Corinna Spencer

|noōn| lullabies: a time between wakefulness and sleep
(working title)

Boo Saville
Trolley
5 February -13 March
London
E2

Being aware of our own mortality is an exclusively human trait, a burden and a price we pay for our consciousness. I think, in my work, I am interested in the seduction of beauty and contemplation of our situation through this quiet state.(Boo Saville)

The explorer-2009

‘Totem’, this new body of work encapsulates the unifying anthropological and archeological aspects evident in her work, and her representation of the deceased captured through an exploration of various forms of mark-making, itself a reflection of human expression and representation.(Trolley)

“There is beauty and creativity in the process of destruction. I am interested in decay not as a negative reduction but as a unifying symbol of matter, of our bodies. There is a clarity for me when something is stripped down to the bare bones and studied or just observed.”(Boo Saville)

Stand side by side with mortality, in deep dark black: These works are scaled up to draw us in yet intimate in their subject, they reach out with bleached skeletal hands and hold us steady with sunken eyes, empty of flesh.

Colourful/tribal works offer up to us the ceremony and remembrance of death, the event that holds us together and presents us with our Totem.

Saville’s treatment of surface has long fascinated me in achieving a luminescence and shroud like quality far beyond terms such as the over used ‘other worldly’. These images are anchored solidly with in our experience of being human.

How do we feel-2010

Jar head-2010

A.K Dolven
Wilkinson
20 Jan – 14 Mar 2010
London
E2

one take on 16mm film. A young girl spins continually in a cold, white and icy landscape. She swirls without stopping while the camera moves slowly from her pale green trainers to the crown of her head…..The camera movement, steady and repetitive, and the girl’s relentless spinning, together reveal only fragmentary intimate moments within an unstable visual world where the body is at once vulnerable and resolute.(AK Dolven)

Body and environment are set against and then within each other. The spinning female’s skin at times mirrors that of the snow white-blue surroundings reflecting the colour and texture back to us, as she drifts in and out of frame and in and out of the landscape. There is a frenzied element to the spinning, not so that it would unnerve the viewer but more that the spinning girl is pushing herself closer and closer to becoming indistinguishable from the landscape, to become one with it. Upside down or right way up, its not clear when the shift occurs and so the beautiful illusion continues. She draws us in-we are not separated from her and the landscape as she drifts towards the camera and then away again. She beckons us to join her on a personal journey of surrender to, then acceptance of, her landscape.

Something about the sparseness, concrete and whites, of the gallery, the hint of chill in the air only re enforced the experience of the landscape and body connected.

There are three pieces in this exhibit and I have concentrated on, ‘when the sky became my ground’ not to ignore the other two, not at all, but the instant and long lasting effect that this instillation offered me means that I have to spend more time on it.

Ahead-2008

The work is a three-part installation consisting of a large-scale HD video projection and a separate video on a monitor placed elsewhere in the room….Shot in a single take and without edits, the scene shows a snow hillside in the Arctic, in evening light. A group of young people appear in the bottom of the screen, carrying another young woman backwards towards the top of the frame…The prints and tracks they leave behind record the peculiarity of their task. The second part of the work is an examination of the detail of the first scene.(AK Dolven)

Self portrait-1989-2009 was made over twenty years as the Artist revisits a performance piece. Ahead-2008 is a fascinating tale of futility and human versus landscape brilliantly displayed for the audience on an over sized tilted screen, the audience have a sense of the scale of the snow and incline.
Past works.

For more from AK Dolven go HERE
There is still time to see this and I cant recommend it enough.
For the simple and inviting joy of the spinning girl in white-blue snow.

Rachel Cattle and Steve Richards
Transition
23 Jan-21 Feb
London
E8

Steve Richards and Rachel Cattle’s latest film Cosmographia, takes its title from a 16th century encyclopaedic record of the known and imagined worlds by the cartographer Sebastian Munster.(Transition)

Richards and Cattle’s Cosmographia is a journey through a maze of repeated and abstracted patterns and shapes exploring ideas of eternal recurrence and the hermetic/esoteric principle ‘as above, so below’. The film has a hand built and drawn aesthetic, an operatic soundtrack and uses motifs that occur throughout Kubrick’s The Shining. Other eclectic influences come from the likes of Buckminster Fuller, P.D. Ouspensky and the films of Kenneth Anger.(Transition)

Waves of sadness with senses heightened by the music and darkness: Cosmographia’s hand drawn element provided an intimacy supported by the gallery set up of darkness and floor cushions that continued the motif from within the film. Repetition of the abstract with breaks of the recognisable yet slightly disturbing, pull us into a parallel reality.

The feel here is of the naïve and handmade but in its repetition, mirroring and flashes of a (constructed) real world, I found this film twisted with a haunting madness. This collaboration detail their cultural/Art historical and contemporary references (see Transition website). But the strongest theme I took from it was of the face to face with the interior and the ‘no escape’ from torturous repetition.

Rachel Cattle and Steve Richards have given interviews regarding Cosmographia, its references and how they hope the work to be received. Read one HERE at FLUX.

I have looked around UTube and I cant find a version of the film, which is a shame.

Obviously I am late getting to this one, its actually one of my favorites from the Transition gallery thus far.

Have a look at Rachel Cattle’s website for some delicately strange and beautiful drawing

Rachel Cattle-Glitterball 2009

detail-In progress 18.2.10

….and other arty networking ‘tweet-tweet’ @Corr_

A week or so ago a post appeared in my Twitter feed – Why do Artists have blogs? isn’t a website enough?. I would love to credit the twitter-er who posted it, it may even have had an article attached, of course I forgot to take note of it. If I have tracked it down by the time I have finished this post I will add it, if not….well, if you recognise it-get in touch.

Anyway, this tweet got me thinking. I’m an Artist, I have a website, I have a blog. So whats the point?

Well, for me the two areas are different in a few important ways. The website is a showcase of work-this is who I am and what I do. It develops as I do (nothing worse than a totally static website). The Blog is a place to communicate and share-I like to share. It evolves along with me, I mean to say that there is a transient element to my thought process and focus. Not a bad thing at all, its a more personal place than the website-but hopefully no less professional. Is there a self promotional aspect to it? Absolutely, an online presence for an Artist (just like a business) should have. It’s striking a balance between shoving your work down the readers throat and sharing information about interests, other artists, even other blogs however that I feel is key….I may be old fashioned, I still think of the art world as a community.

Discovering Artists or Art related blogs can be time consuming because (rightly so) there are lots out there. Twitter has been a powerful tool in bringing blogs together right in front of my eyes (Go fish and find some). So far the blogs I visit can be categorized as Artist and Information, or a mix of both.

With this post I want to share my favorite blogs. With a bit of luck readers may want to share some of their favorites with me.

Artists blogs: well they fascinate me, I’m naturally nosy so I like to see what Artists are reading, watching and going to see. The best ones mix this in with a touch of the personal and human. This appeals to me given my general and consistent state of bumbling confusion.

Artists (links included):

Dean Melbourne-From Perfume to Bird song
(beautiful title for a blog by the way)


Cathy Lomax-Art Review And Comment
Boo Saville-Lets Die Together
Matthew Stone-Optimism as cultural rebellion

All of these blogs have varying styles when it comes to blogging, some post more often than others. I try to blog once a week but honestly I would rather not blog than write a dull post (and I have done exactly that in the past and bored myself off of my chair with a painful thud) So the frequency of the posting is, I think, unimportant.

Information (links included): Whats on/Reviews/Interviews

Articulated Artists
London Painting
The b-uncut blog
Art-Pie
Art Licks
Beautiful Decay
Today In art
This Is Tomorrow

Of course there are hundreds more out there but these are the ones I visit on a regular basis. I want to add to the Artist Blog list…so again let me know about ones you may be following.

Blogs on Twitter (links included):

@todayinart
@BeautifulDecay
@artlicks
@b_uncut
@art_pie
@articulatedart
@thisistomorrow_

A word or two about Twitter. Its a great place. People tweet me links to Artists, blogs, exhibits-all sorts that they think I may like. So thank you!

Portfolio Trail
The New Art Gallery Walsall
oct 09-oct 10

Established by the artists Deborah Curtis and Gavin Turk,The House Of Fairy Tales is a child-centred artist led project which draws on an extensive team of artists, performers, writers, educationalists, designers, musicians, film makers, dreamers and philosophers to create magical, parallel worlds where learning is play and play is directed learning.
Operating across a number of formats from workshops, publishing, advocacy and education packs and an annual summer festival planned for 2010, The House Of Fairy Tales is about making education inclusive, inventive and fun.The House Of Fairy Tales

The brief for this event at the Walsall Art Gallery was to make an image inspired by Fairy Tales, Folktales, Myth and Legend

Rachel Whiteread-Story Time, lythography

Dexter Dalwood-Cinderella, Lythography
With the look of a film poster, Dalwood shows us the journey Cinderella could take from the oppression of her childhood to the opulence of ‘above stairs’ and the futility there in.

Cornellia Parker-The Blue room, Lithograph
Sometimes the simplicity of an image can produce the most fear, as a face stares out from the dark.

Matt Collishaw-Duty Free spirits, Platinum Photography
This is a reproduction of Colloshaws early Fairies series. The fairies here morn the death of ‘Cock Robin’. The fairies themeselves, on closer inspection, are ‘just’ children in altered scale. An uneasy beauty.

This is a project that has been going for some time, and I realise that I am late coming to it. The House Of fairy Tales, from the website, looks like a useful and successful interaction between art, children and learning in all creative forms. The Exhibit at the New Walsall Art Gallery was at first bewildering in its curration, among the main/permanent works on display, until I found the fun in a treasure hunt. Interesting small creations are dotted around the gallery rooms. As a guide there is a helpful map with information and a quiz for children to play, which of course I didnt refer to (even though I should of to avoid missing works) but instead went from room to room feeling very pleased with myself when I found a House Of Fairy Tales piece (sometimes its the simple things in life that please me). Nor did I pay close attention to the entire list of Artists taking part, creating another layer of surprise as to who I would find-getting into the spirit of things you see.

And there were indeed some beautifully pleasant surprises scattered within the permanent display, which sadly feels ever so slightly stuffy. Twenty three Artists have submitted work with the Fairy Tale theme and while some of them, like Paula Rego, are well versed in this subject matter, others were less so and so viewing these was a little like glimpsing into a deeper chasm of the Artists imagination, more private perhaps.

I certainly recommend it. There is a list of the participating Artists bellow, but dont read them if you want to go. Its more fun that way.

****************
Fiona Banner, Simon Bill, Sir Peter Blake, Ellen Cantor, Spartacus Chetwynd, Mat Collishaw, Dexter Dalwood, Adam Dant, Enrico David, Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane, Simon English, Georgie Hopton, Harland Miller, Cornelia Parker, Simon Periton, Paula Rego, Jane Simpson, Bob and Roberta Smith, Kiki Smith, Gavin Turk, Francis Upritchard, Rachel Whiteread.

Painting in progress (detail)-Jan ‘10

The Vampire

C. Baudalaire

You invaded my sorrowful heart
Like the sudden stroke of a blade;
Bold as a lunatic troupe
Of demons in drunken perade,

You in my mortified soul
Made your bed and your domain;
-Abhorrence, in whom I am bound
As the convict is to the chain,

As the drunkard is to the jug
As the gambler is to the game,
As to the vermin the corpse,
-I damn you, out of my shame!

And I prayed to the eager sword
To win my deliverance,
And have asked the perfidious vial
To redeem my cowardice.

Alas! the vial and the sword
Disdainfully said me;
‘You are not worthy to lift
From your wretched slavery,

You fool!-if from your command
Our efforts delivered you forth,
Your kisses would waken again
Your vampire lovers corpse!’

(Translation by James McGowen
Oxford world classics)

January is almost over! at last.

(post updated-1.2.10)

really odd angle of the work in progress above.
and for an idea of scale……(still in prog 8.2.10)

The Vampire
(translation in verse-it offers a deeper understanding of the poem posted above, a layer of metaphor)

You who plunged into my despondent heart like the stab of a knife, who with all the power of a pack of devils came with your wantonness and glamour to make my humiliated mind your bed, your empire; foul creature to whom I am shacked like a galley-slave to his chains, a dogged gambler to his game, a boozer to his bottle, a corpse to its own maggots: may you be doubly damned.

I begged the swift dagger to retrieve my liberty, I implored the treacherous poison to stiffen my cowardice but the poison and the blade turned away from me and said ‘Fool, you don’t deserve to be saved from your hellish abjection; for even if our efforts could set you free, you would soon give your vampire the kiss of life’.
(published in 1855 as ‘La Beatrice’)
Francis Scarfe-Complete verse.

Although posted along side a painting in progress, I do not seek to illustrate.