http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 How to emerge? Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:26:48 +0000 a-n rss generator a-n The Artists Information Company and contributors edit@a-n.co.uk technical@a-n.co.uk http://www.a-n.co.uk/img/logo.gif http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   Footnotes: the emerging artist 1. Provinces versus city My first impressions have been how serious, and openly ambitious artists are in the city. This ‘can-do, must-do’ attitude is good for one’s artistic health, which is not to say that it doesn't exist in the provinces, but Deptford is a vibrant city-based artistic community at an exciting time, where the do-it-yourself culture, started by the the YBAs in the eighties is now influencing a whole new set of graduates keen to build on the East End success but across the river in cheaper, grittier Deptford, South London. 2. Telling rather than showing At a recent discussion [24 May 2010] focussing on opportunities for emerging artists at The Jerwood Space, David Rayson, head of painting at the Royal College of Art, compared an artist’s career to that of making a film, and how at the beginning, out of necessity, you play all the parts, you are the director, producer and actors. After making the film you have to find someone to show your film. And it is this idea ‘of finding someone to show your film’ that, after making the work itself, is at the forefront of what it is to be an artist, and David Rayson’s analogy sums up beautifully the challenge facing the emerging artist today – how do you get your film shown? A while ago the phrase ‘professional development’ was on everyone lips, and much funding was aimed at ‘professionally-developing’ artists. However, what the PD schemes often lacked, at the end of them, were the exhibition opportunities, themselves. They were good at helping one to realise a film, but unable or unwilling to show that film. In retrospect, was professional development not the job of the art schools we all attended?  By the time I graduated from the University of Brighton in 2003 we had received only two short lectures on the real world of ‘being an artist’. And, no-one could foretell the isolation of one’s first year out. However, today finding a studio albeit, a cramped shared, just-affordable space, seems to be a priority. In April, BBC4 screened a two-part television documentary series, Goldsmiths: But Is It Art?  This followed a class of Fine Art MA students at Goldsmiths. Gerard Hemsworth, head of the MA course, had two pieces of advice for the graduating students, I paraphrase: Take responsibility for your work Be visible These might seem rather obvious, but actually, in terms of ‘getting one’s film shown’ they are fundamental to the emerging artist. 3. But what is an emerging artist? This was the question I posed, when participants in the, aforementioned, Jerwood debate [24 May 2010] were asked to send in questions beforehand. Disappointingly, my question was not on agenda that evening. However, in any debate, is it not important to begin with a definition, so that audience and panel alike are aware of the level of the discussion? I think the chairman, David Cotterrell, had quite a tough job, and it was not helped by the ’me-me-me’ graduate who said he was attending the ‘emerging artist’ debate in the hope panellists could recommend ten commercial galleries he could approach for representation. Oh My God, like Emily Speed*, I was cringing, too. What a selfish question, and after this, the debate was reduced to advice about the bare essentials of ‘how-to-network’. And in fact, there was no debate. Question: Do you have to be a recent graduate to be an emerging artist? Who confers the ‘emerging artist’ status and whose aspirations are projected? Is it just a practical term to do with age & experience, student or professional status? Or is the idea of the ‘emerging artist’ a more aspirational term that allows curators and galleries to edit-in or out those who don’t fit.  As, indeed, artists, themselves, will do as they begin to assess their own place in the hierarchy of how to emerge. * See Emily Speed's a-n blog: Getting Paid. Post, 16 June 2010.                                                         ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Footnotes: the emerging artist Finding Ones Place - How did I get here? I am wondering how did I get here? In some respects I feel like I haven't had the time or space to think properly for a decade. Ten years ago I was a fine art student, but when I graduated from University of Brighton in 2003 I didn't feel I had the network, confidence or knowledge to go out and become a professional artist. I was disappointed with an expensive art school experience that hadn't prepared me for that first lonely year, when there are no deadlines, or ready-made shows, no fellow-students, or studio bonhomie, just you and your work; a time when self-motivation becomes key, and the formation of a close network of artists and events is essential to keep you going.   After that first difficult year, when I had none of those things, and almost stopped making work I had the opportunity to join a studio group, and that helped me to find a focus. In time gained funding to start a monthly networking & peer critique group, and I began to have some success with open competitions. This was a period of bringing together artists in our region to support each other, to talk about one's work, projects etc. And it was a good experience. However, eventually,  I found there was a mis-match between my ambitions to get my work seen nationally, and many of the participants who had little ambition beyond showing locally. To inspire and encourage our group, I invited a series of mid-career artists from the city to come and give talks. The project was called: Talk About The Work, and the artists who spoke included: Mikey Cuddihy, Rose Wylie, Delaine Le Bas, Gaia Persico, Susan Collis and John Kindness. I found these intensely personal views of an artists daily practice, and their career journey, really useful in understanding the different routes artists can take to have their work shown, and the ways in which they funded their practice. Some artists had gallery representation and were happy with that, while others had, innitially, gone down that road but found it a difficult and demanding experience. Some artists were teaching at art colleges or running workshops. But no two artists seemed to have been on the same journey since leaving art school, yet all shared the same need and passion to make work and determination to have it shown nationally or internationally.   My question: What is an emerging artist? stems from the experience where living in the provinces meant one had to make ones own opportunities, and finding like-minded artists with the same level of ambition who wanted to get their work seen beyond their home town was rare. So in a sense the term: emerging artist was irrelevant to them, but, for me, it was a huge motivating factor. