Just Hatching...

Cogs are beginning to turn...

In July 2011, we take our Bath Spa, Fine Art Degree Show off to London, to the Free Range graduate art show on Brick Lane! Follow our progress from newly hatched eggs to free range hens at http://hatched-seventyfeet.blogspot.com/

Think.Make.

Not long to go now until Illuminate Bath. My ideas are forming and changing and I'm having to do quite a bit of problem solving! 2 weeks to go and It'll be up and running at Green Park Station for you to play and have fun with.

Other than that, there has been lots going on in the studio. Lots of work to do and other exhibitions coming up.

Here are a couple of photos of a morning's work. A collection of 100 mono prints / pressings of found objects. Nuts,bolts,pennies,ring pulls, toys, unknown things... They are traces. The prints are 'removed' from the object, just a mark, but at the same time they are more about the object itself as you are not distracted all the dirt/colour/context, and you are not necessarily asking who dropped it?/What's its story?

The white of the paper dissolves into the white of breeze block wall.

Planning, Thinking, Illuminate Bath

Many more updates on the website now! Here's the link to my little bit! Here's what the programme will tell you, dated TBC but it'll be in the first week of November!

http://www.illuminatebath.org/?p=198

All that glitters is not gold

I am a final year Fine Artist studying at the Bath School of Art and Design. Currently my practice involves finding unwanted or 'worthless' things, and looking at them in new ways.

This new installation "All that glitters is not gold" will use light in a playful, explorative way to transform ordinary, everyday objects.

In keeping with the festival's theme of 'kinetic light energy', the installation will use light and movement generated directly by participants. The audience will be invited to get involved in the inner workings of the installation. They will press, click, turn and move in order to generate and discover abstract patterns of light and shadow.

All that glitters is not gold

'Illuminate Bath' is a new festival I'm taking part in this November. Check out the website at www.illuminatebath.org there will be more info on it soon!

Here's an idea of the work I'm going to be showing...

Transformation, Illuminations

"All that glitters is not gold."

This new installation will transform ordinary, everyday objects by the use of light.

Light will be used as a means of looking at overlooked objects in new ways, giving them a fresh significance. Equally, through using these everyday things, light itself can be considered in new ways.

The audience will be directly involved in the installation, which will use light and movement generated by participators, with no complications or hidden technology. The resulting, surprising illuminations can be traced back to their beginnings through physical interventions.

Little glass jars and treasure

Some things I collect I like to keep in jars - I think a jar suggests that something is being preserved - that the something in the jar is precious or interesting, or just worth keeping. They signal something a little different to a 'specimin bag' type thing which I have also used. I collected scraps in jars whilst walking, these jars hung on the wall are part of a piece I showed for my recent second year assessment.

I've been trying to keep this practice up over the summer so that I have plenty of material to work with when I get back in the studio in september!

The things I've been collecting have been a bit more varied though - not just human 'left-overs'. I collected feathers and found broken bird eggs on one walk. It's that word again 'TRACE' - I can't get it out of my head, I think it's going to be really important in my work now.

Collections of reflections.

I've really been missing the studio whilst working full time for the summer. So in the evenings I've been wandering the streets taking photos of things I find interesting, just using my little digi camera to capture the moment. I've also continued collecting little lost things in jars. Here are just a couple of photos I took a few days ago of some broken mirror on the pavement - I think somebody's car wing mirror that had smashed on the ground. As I walked past I could see my abstract reflection moving across all the scattered pieces. I tried capture the reflections of the grey sky and the trees above.

I wanted to talk about some work that I made a couple of months ago, that I've been thinking about alot , but I can't find the memory stick I have all the images on - panic alerts! When I find it, I will share my thoughts...

Pigeon Park

'Pigeon Park: 100 Found Objects in Specimin Bags'

'Pigeon park: 80 Found Objects in Slide Cases'

So, for this most recent installation, I didn't have to look far from the exhibition space for inspiration. I collected rubbish and stuff from the park next door. I don't know what the place is called, but I've heard it referred to as 'Pigeon Park', although I can't actually remember when, or who told me!

I installed my work in the darkened room at the back of the shop. I pinned a small hand drawn map just inside the doorway, showing the park and space on Lower Borough Walls. In the right hand corner, I pinned to the wall 100 small plastic bags with one found object in each. The objects were classified, although not labelled. The groups were made up of things like receipts, ring pulls, pieces of ceramic and packaging. I also put in the room a slide projector, projecting large images onto the wall around the corner. The slides were not photographs, but were 80 found objects in slide cases. This was similar to a piece I made in May, which I had alot of trouble to get working, but I managed to get it running smoothly this time round!

I suppose that by selecting and displaying these scraps of rubbish, and placing them in a new environment, I want them to be appreciated in a new light.

TRACE - opening night!

This week has been manic! Trace exhibition and end of year hand ins!

'TRACE' was a success! The curation went really well and the work was great. The private view was a really fun night too. Here are some pics from the opening night, I'll upload some more of the work asap!

Finding traces, leaving traces

I am involved in an exhibition in Bath this week with four other artists. We have managed to get hold of an empty shop owned by the council. Here's our poster, each is unique, each of us has left our finger print on every one.

TRACE: “An indication of the former, presence or existence of something; a vestige, a barely perceivable indication; a touch.”

"To live is to leave traces." Walter Benjamin

So... I have been scouring/tracing the tiny park next to the shop we are using, collecting scraps/objects/rubbish that people have left behind. (I've been getting alot of funny looks too).

I'm hoping to show the smallest things in a slide projector, I think I might display/classify the rest of the objects too.

Watch this space.

A bit of background info...

I have a bit of an obsession with over head projectors. I love them. Big, clunky and outdated but just simple, honest machines. I used to use them as an aid for drawing and painting on a large scale, but now I keep one in the studio as a tool for looking at things. I can switch it on, put something on top and get a kind of instant painting on the wall, an instant 2D translation. Opaque things create a really cool silhouette, but transparent things are even more interesting. When something is magnified and projected, all the little scratches and pieces of dirt are exaggerated and enlarged. With glass objects, those factory marks, letters and numbers on the bottom become really clear, and you can really begin to appreciate the form and the colour.

These objects are second hand, bought in a charity shop. I like that someone has used them before me, because then they have a kind of memory attached.

This is a projection of all the pieces of broken glass and plastic I found on the short walk between home and my studio.