Here is a selection of featured artists from Mould Map 6 — Terraformers.
2 September 2016
Terraformers opens in two weeks’ time. Starting from today – we’ll be showcasing a selection of the 40+ artists and designers involved. First up is Mould Map regular, Viktor Hachmang:
“The woodblock prints of Edo-era Japan depict a floating world, closed off to foreign influence. By contrast, while often informed by the formal elements of these masterpieces, the graphic world of Viktor Hachmang is anything but closed, drawing lessons from and gleefully combining visual vocabularies spanning the boundaries of time and space.
His skill as an illustrator lies in an ability to synthesize these references with succinct visual communication. His energy as an artist flows from the sense of universal human experience and culture his imagery invokes – at once contemporary but timeless – how does he do that?” – Hugh Frost, April 2015
Here is Hachmang’s contribution to Mould Map 5 — Black Box:
Visit Viktor Hachmang’s Website
5 September 2016
With a background in traditional graffiti writing as member of the PAL crew (going under the name Mosa), Alexandre Bavard has expanded his practice to include video and performances pieces and large-scale airbrush paintings similar to distant galaxies – and frequently reappearing as Mosa in a silk hood with sunglasses on top.
See more of Alexandre’s work here.
Follow Mosa on Instagram, here.
6 September 2016
Today’s featured Terraformers artist is Paris-based Antwan Horfee. Horfee, like Alexandre Bavard, is a graffiti writer and artist based in Paris. Pushing away from letters and tags, Horfee’s studio practice carries the same signature style, but pulls in observations and cultural reflections – giving the viewer a glimpse into the world as he sees it. See more of Horfee’s work here.
Daniel Swan is a visual artist who creates often creates worlds in the form of animations – producing music videos for Jam City, RL Grime, Django Django, and more – as well as exhibiting work in a gallery setting.
Swan’s animations are built up around slick, futuristic worlds, which gradually shift and change throughout the song to create very distinct moods:
Although a little different from the majority of his work, this found footage montage / mashup is well worth the watch – combining clips from well known movies to create a completely new universe and story:
See more of Daniel’s work on their website.
8 September 2016
C.F. is a cartoonist (and musician) best known for his comic series Powr Mastrs, which weaves together complex characters and bizarre story lines in a deceptively simple looking drawing style – all set in the fantasy world of “New China”.
9 September 2016
Ed Fornieles (b.1983, UK) makes work that charts the osmosis between online and offline realities. His role-play driven scenarios explore the psychology of behaviour and limits of subjectivity. Fornieles uses a Fox persona that smudges the line between fantasy and reality – a cartoon character who channels the artist’s point of view as well as operating as the face of his practice via Fornieles’s Instagram account.
12 September 2016
G. W. Duncanson is a native of New York. Along with a dozen self-manufactured limited edition art books, his work has been published by Kniv Komix out of Copenhagen, Tiny Masters out of Leipzig, Kuš! in Latvia, and by Landfill Editions in the United Kingdom. His work has been published and exhibited extensively in the United States most notably by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in their Best American Comics of 2014 where it stands as an exemplar of avant-garde picture story.
Along with being a creator, Duncanson organizes and acts as public relations officer for Brooklyn’s Ditko! Exclamation ‘zine library housed at the not-for-profit arts space The Silent Barn and co-curates the PaperJam Festival, its associated bi-annual small press event.
See more at their website.
Mould Map 6 opens this Saturday (between 10 am – 3 pm), and we can’t wait! Stay tuned for more updates throughout this week.
14 September 2016
Hannah Bays is a painter (b. London, 1982) who studied at the Royal Academy Schools. Interested in human drives and the construction of meaning in our lives, recent work has focused on desire – both as motivational force and something also open to manipulation. Bays’s work has a Pop lineage yet is insistent also on spontaneous painterly gesture, or ‘affirmation’. Colour is used seductively yet often to the brink of nausea. There is a push and pull between the abstract and figurative, the symbolic and the purely formal, with a personal iconography including elements such as plasters and puncture repair kits.
Bays has work in the Jerwood, Hiscox and Soho House collections, was awarded a Jerwood Purchase Prize in 2014 and the Agnes Ethel Mackay travel award in 2015.
See more on their website.
