Laura Pawela, the Warsaw-based multidisciplinary artist, has joined IMT Gallery for her second solo exhibition of work in the UK.

The works in Sweet Heart Now Grown So Cold are connected by motifs that have appeared over the course of her significant contribution to contemporary art. Shifts in materials present a view of Pawela’s practice as an elemental collage of states in continuous transformation. Wisps of smoke in the video Smoke (2008) seem to reappear as hair in Untitled (2009) or as a pool of urine in Sketch for the Study of Urine on a Street (2009).(IMT)

Soot blackened eyelids: and a heart made of coal, swirling smoke and gems. There is a cool unyielding feeling here rubbing up against the softness of the ephemeral. The sharpness of reality and a blurred imagined life coming together rather beautifully.

You can see more pictures from Sweet Heart Now Grown Cold on my Flickr here

A while ago I attended a book launch for the British Library collection of Love Letters, one of the speakers was author of That Woman, Anne Sebba. At the time I was working on Robert & Jesse paintings and everything that came about after that, now I find I have a bit of time to think about Wallis. The focus of another someones obsessional love.

Painting: Wallis, oil on paper, 12×17.5cm

With huge thanks to Kevin Broughton & Fiona Birnie here is a film from Tainted Love’s Preview night at Transition Gallery. Many thanks to everyone who came, perhaps you are in the film….. or catch up with Tainted Love news and pictures from the PV on the Diary blog.

You can read my interview on Writer Mark Sheerin’s blog Criticismism here: Talking the beginnings of Tainted Love, Ply Wood and obsessional love.

Artists: Alice Anderson, Kirsty Buchanan, Annabel Dover, Georgie Flood, Andrea Hannon, Paul Kindersley, Hayley Lock, Cathy Lomax, Alli Sharma, Corinna Spencer, Mark Scott Wood, Jessica Voorsanger.

Alice Anderson, Kirsty Buchanan, Annabel Dover, Georgie Flood, Andrea Hannon, Paul Kindersley, Hayley Lock, Cathy Lomax, Alli Sharma, Corinna Spencer, Mark Scott Wood, Jessica Voorsanger.

In October 2011 I had a conversation with Cathy Lomax & Alli Sharma about the paintings I was just about to start making. We were at the Meter Room at the time. I was working on the story of teenage hero worship and obsession I had recently seen in the film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. After that conversation I day dreamed about who I would ask to work with me in a project about obsessional love……

You are an obsession, you’re my obsession……For those who do not share it, unconditional devotion is seen as unhealthy and unsettling, typically loaded with negative stereotypes and labels of deviancy. But to the devotee, their chosen idol, however undeserving, is at the centre of the world, skirting between reality and fantasy.

Tainted Love is a day-dreamingly, dark installation questioning what it means to desire, cherish, seek, long, admire, envy, celebrate, protect or destroy. These desires for desire inform aspects of how we make sense of the world, in relation to mass media, and in relation to our historical, social and cultural locations to create meaning in our everyday lives where the traditional bonds of race, religion and ethnicity are increasingly diminished and where fantasy functions as an empty surface for the projection of our desires.

Images by: Paul Kindersley, Cathy Lomax & Georgie flood

Tainted Love Tours to…
Meter Room, Coventry 8 June – 8 July 2012
Private View Thurs 7 June 6-8.30pm
Down Stairs, Herefordshire 23 Sept – 18 Nov 2012
Private View Sat 22 Sept 6-9pm

Find more information about all of the Tainted Love artists on the Tainted Love website.

I am very pleased to be taking part in the ZAP launch exhibition Collectible with my Moss Haired Girls.

