped and indeed found to be, approaching their exhibitions with idiosyncratic focus and answering the questions brought about by sharing space. Another reason is that there are artists exhibiting here who’s work I have come to know and admire, so any opportunity to see them-well I’m going to take it.

Over the past year or so I have become more and more disinclined to visit the big white boxes, the big money shows, the Artists who seem to perpetually do the rounds. I have wanted something else, a freshness of approach to exhibiting, a freshness of approach to subject and ideas and most importantly Artists I am not familiar with. I have been finding what I need in Artists lead organizations/galleries. Its crucial that organizations like these are celebrated and supported.

TRANSITION GALLERY

…….presents a series of delicately constructed scenarios through which the viewer is invited to share a series of heart quivering sensations. These portals range from images of intense urban wilderness to washed out beautiful boys via Baudelaire’s Fleur du Mal and fragile Northern landscapes. *Transition*

Cathy Lomax-Heart Throb (Romeo, Valentino, Young Worther, Shelley, Elvis, Valentine, Xavier, Edward C, Heathcliff, Jim Stark, Byron) features ten paintings of brooding young men all made from the same image.

‘I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you – the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence… the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something which has never actually appeared in our experience.’C S Lewis he went on to name his ‘inconsolable secret’ sehnsucht and it is this indefinable allure of unspoken truths, heartache and longing that inspires Transition Gallery’s presentation for JT Project 09. *Transition*

Alli Sharma-Foal, 2008, oil on canvas, 160 x 130 cm

Paul Kindersley- Witches, Witches, Witches, 2009, mixed media

Joel Tomlin-Hobbs 2009
The inspiration for the Transition exhibit hammered on the right buttons for me and paralleled some aspects of my own practice, and it does it with out making me feel left behind or lost, intimidated or hopeless. Instead it makes me think deeply about why I am making the paintings that currently take up my time and brain/heart space and makes me want to make more.

JAMES TAYLOR GALLERY

‘The pier’ is the largest instillation within JT 09. The water is creamy white, though in the semi darkness can seem green and grey, it also gives the illusion of depth the further the viewer walks out along the wooden structure . Piles of old tires add to the derelict, forgotten or even post disaster atmosphere (natural or otherwise) and the bright light at the far end didnt feel like rescue. I walked it several times.

Julia Crabtree and William Evans

THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE present TRIUMPH OF THE WILL
Curated by Cathrine Borra, Olivia Hegarty & Matthew Stone

TRIUMPH OF THE WILL emerges from questions surrounding Leni Reifenstahl’s 1934 propaganda film commissioned by Adolf Hitler. see the film HERE
How do we understand the aesthetic legacy if this event?
Does any aesthetic embody and bear responsibility for the final solutions of ideology?
In the contexts of both the film and the works in this show, what is the power of the individuals depicted and those implicated as audience? *The Centre of the universe*

David Ferrando Giraut-Road Movie – Perpetuum Mobile,Single channel video
View Road Movie HERE

For me this film was stunning in its apparent simplicity. The sound brings on chills, and the images evoke powerful feelings of fear and isolation. An event has taken place, its not clear if this is a solitary event or if it is only an example of wider destruction. However perhaps the interpretation of this film is where the true horror exists, perhaps we can be made to believe almost anything through the media of film. A predisposition that we have exploited.

James Balmforth-Our sons their fathers failing language see,2007,Video projection

GALLERIES TAKING PART
Centre of the Universe
Fieldgate Gallery
Five Years
James Taylor Gallery
Katie Guggenheim
Supine Studios
Transition Gallery

The work within JT 09 is wide reaching, challenging and at times beautiful and I have in no way done the exhibition justice with this blog. Please make room in your life to go and see this. There is so much to see and its total anti-FRIEZE….thankfully the art is way better than THAT rubbish joke.