Jacob Ciocci is a US-based artist, most well known as a member of art collective Paper Rad (2001-2008). His work is concerned with the relationships between popular culture, technology and notions of transcendence. In his paintings, comics, performances, net art and videos, contemporary and recently forgotten cultural symbols confront one another inside a frenzied cartoon universe that is simultaneously celebratory and critical.
See more on their website.
In the run up to the opening of Mastered, we’ll drawing your attention to just a few of the artists and designers who will be exhibiting their work in the show – bringing together the best work from across Nottingham Trent University’s School of Art & Design postgraduate courses.
Project Distorted Lines: An Investigation into Anxiety
“Anxiety is a lasting feeling of unavoidable doom. Anxiety is a state of tension and expectation of disaster.” [1]
The MA project ‘Distorted Lines: An Investigation into Anxiety’ looks at the subject of anxiety and the ways in which it can be translated through the medium of knitwear. The project takes the contrasting ideas of restriction and comfort, contorting and altering the surface of knitwear to reflect the ways in which anxiety binds and restrains, creating physical and mental suffering. Against this, comfort is juxtaposed as a means of lessening these negative effects, brought through in the softness of the lambswool and the oversized, engulfing garment silhouettes.
The work incorporates handcrafted, dubied machine knitted techniques and crochet to create pieces that are at once unique and high quality. A huge importance is placed on sustainable design practices, from the careful sourcing of premium, organic yarns to the fully fashioning of all pieces to eliminate unnecessary waste.
[1] (Ed) Wolman, Benjamin B/(C0-ED) Striker, George, Anxiety and Related Disorders, A Handbook, New York, John Wiley & Sons, INC, 1993.
Images: © Fiona Nugent
Tong’s series of self-portraits explore the differences between oriental and western women in social status – the old society and the new society. The photos can be divided into 3 groups: playing the part of celebrities, self-expression and regional culture.
As an international student, Tong hopes to make oriental feminist culture known to more people through her works based on her experience and study overseas.
The composition is important too: the photos are all taken from the same angle, and there is a large space left above the top of the heads of the characters. This not only endows the photos with a sense of space, but more importantly, Tong hopes to express that there is a large space for women to improve their social status and pursue freedom in the future.
Images: © Tong Zhang
Ellen is an artist who is intrigued with the colour grey. She is inspired by traditional black Chinese ink, which when diluted and applied to rice paper, produces a variety of shades of grey – soaking into the paper layer by layer.
Ember- Floating space’ is a performance piece, in which Ellen attempts to make invisible space visible, through wax formations in water.
Something unpredictable and uncontrollable emerges in the process of conflict; and beautiful, mountain-like spaces are created as the liquid wax cools and solidifies in the water.
All images: © Yi-Ying Chen
Testimonial on the journey after graduating from BA Fine Art Student, Reece Straw, exploring the opportunities they encountered during their time at NTU:
That’s it, it’s over, my time here studying at Nottingham Trent University is done. The Fine Art Degree Show has come and gone and I am now an artist…maybe. That’s how it works isn’t it? I validated myself as an artist when I had my first public exhibition at The International Postcard Show 2014 at Surface Gallery in Nottingham, and this artist thing has snowballed ever since, now being a selected artist in the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2016. So I want to take this time to share and reflect on some highlights of my time here… as without it, it wouldn’t have all been possible.
Getting involved with the Nottingham art scene very early in my first year with my internship at 1 Thoresby Street (www.onethoresbystreet.org) through the university’s strong relationship with the gallery/studios as many of its alumni are based there. The internship provided me with an intense insight into how an independent space is run: meeting visiting and Nottingham based artists, realising a show and the behind the scenes of what makes a gallery tick. This experience and the opportunities it continues to provide me with are priceless and looking back I am glad I hit the ground running.
Working with Billy Craigan-toon (www.billycraigan-toon.com) (NTU Graduate 2013) towards the end of my first year and performing in his Degree Show work: ‘Painters’ lead to performing for Universal Works’ (www.universalworks.co.uk) London Mens Collection Autumn/Winter 2015 presentation: PASS in 2015. Three months of rehearsals and fittings later, twelve men took the journey to London to perform the piece and demonstrate the quality menswear of Universal Works through the passing of coats from one model to the other in perfect synchronisation. I remember being faced with at least one hundred camera flashes as I began and ended the performance with the passing and eventual dropping of the one orange coat that travelled around the circle of models. Without the widespread connections that Fine Art course has with the city of Nottingham in the varying creative disciplines and the nurturing of community within the Fine Art course, this would not have happened and I may not have been recently chosen to produce video work for 18Montrose’s (www.18montrose.com) store opening party.
