Abandoned shop exhibition.

Im currently starting a collaborative project with fellow student Krystle Shard. This is the first time Ive collaborated on a project and it came together after wanting to put on a show together where we devise and make new work independantly but converse regularly and work towards a final result which is considered towards the overall exhibition. What has actually happened, through these discussions, is that were going to install three major works which will co-exist to form a complete environment and therefore one completed installation.
There are a huge amount of dis-used highstreet shops in bournemouth. What we are suggesting is that we have re-opened one of these shops after a certain period of time to discover that the inorganic features in the room have grown in an organic manner during the time they have been left. Ill be using an array of non-functional strip light bulbs that will be suspended in a solid fashion and non functional plug facets that will protrude from the ground beneath the lights. These two features will resemble a stalactite and stalagmite growth like formation.

drawing for proposed installation, 2008

Covering the rest of the floor space Krystle will lay a carpet down and re-sew to a greater height suggesting grass like growth. This will be tallest around the edges of the room and completely surround the plug facet formations. There will be an area slightly worn down at the entrance of the room, and a shorter, clearer pathway through the exhibition. We would like to create an atmospheric darkness to the exhibition using minimal halogen lights to highlight the main areas of interest. Around the bulb structures and the plug facets formations there will also be museum style barriers cordoning off the work. On entering the space we would like to build a small isolated area in which the audience would remove their shoes in preparation for the installation.
I invision a nice moment on entering the work in this isolated area where your wondering what your about to enter, you bend down to take off your shoes and notice small tufts of carpet that are longer thatn the rest and possibly larger tufts growing under the isolation booth's walls. I like how this area would force you to slow down a little bit and prepare yourself a little to veiw some artwork instead of just stepping straight in from the highstreet.

Although there will be the chance to come and veiw this installation, I see it as more of an event rather than an exhibition. What we would like to do is take samples of the different areas within the work, box them up and have them delivered to a gallery space. Here the boxes will be opened up within the space and be able to be veiwed and discussed in the knowledge of where they have come from. I see this whole process as a comment on how we make our work as artists, using whatever materials we have access to and then how the way the work is veiwed changes when its taken away from this environment and into the gallery.

A Foundation

Earlier this year I took a trip up to liverpool to visit the A foundation and take a look at their current exhibitions. They have two major spaces at the Greenland street site along with an average sized gallery space. The first housed an impressive installation by architect group Simparch. Simply the amount of wood and scale of structure was enough to take me back, a really humbling feeling. I also like how the work invited the people of liverpool into the gallery, activating the work and also activating the space by suducing them into new movements within it.

drum n basin, Simparch, 2007

Brian Griffiths had used the second space it seemed as a huge studio space, the chance to make some big work. It was nice to veiw someone's work like this, walk around each peice individually and gather a sense of his practise after not knowing much about them prior to my visit. Again the scale of the work was epic, just standing next to this owl's head was terrifying, it felt like it was just about to roll over on top of you like a scene from Indiana Jones.

The Only Living (or your lonely saucer eyes), Brian Griffiths, 2007

The reason Ive posted about the A foundation today is that ive been in contact with them recently and will hopefully be going up there in september to help install their new exhibitions. Im really excited about this as I'll get to meet alot of people who are involved with the foundation and get a real insight into the way a gallery like this functions. This is bound to help me come next year when i'll be applying to galleries and groups involved in exciting projects and generally geared to aiding the production of contemporary work.

I'm drawing.

Hand drawn printer tests, 2008

I only really use drawing as a way of thinking on paper and all my drawings are are just technical plans of structures I'm planning on building. I find my work evolves alot faster on paper and I can make mistakes and tweaks far easier than I can when Ive started building. Now Im back at home and away from the studio but still wanting to make work I find drawing a much more accessible option for creating something of a finished work.

Ive always been interested in why we make artwork / the processes of making work and why its so necessary when it has no real funtion in our basic human survival. I had been gathering different printer test pages for a little while now, not really knowing what I was going to do with them. I like that their a drawing without a subject and that its whats been devised a a test to see if basic functions of the printer are working. By taking these and reproducing them as hand drawn articles I'm simply projecting onto them the basic elements of the human touch and the importance of this.

I think they would work well as a series of wall based works but am not 100% on whether they should be multiples of the same print-out, highlighting how every image is slightly unique? or possibly something i could produce over a period of time, one everyday, almost acting as a test for myself to show that I am still alive?