I was lucky enough to make it down to the private view, and was made to feel very welcome by the Artists. Thank You.

also, i must apologize for the quality of some of my photographs of late, you will be pleased to hear that I am getting a new, pocket sized, camera!!

Carlos Noronha Feio at transition and ‘TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS’ at elevator

CARLOS NORONHA FEIO
AA and Away
2 – 25 October 2009
Transition Gallery
London
E8

Carlos Noronha Feio’s work is engaged with the points at which geography and migration meet, where differing cultures collide, interfere and impose their imperatives on each other. He represents these concerns from the personal perspective of his own Portuguese nationality. For the project A A and Away Noronha Feio uses imagery from Afghan carpets as a starting point, particularly those depicting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. However, Noronha Feio admits that as an ‘occidental’ he stands outside of this cultural history and therefore he intervenes by creating his own designs inspired by the carpets. *Transition Gallery*

The end (birth and fertility-fate wheels of fortune) 2008 Arraiolos rug

This exhibit brilliantly showcases the versatility of the gallery and their ethos of showing a wide range of artists working across medium with disparate concerns and subject matter. I was struck by the subtleness of this exhibit and despite the closeness of the artist to the subject (from a personal point of view) he presented a commentary on a situation with out overwhelming the viewer. Using traditionally made rugs Feio reminded me of cultural histories and methods of story telling. Using video *A of Afaganistan* he reminded me of a not to distant violent past still relevant today.

The video *A of Afganistan* (stills bellow) drew me in immediately, the uncomfortable closeness of flesh to ,what could be, the cross hairs, and the helplessly voyeuristic feelings of the viewer watching fragments of, what could be, a violent past was a stark contrast to the more subtle rugs though they depicted less subtle imagery.

A of Afganistan, Video, 2008

Noronha Feio is adamant that what is important in his work is sincerity. The work is not laden with political polemic; his is a quiet and thoughtful approach to an increasingly global interrogation. An artistic investigation of what it is to be different. *Transition Gallery*

“ieeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii we found it! (fate wheels of fotune), 2008 Arraiolos rug

Some performance pieces by Carlos Noronha Feio can be found on Utube…….

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TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS
9-25 October 2009
Elevator Gallery
London
E9

A candle lit exhibition of the mental state of those around us? or of what could become of us?

There are some gems within this exhibit, from uncomfortable photography depicting the interior and exterior space of the subject, to the partly decomposed bodies of birds imprisoned within their pretty cages. Nightmarish scenarios of repeated behavior seem hinted at by Iain Sommervills grinning man, seated and staring into the corner of a room surrounded by photographs of a past-the owner of which is unknown.

Iaian Somerville

Brian Cheesewrite-Bad dream 2009/Malady 2008
For me Cheeswrites paintings have a more obvious connection to an unstable mental state but also that of hallucination, medicine men and masked spirits.

Marie Louise Jones

Jenny Lewis- Paranoid Poloroids

This space is perfect for such an exhibit, its mix of industrial unit and musty oldness added to an already pulse raising atmosphere. The smell of burning candles and an audio instillation that seemed to be a retelling of horrific and violent nightmares compounded my feelings of confinement (despite the large space)

*some elevators scare me-red ones make my knees wobble*

ARTISTS: BRIAN CHEESWRIGHT, JILL TEGAN DOHERTY, REBECCA EHRLlCH, KARL ENGLAND, CHARLIE TUESDAY GATES, SNOOZlE HEXAGON
JOSIE HILLMAN, MARIE-LOUISE JONES, MAX KIMBER
LAURA MAY LEWIS, JENNY S LEWIS, SUSU LAROCHE, LYNDSAY MARTIN,
CLlNTON DE MENEZES, CARRIE REICHARDT, MARK SCOTT-WOOD,
SYDNEY SOUTHAM, LADISLAW STAREWICZ, lAIN SOMMERVILLE,
SIMON REUBEN WHITE, LITTLE WHITEHEAD

*both of these exhibits are well worth visiting-go see*

painting in progress 10.09