Collaborating with Aaron Clixby, Alexander J Croft and Joe Morgan for our show at Surface Gallery (www.surfacegallery.org), Nottingham for our show ‘Scraping the Bottom of the Bargain Bucket’ was another experience that I won’t forget. Creating a fried chicken shop within the gallery space incorporated every medium from sculpture to video that was topped off with ourselves performing as staff and providing fried chicken to viewers on the opening night. The ambition of the show and the collection of ideas were very successful, and led to myself and Aaron Clixby returning the year after with ‘MAGICK LTD.’ That held the same level of ambition in the form of a week-long residency within the context of the exhibition. Surface Gallery’s ties to the Fine Art course enable this amazing opportunity with their NTU Fine Art Festival each year that has always been integral to the artists involved, as you can see it impacts their practice significantly towards the Degree Show.
Being a part of the Bonington Gallery for almost two years now and seeing its many changes in the shows and the appearance of the space has also been important to my development in my emerging art career. Having the opportunity to spend an extended time with the art and design work in the exhibitions has always been engaging and made me proud to be a part of it. The ability to encounter such a varying and rich program on the doorstep of the studios is to be envied.
So, as I think about graduating from NTU with the various exhibitions already in the pipeline and the hundreds of connections I have made through studying here I feel I have fertile ground to operate as an artist. The encouragement and network I have gained through three years of hard work have not been for nothing, this is just the beginning and I will be: ‘only makin’ the highlights’- Kanye West, 2016.
Reece Straw, 2015
Here is a selection of Posts relating to the exhibition Publishing Rooms:
Foxall Studio have extended Publishing Rooms out into the city of Nottingham – presenting a selection of scanned portraits from the show in Tunnel Vision, a new digital exhibition space in the Broadmarsh bus station:
Publishing – whether that be images or text – is now an inherent part of social media. Tweeting 140 characters or posting pictures of your cat is fundamentally a decisive act of self-publication. Once published, you relinquish control over what it is the post truly does. Even now in the workshop run by the Foxall brothers, conversation steers towards ideas of branding and promotion. All public activity on social media is an act of branding – branding yourself in the way in which you want to be perceived and building a digital collage of who you are (see Reece Straw’s earlier blogpost, ‘Adidas or Nothing’, for more on this). What is it you are trying to say or be? How decisive can you be in these acts?
The transmutation between digital and physical is of particular interest to me. As an artist, writer, and curator, I cannot escape the intrinsic necessity of using both formats. While the lean towards digital (tweets, posts, e-books…) is getting a more apparent lean in ideas of successful circulation, like many people, I cannot help but relish in handling a physical object. What Publishing Rooms highlights is the possibility for a more succinct dialogue between the two.
Having paid witness to the evolution of social media in my teenage years, of course I know how impactful the digital is – so why wouldn’t I use every opportunity for self-promotion? With the exhibition being such a delightful and useful self-publication tool how could I not try to promote my other work of self-publishing?
Beginning as an exercise in curation and extending from my own interests in creative writing, oneiroi is now almost ready to launch.
Starting with the first issue – entitled ‘withholding’ – oneiroi aims to showcase creative writing that shows unique and original flair. Curated, designed, edited, printed, and hand-bound by myself, ‘withholding’ contains writings by 12 young artists and writers from around the country. The original intent of the zine was to create a casual yet polished surface for people to put their writing out to the world. As a young creative it is often hard to know where to place work in the wider landscape, and often not have the confidence to put it anywhere at all. Being on a visual arts course creative writing is not often looked at with great scrutiny, but it was clear to me that artists are writing regardless. After all, writing is inherently a visual thing, whether it be a meticulously organised piece of concrete poetry, or a simple paragraph on Word. As an extension of aural language, humans have constructed the written word to help convey messages, and now most of us are taught (potentially brainwashed) to understand characters and symbols. Even while reading this you cannot avoid decoding the sequence of letters to understand their symbolic meaning.
