Website!

As if I don't have enough to do at the moment in the final weeks of my degree, I have made myself a website! It is currently running on Cargo - but soon to have my own domain name (www.jenny-cooper.co.uk), I'm too eager to wait so I thought I'd share the results of my hard work!

See here: www.cargocollective.com/jennycooper

April arrives.

Seventy Feet - Artist of the Week!

I have been featured as Artist of the Week on our Free Range blog in the run up to my London show at the Truman Brewery in July!

Click here to see: http://hatched-seventyfeet.blogspot.com/2011/03/jenny-cooper.html

(screws, mirror, wooden bracket)

It doesn't have a title yet... but here's the piece that was critted today.

A little too sexy maybe?

UNSCREWED

'Around' - pencil, paper, magnets, screws.

For 'These Words I Seek Are Not My Own' at Motorcade/FlashParade I made a piece of work called 'Around'.

It was made up of a large scale drawing, of an obsessive mark making, tracing around found nuts and washers, paper held to the wall with magnets. Next to the drawing was a circular collection of used screws, driven into the wall as far as they could be forced.

Exhibition panorama...

These Words I Seek...

You can see my work in a group show next week, at Motorcade/FlashParade in Bristol. I will be making in the space for much of the week.

There will be work by eight artists, and collectively we are all working somewhere in the field of 'extended painting'. Through our artistic practices, we all respond in some way to the title of the show, a thought/statement/truth - 'These Words I Seek Are Not My Own'.

www.motorcadeflashparade.com

Private view: Friday 25th February 6.30-9pm. Hope you can make it.

Play-date

Today involved some playing. Spontaneously. And a really exciting tutorial with artist Des Hughes. Worry whilst making. Some things just make sense.

Thing-ness. Object-ness. Something-ness. Dynamic.

Notes, found.

The result of some scavenging. I was shredding on Thursday. Thinking about recording and shredding these? Time to make stuff.

And so we Migrated

Some great images from the opening day of Migration 17/01/2011.
Photos © Matt Graham m-graham.co.uk

Snapshots of a few of the artworks.

A swan finds my work interesting.

Looking for 'Traces'

Olivia Rowlatt's 'Wasteland'

Sam Bowditch's '[568] Paper in Flight'

Nick Stamp 'Move along there's nothing to see here'

Melissa Mahon 'Platoon'

Olivia Straker, Jo Priest, Annabel Williams, 'A Lasting Stitch'

Me introducing the Mayor of Bath to officially open the exhibition.

Meet the Team!

The Chronicle 20/01/2011

Work Pictured: 'A Lasting Stitch' by Olivia Straker, Jo Priest and Annabel Williams.

'Traces' for Migration

So, in response to the theme 'human interaction with the natural environment', last Tuesday I swept the lakeside walk for litter. So few human traces are left here to litter the landscape. Findings were shredded and encased in this box.

Most of the works are now in situ, and the opening of Migration is tomorrow afternoon. So fingers crossed everything will be in place by then.

Exhibiting in an outdoor, semi-public space has certainly been testing. A learning curve. Not only are the natural elements fighting against the work as hard as they can, but vandals have had a go as well! Trying not to get stressed with it, and attempting to think of them as 'unexpected collaborators'.

Fingers crossed for sunshine this week!

See you there...

All That Glitters on film

The lads at Illuminate Bath have been making short films about the work in this year's festival. Here is the fruit of their labour in regards to my work... nervous on film much?!

'Shadow Catching'

Last week I saw the 'Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography' show at the V&A, and was amazed at some of the photograms and other such wonders.

I have been making some of my own photograms this week, I felt they were a natural progression from my recent OHP projections of collections. An trace of the physical object.

I've also been working really hard on the Migration exhibition which will take place on 17th January - so not long. My first time organising/curating an event as big as this one, so wish me luck! We have 30 artists working hard, ready to install their pieces in the new year. Updates soon!

Alchemy.

"An artist is like an alchemist - he can turn worthless things into gold."

James Putnam, Provenance Symposium, October 2010.

On my mind. What to make??

I found some slides...

'22 found slides, re-imagined through a Google search'

P.S.

I've been mono-printing too.

Bath students collaborate with Tate Modern!

It's been a busy week! Along with 11 other artists, I have been curating and hanging an exhibition in the School Gallery, Sion Hill. It's Called 'No Working Title' and is the outcome of a really exciting project which took place in Feb/March this year. In collaboration with Norwich College of Art and Winchester School of art, 12 fine art students from each institution were randomly paired up and via post or e-mail sent each other a set of instructions, in order to create a piece of artwork. We met up at the Tate Modern and revealed what we had made, in a day of conversation with Ann Coxon, Assistant Curator of Displays at the Tate, who also visited us recently in Bath to talk about how to curate this travelling exhibition. The over-arching curatorial theme we chose is that of items being sent and received, packaged and unwrapped. Not a white plinth in sight! Brown parcel tape links each set of instructions with their resulting artwork.

The instruction I received, from Sarah Adams at Norwich, was to "make something that would be considered time consuming". I made a 1000 piece puzzle and documented the time I laid each piece, and to pass even more time, I made a stop motion animation in which I attempt to dissolve a leather-strapped wrist watch in sodium hydroxide.

I sent instructions in the form of a photograph of a projection (see above). I received a beautiful aluminium cast of a collection of 'precious' objects.

Lots has been going on in the studio too, I'll update with images of my new work soon!

The Migration

I am organising and curating an event in January, in collaboration with a group of BSAD artists and designers and Bath Spa SU!

It's going to be an outside exhibition of interventions in the landscape around the lake, woodland and gardens at Newton Park. We are in the process of applying for funding at the moment and are hoping to receive proposals for artwork from students across all subjects at Bath School of Art and Design. The theme is human interaction with the natural environment. Lots to do!!!

www.bathspasu.co.uk/migration

All that Glitters II : Re-installation

'All That Glitters is Not Gold II'

I have edited the work, and re-installed it in the dark project space at Dartmouth Avenue. A long, useful discussion was had this morning, which centred around the invitation to play and the idea of touch.

All That Glitters # Day 1

One evening down at Illuminate Bath! Fab night with the launch party in the Green Park Brasserie with art and poetry projections going on in the station, and my installation in the foyer.

I installed a selection of found and used objects in plastic pots and glass jars, and invited passers by to participate by selecting and projecting their choice of objects on an over head projector. Simple.

Pleased with the feedback tonight, and it's been interesting and exciting to see how people interact and participate. They are usually timid to start, not sure whether to touch.

I'll be installing the work in the foyer of Green Park Station tomorrow and Wednesday evenings too (2nd and 3rd November 5-8pm each night) so please come along and be part of the art!

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/