A group of us this year decided to reach out to galleries and try to host our own group show, initially this was done by just getting in touch with galleries via e-mail, going in to talk to them, reaching out at openings or when shows are on. Many of these methods were unsuccessful since a lot of galleries already had busy show calendars. We eventually found a gallery in the centre of Hinckley that was available in February of 2022.
After finding the gallery we assigned various roles to advertising, marketing, curation and funding etc. Unfortunately over the course of the year many of the members on those teams dropped out and we were left in a situation where we had to find solutions to the outstanding issues, this involved repeating some of the duties that had already been completed. I was part of the funding team and when we lost other team members it became clear we would have to self fund in order to allow everyone the freedom and time they need to complete their studies.
We decided to self fund and chose a general theme to allow each artist more freedom instead of having to make a specific piece of work for the show and its context. There was then a period of a month or two while people completed their pieces before we needed to collect each work. In the meantime we went around and tried to see everyone’s work and get statements about the work. This was to aid in curation of the space and to ensure the artworks looked as cohesive as possible despite their variance.
The final steps were gathering work and organising transport to the gallery this was done by car and train and mainly by our leaders Jasmine and Catia. In the end the exhibition was installed and up for 3 weeks before it was dismantled, which I helped with in a minor way.
The main lessons I have learned from this experience are around managing expectations and building in buffers for mistakes or unexpected issues. Also I would not organise an exhibition for as many people (Around 26+) since it becomes a difficult logistical task. I think a group of 6-10 would have been enough to divide responsibilities whilst also maintaining a small enough group to be able to manage and communicate with.
The positives were that we received some good feedback and some of us even sold work, the gallery were also very complimentary and said if there were ever any future exhibitions we had in mind to get in touch. We were also able to finish and realise a diverse show where everyone’s work shined individually and we all achieved a lot as a group and a collective.
Honey Williams came to give an artist talk in February and fortunately I was able to attend in person, which was a really great opportunity to interact with a practicing local artist. Based in Nottingham, Honey is a mixed media artist working with collage and painting to create murals around experience and identity but her practice also extends to include music, singing and poetry.
She began by explaining her personal experiences growing up that shaped what her work is about now. Honey experienced discrimination and rejection on a regular basis because of her race and weight, she also explained how not all of this was hateful and instead came from ignorance. Describing how even well meaning people can participate in discrimination if historic bias and judgements are not challenged.
Honey spoke at length about how these experiences affected her art and how she clashed with lecturers at college and university over her practice, which focused on a lack of representation and issues around hair and skin tone within the black community. Growing up with a well educated father meant Honey was well informed about general history and the unacknowledged roles the black community played in history.
She summarised how these early experiences led her to feel like an outsider and like she did not belong. This was reinforced when she attended her first post-graduate interview for a job in Graphic Design; when stating she was here for an interview the receptionist assumed she was here for the cleaning role, not the graduate role. This was repeated when she arrived at the interview where the person holding interviews asked with surprise ‘Are you in the right place?’.
This experience lead Honey to pursue other avenues after university participating in the Gang of Angels choir and an international poetry collective, this led her to start teaching workshops using art as a way to start a conversation between people around issues of race.
After the murder of George Floyd demand for Honey’s work increased which she described as a horrible and confusing feeling. This did however give her the opportunity to raise the profile of the issues she represents and to push back against the circumstances that lead to tragedies like George Floyd.
She spoke in depth about the residencies and commissions she was offered and how these were all local opportunities that gave her the creative lifestyle she wanted. She ended by describing her approach to making work and how it begins automatically and is refined later. Honey spoke about how music and mood influence the type of work she makes, usually starting with abstract influences and marks that then become something else as they are worked on.
Honey advocated that all of us should carefully consider the emotional impact of being an artist, of having to face and tackle difficult and horrific issues yet still find beauty. She advised us all to think about ourselves after the work as well, since there is no point completing a piece or a project only to need weeks of rest or therapy afterwards.
Though this was not the most technically informative talk it was one of the most personable and relatable talks. It was nice to have a developing artist explain their process and journey in detail and to also see an artist that is more integrated in local communities than in a national or international art world. For my own practice I find this comforting and inspiring and the knowledge that unconventional ways of living off art are possible, but also that art can be a community of your own making, and is not limited to a ‘network’ or ‘artworld’.
During the second term of my final year I continued with my exploration of painting, this was with no specific input other than my personal experiences. This piece in particular shows the playful approach I tried to adopt as well as the unexpected and unintended outcomes that arise from trying to suspend control and move on impulse/instinct.
The paintings below were autonomous in their creation, one made with automatic drawing, the other with masking and bold colour, another explored objects abstracted from their surroundings and the last one was simply experimenting with leftovers from the other paintings on a textured background from waste blue-roll.
I feel the outcomes of all could be developed further especially if some stylistic or process based norms can be found, at this point they are all so different it is difficult to decipher them individually let alone together. This was echoed by my Supervisory tutors stating that they seemed lost or confused and they approached and raised questions around a wide variety, potentially too wide.
This feedback was incredibly helpful since at times I can become too spread out, exploring multiple ideas or areas simultaneously. While I enjoy this it is counter productive to resolving ideas and can sometimes leave me in a disconnected state of constant questioning. This state makes it harder to develop and realise ideas fully into practical works, while it may be advantageous form lateral thinking.
I started researching by looking online for articles and pages that explained the fundamentals of sound itself, I found several good summaries as well as one very complex article dissecting how specific instruments are calibrated to produce the intended sound. I learned that sound is all vibration, which I did know about, what I did not know about were elements of sound like frequency, tone, pitch, timbre, harmonics etc. all of which affect the way an object makes sound (these factors are normally controlled via shape and material e.g. wood gives one quality, metal another).
I also did a lot of research into ways of making your own instruments, which were mainly targeted at children, but the results are still very effective for home built instruments. This included things like a shoe box guitar and paper harmonica , as well as other complex instruments rendered from domestic/craft materials.
I experimented with some of these concepts with some success but I also wanted to try and retain the objects original qualities without too much editing or change. This was to elevate the objects not through colour or pattern or by re-dressing or re-assembling them, instead I wanted to elevate them by giving them a different purpose.
My desire was to create an interactive installation that transformed everyday discarded objects into instruments intended to be played by the audience. This is for many reasons but mainly for the work to act as a community space, instead of a piece that is solely my own that I share with others. I also had some feedback that playing the objects in a physical and percussive way was liberating, in a sense interacting with the installation somehow let them express or offload something.
I watched this video on the fundamentals of sound design, which is synthetically making sounds and used in man genres of modern music. On reflection the video focused more on how to understand and create sound digitally using certain software, although it was incredibly helpful for understanding sound as waves and visualising the way sound functions within a space.
This video was on the basics of music theory and focused on understanding notes, chords and the pattern behind what forms melodies and moods within music. This video was more about electronic and formal sound/music, played with specific repeatable notes, which differs from my more exploratory approach to instruments and sound in my practice.
However these resources helped me to understand sound and its significance on a deeper level, I had always known of its immense complexity but never really studied or appreciated it. On reflection I can see that expecting to be able to solidify an understanding of sound in time for degree show is not realistic, but the prospect of a longer term learning curve and further explorations excite me, and I am interested to gather feedback on my Degree Show.
After reading the information linked below I have decides on 4 General Areas I will try and experiment with to create my acoustic sounds with my found objects.
Strings
Air (flutes, horns and reeds etc.)
Thinly stretched stuff (drum heads or fabric over cans)
This is a record of my work from the first term of my final year and is titled, Distorted Space.
This installation was based on themes of colour, light, phenomenology and spatial experience. It started as abstract paintings based on different experiences of environments, some cold and confused others vibrant, clear and joyful. This then developed into coloured sculptures that lean to disrupt the space and objects that hang oddly or imply fluidity; the paintings that protrude from the wall tilt the perception of the space also.
First Half: In the first few weeks of term 1 I focused on making and continuing my explorations from last year, working more automatically and spontaneously. I decided to return to painting because it had been some time and I wanted to revisit an older skill, bringing in new ideas and approaches for me to push myself and experiment with.
I struggled initially with a specific focus as I was painting mainly for pleasure not purpose, focusing more on the action of painting and the satisfaction of colour combinations or mark-making. I was given several large used canvases, one with a hole in, I liked this fact even though it was inconvenient for painting it did inspire me to think about distorted surfaces and later distorted space.