For my own practice, creative writing and poetry is a great enabler in making messages that I find difficult to convey in other visual forms. Writing has the potential to create an infinite combination of images, emotions, ideas, tones etc. A picture can say 1000 words, but a word can create a million images, purely because a word is an absolute construction of human knowledge. Every individual has their own experiences and inevitably, this has a knock-on affect on their perception of particular words and phrases. It is for this reason, I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the submissions for oneiroi‘s first issue. Each piece chosen has that certain quality of withholding information, making it hard to avoid not wanting more. Personally, I tire easily when presented with a narrative that gives information too willingly – I enjoy the game of a teasing chase.
Alongside this, I was also particularly interested in the eclectic range of styles and formats in the submissions. Each writing has a clear personality to it and a definitive message to voice. The launch of the zine will be coming soon, with a launch party to be hosted in Nottingham, with some of the featured writers doing reading of their work. For more info, follow oneiroi on social media sites listed below.
Instagram – @oneiroi_zine
Facebook – /oneiroizine
Twitter – @oneiroi_zine
Joseph Winsborrow
As a studio, Andrew and Iain have worked with scanners a few times in the past years. Here are two examples:
Bond Street Windows
The 243 windows of four big buildings on New Bond Street were the canvas. Vacated during Crossrail work, we were commissioned to make a feature of their facades during the construction.
With just two weeks to go until Publishing Rooms opens here at the Gallery, Iain and Andrew Foxall have been busy working on tests for the scanner wall installations.
Iain also shared some thoughts on Instagram and zine culture:
“…I liked what Simon Armitage said when asked about whether he would be a poet if poetry was mainstream, and replied a quick ‘no’, because he got into poetry precisely because it was on the edges. So it’s interesting to think how a punk zine-founder would have used instagram.”
Iain Foxall
You can see more from behind the scenes of Foxall studio by following them on Instagram, and using the #PublishingRooms on Instagram and Twitter.
In the run up to Publishing Rooms, Iain and Andrew of Foxall Studios introduce us to the project, giving you a glimpse into the scanner camera tests and some of the plans for the exhibition:
Currently we are surrounded by 103 flatbed scanners with cables and computers everywhere. Living with the flatbed scanners, and testing various configurations and optical adjustments, and involving good minds and hands has uncovered a lot. The collective, innate curiosity to see what will happen once we collide the variables seems to be the main driver for our daily work.
The main events so far that bring us to today have been; finding a palette of flatbed scanners in a recycling plant, rewriting the scanner drivers so that they can be called through a web browser remotely, having 4 scanners running concurrently from one computer, etc.
Please be in touch with anything that you think would be relevant. We are promoting resourcefulness with this show. We reconfigure simple, everyday, ubiquitous elements to enable inventive expression. So please keep an eye out for anything that we can utilise. That could be a box of old magazines for a library, or a roll of fabric that you’re not using.
For the show, our intern Marion (photographed on a scanner camera test, below) will be keeping the outside world up-to-date on progress.
We’re excited to announce the next in our series of Film Nights, featuring films by Jaakko Pallasvuo, Jon Rafman, and Peter Wächtler.
Taking place on Thursday 19 May, this screening will be held in the middle of the Publishing Rooms exhibition – which will also be open to view before the films begin.
Stay tuned for more info coming soon…
Also – don’t forget that our new series of talks, Bonington Lunchtimes, starts tomorrow with Printed Matter?. Join guest speakers Matt Gill, Alex Smith, Andrew & Iain Foxall for an informal discussion examining the importance and relevance of print, chaired by Tom Godfrey. From 1 pm – 2 pm.
Here are a few images from the preview of Imprints of Culture: Block Printed Textiles of India last night. Thank you all for coming along, and if you missed it, don’t worry, this exhibition will be open until the 24th March
Here you can find a selection of blog posts about the exhibition Performing Drawology
RECAP DAY ONE
Taken from Monday 8 February: John performs ‘durational drawing’ in the space, using charcoal and a black marker.
Join us from 2 pm – 3 pm today in the Gallery, for an open discussion with John.
Last week, 80 five and six year old’s from West Bridgford Infant School contributed to a collaborative drawing, inspired by our current exhibition, Performing Drawology. Led by Holly Mills, Ana Souto and Anja Bendix (academic staff from the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment at NTU), there were three drawing sessions, consisting of 20 minutes each and approximately 25 children.