A high-profile inaugural exhibition of 66 promising, mid-career and established International Zeitgeist artists from across all disciplines; including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and print from £50-£500. Exhibitors include new graduates Wieland Payer, (Channel 4 & Saatchi New Sensations) , Iain Andews (Marmite Painting Prize Winner 2010 ) Claire Mitten, (Jerwood Painting fellow 2011), alongside the eminent Virginia Verran (Jerwood drawing prize winner 2010), Fiona Macdonald (British School of Rome) painters Graham Crowley and Guy Allott (John Moores). (ZAP)

Curated by Rosalind Davis and Annabel Tilley.
Artists: Guy Allott, Iain Andrews, Edwina Ashton, Paul Benjamins, George Bolster, Kate Bowen, Andrew Bracey, Tom Butler, Ben Coode-Adams, Emma Cousin, Graham Crowley, Rosalind Davis, David Dipre, Sarah Douglas, Freya Douglas Morris, Annabel Dover, Charlie Dutton, Karl England, Alyson Helyer, Andrew Hewish, Jack Hutchinson, Peter Jones, Nick Kaplony, David Kefford, Sharon Leahy-Clark, Simon Leahy-Clark, Cathy Lomax, Wayne Lucas, Fiona MacDonald, EJ Major, Amy McKenny, Nadege Meriau, Marion Michell, Clare Mitten, Kate Murdoch, Elizabeth Murton, Michaela Nettell, Charlotte Norwood, Wieland Payer, Alex Pearl, Edd Pearman, Gaia Persico, Kate Pickering, Chantelle Purcell, Giulia Ricci, Mark Scott-Wood, Alli Sharma, Gordon Shrigley, Lisa Snook, Emily Speed, Corinna Spencer, Melanie Stidolph, Boa Swindler, Freddie Robins, Annabel Tilley, Virginia Verran, Jenny Wiener, Rich White, Andy Wicks, Rachel Wilberforce, Chiara Williams, Sarah Williams, Jonny Williamson, Jo Wilmot, James Wright, Peter Wylie.

This timely exhibition vividly heralds the end of analogue TV in the UK as London finally switches to digital on 18 April 2012.

The contemporary reworking of one of Hall’s earlymajor works ‘101 TV sets’ will form the centrepiece of the exhibition. ’1001 TV Sets (End Piece)’ features 1,001 cathode ray tube TV sets, of all ages and conditions, which will fill the massive Ambika P3 subterranean space. The TVs will be tuned to different analogue stations playing randomly in a cacophony of electronic signals, gradually reducing between April 4 and April 18, as the final analogue signals are broadcast from London’s Crystal Palace. When transmission is turned off, the multiple sets will emit only terminal audio hiss and a visual sea of white noise. (P3)

Goodnight Sleep well: In this vast, dark cavernous room there is an overwhelming cackle, loud and confusing from hundreds of monitors under a canopy of cables feeding them the life force to keep making the noise and keep showing the pictures. A few have expired into the static snowy screen ‘Good night sleep well’ the continuity announcer used to say.

You can see more pictures from End Piece on my Flickr here

]]> http://www.corinnaspencer.com/end-piece/feed/ 0 http://www.corinnaspencer.com/home-office-of-the-fan-fiction-empire/ http://www.corinnaspencer.com/home-office-of-the-fan-fiction-empire/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:18:02 +0000 corinna http://www.corinnaspencer.com/?p=10318 Preview 5 April 7.30 – 9pm
6 April – 27 May 2012
The Residence Gallery
London
E9
Pictures from the Private View on my Flickr here
The inaugural HOME OFFICE OF THE FAN FICTION EMPIRE is open. Resplendent with works from over 20 visual ambassadors, it welcomes a spirited sociological approach to consumer culture-cum-borderline official media producer. Championing visual production and communication naturalised out of a DIY domestic authority, morphing completely in unimaginable ways. The H.O.F.F.E. asks the question of culture in the realm of its advancement in this hyper void. (Residence Gallery)

As a fan the images that represent the desire become more than mere representations of the person, the idol but also a closeness that could be difficult to achieve in any other way. The images a fan collects are given room in a private space where feelings of closeness can intensify over time.

The fan makes their own representation of their fan feelings and these become transformed, no longer a tool to bring the celebrity to an adoring public via mass media but a personal declaration of devotion.

In my postcards the subjects of my limerent feelings play out scenes I direct in my own personal, imagined, life story.

Artists: Bill Aitchison, Angel Rose, Darren Coffield, Sally Fuerst, Anne Wolk, Malcolm Litson, Richard Goold, Guy Oliver, Andrew Stanney, Corinna Spencer, Paul Sakoilsky, Christina Mitrense, Joey Holder, Stefano Pasquini, Daryl Brown, Ralph Dorey, Nicole Bachmann, Beatriz Olabarrieta, Gino Saccone, Evan Calder Williams, Electra Costa.