I had been basing certain elements of the painting on experiences I had outside or in the woods, like sunrises and sunsets, the high contrast of winter days and murky tones of twilight. This was mixed with automatic shapes and gestures that capture familiar elements of painting, my desire was to capture not just the colours of the experiences but the feelings they brought on, through colour and placement.
High Contrast Foliage
Wet Walk & Bench
Tate Exhibition
Insect Tracks
Overarching Branch
Sunburned Treetops
Spray-paint Abstract
Hidden Wiggle
Dying Light
Spray-paint Abstract
Shadowed Pattern
Seared Sierra
Watery Clouds
I also wanted to abstract the experiences but leave clues, with this in mind I whitewashed my vibrant painting to obscure and confuse the layers beneath with the layer on top. These top layers were made of subtle muted colours to compliment those underneath and were mixed with waste products from the experiences. Blue tissue paper from the studio where I watched the sunset, tinfoil and sandwich wrappers from a cold lunch on a park bench, canvas offcuts, litter, sweet wrappers and various discarded materials.
The end result was a work that hinted at some sense of place or reality, shown by the recognisable waste and familiarity of painting as a process. In the same way it is so muted and confused in a gentle way that it feels separate from reality in ways, since it is hard to make any sense of what it is really about. This confusion not only speaks to the vivid nature of the initial experience but to the murky waters of memory and to my general sense of confusion and bewilderment that has surrounded my degree practice so far.
Full Canvas
Colour Detail
Pre Whitewash
Second Half: The later half of the term I was more focused on extending this notion of an experience distorted onto a surface, into a distorted experience of space or multiple spaces. I developed this by replicating my painting process making two more large 6ft canvas’ one communicating a clear process but with pure abstraction and one that floated in-between, metaphorically and literally (In the final display this painting hung horizontally in the middle of the others).
As I had developed this notion over the term I had been experimenting on the side with found objects, combining them in simple ways to change them from their original state, I also used photography to abstract elements of shape/colour/texture, so their use or function as a recognisable object was unclear. These experiments became more relevant when I moved into communicating a distorted experience of space.
I combined the different approaches and realised that the objects, like the paintings, needed to be more abstract but also very familiar. For this I chose cardboard delivery boxes, of various sizes and shapes, since they are a commonplace item in modern culture especially since the pandemic. I then cut all of them at the same angle to lean in different directions, this was inspired by my research of Anne Hardy, and I intended to give the illusion of the ‘stable solid ground’ being ‘unstable plastic fluid’.
When arranging the final display I tried carefully to consider the way our experience of life is through stereophonic vison and 3-dimensional experience of space; contrary to the 2-dimensionality of painting generally speaking. I tried to use the canvases as objects and walls to divide the space and use the objects as coloured marks in a 3D painting, this was in addition to arranging viewfinders around the installation to invite the audience to interact and create their own compositions and unique experiences of the space.
Blue and Orange
Objects in Progress
Orange and Blue
Arranging Installation
Arranging Installation
Experimenting With Viewfinders
Viewfinder In Use
All in all I felt the installation was successful, although I clashed with several course-mates over spacing concerns. This was because my work centred around space and I needed decent amount of space, unfortunately in a very overcrowded and busy section of the studios. In hindsight I think the curation of the end of term review could be improved, as well as the way in which I argued that I needed the space.
For degree show I will need a fairly large space since my work concerns and investigates space as a core element and as a part of the audiences experience. Expanding this experience using visual, spatial and potentially sound based elements is what I am aiming to achieve with my work now.
Below is a link to a short video of me filming the installation on my phone.
In November my lecturer approached me and some others regarding a SEED Grant that DMU had access to, roughly £5000 total to give away to small projects based around the UN’s sustainability goals.
We discussed which of the 17 goals we would try to address, since the grant is small and our time as 3rd years is limited. However we still wanted to have a significant impact so we chose Goal 12: Sustainable Consumption and Production as our focus.
As a group we then discussed several ideas and notions eventually deciding that the fashion industry was a good target (since people predominantly wear clothes) consumption of fast fashion has increased over the years and new branding and marketing strategies virulently advertise to younger people who are more likely to partake in this fast paced consumer culture.
My lecturer at that point told us that even though charity shops say they recycle unusable clothes that in actual fact they end up being shipped to other countries to become part of their second hand fashion economy, even though they will be sold at high price, also contributing to the decline of smaller native/indigenous clothes making groups/companies.