The first class used black pen to draw on four pieces of paper four metres long. Classical music was also played, which some of the pupils responded to:
The second class then used oil pastels to colour in some of the shapes drawn by the first class, and the third group used paint sticks to colour in the shapes and add more lines:
These drawings will be exhibited in the Atrium Space at the Performing Drawology closing event on Thursday 11 February 2016 from 5 pm – 8 pm, along with drawings created by Architecture and Interior Architecture students from NTU. If you’d like to attend the Performing Drawology closing event, simply RSVP via email to confirm your attendance
Recently, we invited our invigilators (who are all current students here at NTU) to contribute to the blog. Here’s the first piece – written by third year BA (Hons) Fine Art student, Reece:
This remnant artwork has existed OVER my head for nearly three years.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
My Fine Art degree spans OVER three years.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
It is nearly OVER.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
This corrugated ceiling, belonging to the fine art studios at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) has seen many things.
Realisations, celebrations, accidents, reflection, tears, conversation, break downs, friendships, relationships, hard labour, scolding, disaster, enjoyment, perseverance, triumph… All connected to the OVERarching landscape of Fine Art.
Each individual journey, of each student, each member of staff, each technician and each visitor has been charted by this roof.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
Due to the cycle of presenting work throughout each of the years on the course, artwork remains very temporary when in the studios. Any work that survives the annual degree show set up, becomes rather special, dodging the fresh paint, the wood filler and sandpaper. These hidden works are reminders of the past students’ expedition through their practices’, mirroring my own current exploration here at NTU as its end draws ever closer.
I have had three years to solely explore my concepts and discover contexts, constantly working alongside other artists working in every different media and area available. This adorned light enclosure, and the ceiling it hangs from has housed this voyage, watching OVER us, each struggle, each encounter, each accomplishment. To that I owe it something.
The inanimate, unfeeling metal, I owe it.
Asking the question of why we instinctively look up for answers, towards something higher. In this case this is interrupted by the ambiguity of the ‘OVER’ light shining down from the lofty heights of the Fishbowl (a nickname for a space that stuck, its origin also forgotten). A relic of an artist’s legacy that has long left the nest, spread their wings and took flight onto the next journey.
(‘If these walls could talk’)
(‘If these walls could talk’)
(‘If these walls could talk’)
Reece Straw
IMAGE: Reece Straw 2016
Artists will work to an open brief and create a unique and unplanned artwork in a novel drawing exhibition here at the Gallery.
Performing Drawology – which takes place between Friday 15 January and Friday 12 February – will see the creative process unfold live as eight artists undertake separate residencies to create a collaborative drawing on the gallery walls.
The exhibition – which will evolve from one practitioner to the next – is curated by humhyphenhum, a collaboration between Nottingham Trent University lecturer Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon, an honorary fellow of Loughborough University.
“It’s very experimental, and we have no way of being able to foresee what’s going to happen,” said artist Harty, a researcher in what drawings say about a person’s mind and movements, who also works on her own projects.
“Phil and I asked each artist to bring their drawing toolkit with them, but have left it completely open as to how it manifests in the gallery.
“It could be a major success or a complete disaster – that’s the risk we’re taking. We’re not sure what’s going to be left behind when it’s all finished.”
The artists include Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon (as humhyphenhum) Lorraine Young, Catherine Bertola, Maryclare Foa, Andrew Pepper, Martin Lewis and John Court. They were invited on the basis of being open minded to collaborating in an experimental way.
The drawing will be initiated and completed by humhyphenhum. There will be a closing night celebration on Thursday 11 February during which visitors can view the final artwork.
“It’s an incredibly exciting project and we hope that the entire space is engaged in some way,” added Harty.
“In many ways it could be daunting to be faced with what is essentially a considerably large blank sheet of paper. But we’re sure it’s going to be a great success.
“We’re hoping that people will enter the space once the project is completed and see it as a walk-in drawing.”
Sitting in the Gallery today I have had time to reflect on the evolution that has occurred here over the last few weeks. As I had to be knowledgeable when on shift, I made time to visit and revisit the exhibition, and have watched the changes, which at first seemed subtle, explode outwards.
For me what began as simplistic has become anything but. I was unsure how I would feel when returning to the space each time. The first few weeks, I remember wanting, craving almost a mark to be made upon the clear skin of the white gallery walls, a blemish to appear on the pale rolls of paper. I had enjoyed the feeling of wonder when stumbling on the snail shells and small drawings pinned to the walls like an insect in a specimen tray. But despite this, I have struggled with feelings that the activity was too stuffy or reserved for such a large open space.