Painting: My Boy Builds Coffins, 2012, oil on found postcard. Howl, 2012, oil on found postcard

]]> http://www.corinnaspencer.com/home-office-of-the-fan-fiction-empire/feed/ 0 http://www.corinnaspencer.com/peep-two/ http://www.corinnaspencer.com/peep-two/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:56:02 +0000 corinna http://www.corinnaspencer.com/?p=10374 TweetArt
Curated by Bob Milner
January 25th, March 28th, May 30th, July 25th,
September 26th, November 28th.
Art walk at Westgate Studios
Wakefield
WF1
Alice & Bob have a small, self-contained gallery space in their studio (Westgate Studio, Wakefield, UK) which was formerly The Prince Albert and is now white-walled, tidy and has become the latest incarnation of PEEP! gallery; an ongoing curatorial project since 2007. For the next year, Bob wants the lovely people on Twitter to send in ‘art’ to be displayed in the space! during six one-night exhibition opportunities coming up in 2012 as part of the Wakefield Artwalk. At each event there will be other planned exhibitions both at Westgate Studio and other venues including The Art House, The Hepworth Gallery and BEAM. (Tweet art)

The tweetart events will be: January 25th, March 28th, May 30th, July 25th, September 26th and November 28th. The gallery space is approximately 16ft x 4ft and we have plinths as well as empty frames and white tack and nails and patience. Visit here for some key information (Tweet Art)

This time I have sent off a pair of ‘Place and Escape/Hidden Islands‘ paintings from the Reside Residency which finished a little earlier in the year. These paintings ‘Reggie & Viv’ are based a small story within the larger novel The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. A couple longing to be free of their surroundings and responsibilities in a claustrophobic environment and time. My previous contribution to TweetArt were some Papar Cut Out works made earlier during my time on Reside Residency. I am fond of a bit of TweetArt.

If you fancy getting involved contact @peerpart (Bob Milner) for more info.

Artists: @juliecaves @Corr_ @wendyhan @Almighty_faye @Gargarin @debi_holbrook @EastStreetArts @suehotchkis @y30man5 @leahjdurant @ryanhughes2 @rosiejam @peepart @alicebradshaw @vickysArt @emmagraney @sam_clift
Click on the twitter names to go to the Artist’s profile

Painting: Reggie & Viv, 2012, oil on found postcard.

]]> http://www.corinnaspencer.com/peep-two/feed/ 0 http://www.corinnaspencer.com/plant-life-of-the-pacific-world/ http://www.corinnaspencer.com/plant-life-of-the-pacific-world/#comments Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:49:14 +0000 corinna http://www.corinnaspencer.com/?p=10306 Carlos Noronha Feio
2nd March – 8th April 2012
IMT
London
E2
Plant Life of the Pacific World is a exhibition of delicate flower and plant forms assembled from collaged photographs of nuclear explosions, each classified in accordance with American botanist E. D. Merrill’s book from which the exhibition takes its name. In this new work Noronha Feio plays with the relationships between beauty, conflict, the foreign and the domestic. (IMT)

Destruction in full bloom: Its horrifying to think of some of these images as beautiful with their possibilities of destruction. Others are unrecognisable only as colourful representations of plant life. Or even human life.

I felt a weird sense of numbness and excitement when approaching these collages. An all to common representation of a massive explosion, an everyday news event. Perhaps shock has given way to numbness, but I found the reverse to be true after a visit to Plant Life Of The Pacific World.

More pictures from the exhibition can be found on my Flickr here

]]> http://www.corinnaspencer.com/plant-life-of-the-pacific-world/feed/ 0 http://www.corinnaspencer.com/spitting-games-2/ http://www.corinnaspencer.com/spitting-games-2/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:19:39 +0000 corinna http://www.corinnaspencer.com/?p=10296

Painting: Spitting Games, oil on found postcard, 2012
From the FanBook

]]> http://www.corinnaspencer.com/spitting-games-2/feed/ 0