At this point we settled on this as the focus of our application and brainstormed what sort of action we could take, as fine artist we decided making a creative outcome would be most interesting. I added that if we approached it from a craft based perspective we could make useful objects or mementos that the public could take with them as a way of raising awareness.
The group was interested in this idea and I also pointed out that if we made some sort of instruction or legacy package (that would explain to others how to make creative outcomes from unusable fabric) then our project would have a continued sustainable impact. It would also encourage others to build on our small SEED grant and be even more ambitious to raise awareness of have a positive impact.
We drafted a project proposal including evidence of the issue and of the need to raise awareness around the hidden costs of the fashion we consume, I also at this point suggested the name of our project could be Cheap Trends – Hidden Costs. We also spoke to Hugo in the Leicester gallery regarding using the space to make and display the outcomes over a weekend, this was to coincide with the weekend of DMU’s Teaching Festival.
We also had a meeting with Anna one of the student members of the committee just to clarify that our proposal was along the right lines and to see if our proposal would meet the criteria for the grant. She was enthusiastic about the project and encouraged us to submit an application, also stating that this information on the fashion industry was new information to her as well.
I decided to put some work into an Open Call in Leicester known as LOVE Art, it is run primarily by Phil Hackett with a team of curators and artists who examine curate and display the work, as well as democratically decide which piece is assigned one of the 12 awards given at the end of the exhibition.
I chose to put 3 pieces forward and payed the subsequent entry fee, this was stressful since I have never submitted work before and I had to use some older paintings as newer ones were still in development. I did not feel that confident but I was glad that I submitted something and made the effort to try.
A week or so later I heard very last minute from a friend that I had been selected (emails had been going to spam folder of course) and I needed to bring the work wrapped so that it could be stored by the end of the next day. Again this was stressful and unforeseen but fortunately I was able to wrap and get the work to LCB Depot in time.
Eventually the show opened up and I went to see it with some other students some who had submitted some who had not, we went around all of the venues LCB Depot, Orton’s Brasserie, The Curve etc. Manhattan 34 was sadly closed for a private event. We saw everyone’s work including my own that had ended up in 3 different places, the arrangement in most cases was brilliant however the lighting in The Curve was less than ideal.
I ended up having a conversation with a man about my work at Orton’s Brasserie, my piece was on display with another and was right next to his table where he was dining. He asked me a few questions about the context and motivation and what I was doing, he then wished me luck after his friend invited me for dinner, I assume as a joke! They were all very complementary and grateful to have spoken with me and the feeling was mutual.
I saw the exhibition a number of times again with other friends who had work as well as with my parents. Eventually it came to closing night which coincided with the Last Friday event in the Cultural Quarter (where galleries are open later to the public than usual), LCB has its own version with street food and music. I attended with a number of my friends and classmates and it was a really good turnout, we spoke to each other about winning and a few of us decided we didn’t want to so we didn’t have to face the spotlight.
In the end I did win an award, for which I am grateful even though in the moment I was overwhelmed, for my piece Toxicity. It was my favourite of the three I put in so I am glad it won but in the presence of so much other great work it felt like the award belonged to others more than me and I felt bad that they were not acknowledged. In truth a few other students at DMU also won awards.
On reflection I can appreciate the honour of being acknowledged for the effort I put in even though it was older work I still did the work, which at the time was difficult and a great achievement. I am also grateful for everyone’s kind words to me even when I felt undeserving, I appreciate the support and want to carry this sense of community appreciation and support forward with me.
I plan to apply for more open calls as well as maintain contact with LCB in order to be involved in future events. I am also looking forward to some other projects and exhibitions I have that are on-going.
Above are my 3 pieces, Toxicity which was shown at LCB Depot, Wanderer which was shown at Orton’s Brasserie and Perspective which was on display at The Curve.
Below are pictures of some of the artwork of my classmates and artists from around Leicester and beyond.
This is a screenshot of the prize winners page and a link below.
The members show at Two Queens was a very valuable experience, seeing different layouts for such a variety of work within a space was really interesting. It was also good to be able to experience a more intermingled curation and way of displaying work, this is not like the clearly divided by artist nature I am used to from college and university; it is similar to things like the LOVE Art open call I was part of as well as an upcoming group exhibition in February.