I understand the title of the exhibition “Performing Drawology” to mean the actions or performance of drawing, the strokes and movement. Like a dance. With the marks made the evidence of the action. As a Fine Art student we are always reminded to question: “what is the work? Is it the drawings? Or the act of making them?”
I feel my stance on this issue shifted during the continuation of the exhibition. I at first saw the appearance of the sculptural snails and the miniature drawings as the work, only now realising that in the later weeks, I found watching the workings of the artists to be the work and the results almost a by-product.
When returning to view Joe Graham in residence in the exhibition I had the chance to not only be part of the work by assisting him but was able to observe the decisions being formed. Despite what I felt to be a fast-paced approach to the space, I could see each movement made with his body as calculated; each mark made, each incision, each drip. When turning up for my shift, I first felt uncomfortable as the level of change from the almost sleeping state of the exhibition over the weekend of rest had awakened in to a very big and playful scene. I did not think I would like the changes, as someone who does not like change I felt almost anxious seeing the carefully folded concertina paper installations altered, cut up and strewn across the floor.
I did not think I would like exhibition after this but I was wrong. I quickly got in to the groove of Graham’s work and left my shift with a smile on my face, having enjoyed having fun in the gallery.
I return to the act of reflecting. Actively absorbing and thinking. Adjective, doing word. Today, on the last day of the exhibition, I see the finished gallery and conclude that I am among a stage set, an active space. I feel it is impossible to do nothing here now, my eyes wonder around the space in continuous movement. I watch the time-lapse video, noticing the moment where I am present. The sped-up movement return my thoughts to dance. I spin around to look at more of the room, more of the projection.
I take away my conclusion as to what the work is. For me, ultimately, I was the work. The way I now move around the Gallery in response to the performance of the artists is almost as if they had written the play and I am the dutiful performer.
Dominique Phizacklea
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Year 2.
In this post you can find work form the artists in residence during Performing Drawology.
humhyphenhum is the ongoing collaboration of Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon. Since 2005, the “hums” have developed a method of drawing and research referred to as “meaningful play”. The process of drawing commences through openness and responsiveness to discovery, and a willingness to ‘play’ with marks, media and concepts. Through a dialogue between collaborators, drawings and theme – where each has a role in co-constructing consequences – the hums’ responses, deliberations and reflections are drawn, distorted, erased and redrawn.
Performing Drawology brings this research into the Gallery – allowing the public to witness and engage with the entire process. humhyphenhum will be both curator and artist in residence; the first to enter the space (starting from today), to create a three dimensional drawing. The following artists will then continue to add and respond to the drawing in turn, with humhyphenhum returning to complete the drawing on Thursday 11 February.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS: Friday 15 – Friday 22 January (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Wednesday 20 January, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Friday 22 January 3 pm – 4 pm
Thursday 11 February
IMAGE: ]us[ (digital still), humhyphenhum, 2014
Lorraine Young is currently a University teacher in Fine Art at Loughborough University. Lorraine studied for her undergraduate program in sculpture at the Loughborough College of Art & Design (LCAD) and holds a Masters of Arts in Drawing from the University of the Arts (UAL): Wimbledon. Her practice is situated in the exploration of drawing.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Monday 25 – Tuesday 26 January (inclusive)
Summary discussion: Tuesday 26 January, 3 pm – 4 pm
More info: http://lyoung365.wix.com/drawings
Catherine Bertola’s work involves creating installations, objects and drawings that respond to particular sites, collections and historic contexts. Underpinning the work is a desire to look beyond the surface of objects and buildings, to uncover forgotten and invisible histories of places and people, as a way of reframing and considering the past.
Catherine Bertola was born in Rugby in 1976; she studied Fine Art at Newcastle University, where she lives and works. She has worked on a number of commissions and exhibitions, nationally and internationally with institutions such as; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA; Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany; Artium, Vitoria Gastiez, Spain; Temple Gallery, Philadelphia, USA; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK; National Museum Wales, Cardiff, UK; V&A, London, UK; The Government Art Collection, National Trust and Crafts Council, UK.
