I would like to thank Anna Fairchild for curating Artmasters at The Old Truman Brewery over the weekend. I showed and met with a group of fantastic MA Fine Art graduates from around the country. It was an invaluable experience. Thank you for all of you who attended and bought my work. I hope you enjoyed the vibrant and eclectic mix of artworks.
I recommend a visit to the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014 The Wilson Gallery at Cheltenham Museum & Art Gallery. This is the first time The Wilson Gallery has shown the Jerwood Drawing Prize, it travelled from Jerwood Visual Arts Centre in London. I found it interesting seeing the exhibition shown in a different venue. I think the venue changes how the exhibition is viewed, the space, building, layout and location give a different feel and meaning to the work.
I think the exhibition raises questions about drawing. What is drawing? This is the first time a sound piece has been a winner. I was interested to see a paper cut was selected for the show representing another form of drawing. I noticed there is an element of the unfinished and space in many of the works, part drawing, part painting in oils or watercolour, minimal and the composition often going off the page. The works are ambiguous, alternative even the representational drawings offer something different. The perspective of a pencil drawing looking up a tree and the pencil drawing of an interior turned upside down.
I recommend a visit to Victoria Art Gallery Bath to see Edwina Bridgeman Ship of Fools Exhibition.
This is an exhibition in a respected art gallery that appeals to children as well as adults, crossing the boundary of art and craft. It has me asking questions. What is art? Do you need to bring a certain knowledge to understand it? I think anything can be art in the right context.
The installation is interactive, naive, which brings a connection with play, childlike and children.
The more time I spend looking I appreciate each figure as an individual character with its own personality. The exhibition has informed me of another way to use found materials and objects to create other forms.
Look what happened when the sun shone on my work today.
The aluminium is so reflective. I could play around with the idea of shinning lights on the work for an exhibition.
Oil paint on burlap, aluminium, plywood, driftwood, paper and canvas on a white wall.
The requirement was to present one completed work shown in the way it is intended to be seen.
What is it saying to the viewer? To understand what I am trying to communicate. How can we engage with it’s meaning? What is the physical nature of the work? Does this embody meaning?
The format of the critique was within 30 minutes the group of 5 students and a tutor would spend the first 5 minutes looking at the work considering the interior of the work and in what context does it fit into. The artist who made the work says nothing until the last 5 minutes of the session. This is to allow the work to speak for itself as if in a gallery situation, when the artist is not present to explain the work.
What I would like to achieve? A sense of place. The physical experience of my surroundings. My subject is of my own experiences. A memory of the elements of the sea and wind which are forever present.
I had a positive and informative feedback. Abstracted panels carefully placed together in a rectangle to create one landscape. An abstract way of depicting the landscape. Creating a feeling of fluidity, mediative, space and a calming. Water. The work is hung too low.
Putting the work in context, Sigmar Polke and his use of materials and ‘Ring of Saturn’ by WG Sebald generating different thoughts through walking.
It was a surreal experience sitting in a room observing people scrutinising your work but very rewarding.
In an article in The Times Newspaper today Anthony Gormley is quoted as saying “I don’t think art is to be understood…it’s to be experienced”.
Clare Thatcher 