It was also a valuable experience in terms of meeting others who are artists, involved in or interested in the arts. I made a couple of new acquaintances and was able to interact with people since the environment was very welcoming and open, not like the large galleries I have been inside before. I did also trade information and social media details with a few local artists and people I met at the show.
I I was also able to speak to many lecturers and technicians from DMU outside the course, this was invaluable as I felt much more able to make a human connection and relate to them as peers rather than staff etc. In this way I feel the experience was very valuable as a networking opportunity and as a way for me to re-evaluate how I see art outside education, it was also good to talk to other people in and around the arts scene about opportunities or advice. This has inspired me to seek some sort of voluntary or residency opportunity, in order to run a community project maybe and interface with the public more through my work.
The construction of the show was also a good demonstration of curation and the use of space, the square room was transformed by constructing a wall to divide the space into 3 or 4 distinct areas. This allows the viewer to travel around the space moving from one interesting piece to another in their own way if desired, instead of being read as a circular or linear display it is an amalgam.
I also found it interesting to see how people negotiated this space themselves, often investigating alone and then returning to find friends and show them the point of interest they had found. Observing this in a members show with the public was a useful experience and this aspect of investigation of the space could easily become part of my work, which itself is about distorted space and visitor experience.
Frank Stella was suggested to me as a resource when I started to explore painting in the expanded field and incorporating objects and materials within painting. Stella is an American painter mainly working in painting, sculpture and printmaking, working with ideas around minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.
I started by simply looking visually and I was struck by the freedom and lack of refinement, I don’t mean this as an insult, I prefer some amount of exposed construction as it allows the mind to focus on the core elements and materiality. I also clearly saw the similarities others noticed between my work and his, particularly the later objects like the one below.
Stella has a clear interest in materiality and from watching interviews he is more material than contextual in some ways. He states that his industrial interest and use of manufacturer’s paint was a cost consideration, and that working in series was a similar choice, approaching things many times to get as much as you can out of an idea or a mood.
Roncador 1998
Stella also talks about how for him the reality of the work comes from the effort of the expression, which is the way he approaches his work, constantly changing the ways of expressing to push ideas forward. This allows him to create wild paintings and sculptures that are sort of both and neither at once, like many of the references I have looked at this year freedom of expression is the thing that attracts me to his work and his practice.
I also relate strongly to Stella’s notion of changing his practice and approach regularly, this is something I have wrestled with across my whole degree; in three years during a pandemic I have gone from small-scale drawing and painting, to large-scale sculpture and installation, and now to sound/video/performance and interactive installation. The sporadic nature of my practice has been commented on as ‘lost’ which is an accurate statement; I have barely started my career and artistic journey, it is not surprising I seem lost or overwhelmed. This lack of knowledge can be an advantage, as it allows me to explore the world without many preconceived notions, aiding me to think in different ways.
One way of expressing this is that if I knew everything about process, colour, art history etc. now then I might write off certain approaches or ideas because of this knowledge. Whereas in my novice state I can freely explore anything, as long as I can overcome the fear of leaving familiar territory, this is something I will approach through play like Stella and others.
Looking more deeply into Stella’s artwork and process revealed not just the material and physical aspects I can learn from to develop my artwork, but also the behavioral and conceptual aspects of Stella himself. In short I have been inspired by his work (in terms of form and blurring lines between media) and him as a practitioner (a driven artist with varied interests and changing motivations) separate from his work. This is similar to other artists I have researched in the past like Phyllida Barlow, David Medalla, Anne Hardy and Richard Wentworth.
Reflecting on this research I am considering ways of making canvas’ more like objects, hardening them with varnish or mod-roc perhaps. I also want to try and explore bringing paintings off the wall perhaps connecting them across the space or even ‘spreading’ them (by separating them) around the space. This research has also inspired me to experiment with series when it comes to ideas, which I normally do not do. Stella states in interview that he uses series as a way to almost stop an idea and explore it laterally, then collapse all of this learning into the next idea.
In this way he developed an evolving practice that is unified by his approach to making the work conceptually, which expresses itself in a wide range of forms and media, he describes this as taking conceptual control over the freedom found within experimentation and expression. This is something he says he learned from observing the fate of some abstract expressionists, who became lost in their mark making experiments and did not bring formality back to maintain the balance required in painting.