She has work in several public and private collections and is represented by Workplace Gallery, Gateshead and M+R Fricke, Berlin
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Wednesday 27 – Friday 29 January (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Thursday 28 January, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Friday 29 January, 3 pm – 4 pm
More info: www.workplacegallery.co.uk/artists/6-catherine-bertola
dimensional volumes in which they are manifest.
He works with holography, projected light and installation to combine and manipulate marks, releasing them from the surface they appear to rest on.
Recent pieces attempt to question our expectations around the visual fidelity of holographic images and employ aspects of the ‘sideward glance’ the peripheral view and the vocabulary of ‘framing’ and ‘placement’.
RESIDENCE:
Thursday 4 February
More info: www.apepper.com
Joe Graham’s artistic practice engages in the production of serially developed drawing, employing processes and structures connected with seriality to ask questions about drawing across a range of media and materials.
His artistic research explores how serially developed drawing re-presents (‘records’) the successive nature of conscious experience, in order to query the assumption that ‘drawing records thought’. Scrutinising the process of drawing in close proximity to Husserlian Phenomenology, he examines ways to connect ‘drawing’ and ‘thought’ via the topic of temporality which underpins both.
In methodological terms, serially developed drawing describes a repeated form across a number of iterations. Within any given series an eidetic method searches for what the individual instance indicates is purely possible. Via this process a rhythm emerges: repetition and difference, within a temporal return.
Drawing described in phenomenological terms as: the diagram of thought.
RESIDENCE:
Tuesday 2 – Wednesday 3 February (inclusive)
DISCUSSION SESSION:
Wednesday 3 February, 3 pm – 4 pm
Martin Lewis is a Nottingham-based artist and PhD research student at Nottingham Trent University. He also teaches at Loughborough University.
Lewis’ practice explores drawing and thinking as an embodied activity with the focus of the drawing on its act rather than its outcome as an artefact. The drawings employ simple lines or marks repeated over and over using pre-determined instructions. The most recent work involves drawing directly with my fingers onto a purpose built amplified ‘desk’ employing sound as the drawings medium. participating in Performing Drawology connects closely to Lewis’ current PhD research providing a critical context for him to test out a live enquiry in conceptual and performative terms in the form of a durational performance-action exploring ideas of drawing and attention.
RESIDENCE:
Friday 5 February
John Court was born in 1969 in Bromley, Kent. He graduated from Camberwell School of Art, London in 1994 and from Norwich School of Art and Design in 1997 with a degree in Sculpture. He moved to Finland in 1997, and was awarded a three year grant by the Arts Council of Finland. He lives and works in Lapland, close to the Arctic Circle.
Court has exhibited extensively in Scandinavia, and performed by invitation at major events such 7a*11d in Toronto, Canada, DigitaLive Guangzhou, China, 2014; SpaceX Gallery, Exeter, UK, 2012; Guangzhou Live Art Festival in China and ANTI Contemporary Art Festival , Finland, both 2010; the Venice Biennale, 2005 and the Liverpool Biennial, 2004.
John Court’s performances interweave personal experiences encountered from childhood to the present day. John left school unable to read or write. He interacts with modified versions of familiar objects that featured throughout the difficult times of his formal education; objects such as desks, dictionaries, pencils and paper. He worked on building sites in and around London for many years before being introduced to art.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Monday 8 – Wednesday 10 February (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Tuesday 9 February, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Wednesday 10 February, 4 pm – 5 pm
More info: www.johncourtnow.com
Publishing Rooms is officially open!
Thanks to all who came along to last night’s preview – it was a great to see everyone interacting with the installations. Here’s a few photos from the evening, along with some of the results of the scanner cams:
During the course of Performing Drawology, we documented the gallery as it developed with additions and changes being made by the artists in residence.
In residence this week: Joe Graham, Tuesday 2 – Wednesday 3 February; Andrew Pepper, Thursday 4 February; and Martin Lewis, Friday 5 February.
You can see even more photos on the Performing Drawology blog (run by artists and curators of the project, humhyphenhum). You can also explore more of Andrew Pepper’s work from his residency here.
Join us next week for the closing event to see the completion of the exhibition: Thursday 11 February, 5 pm – 8 pm. If you would like to attend, simply RSVP via email to confirm your attendance.
John Court will be the next artist in residence, before humhyphenhum return to the Gallery on the Thursday to bring the drawing process to a close.
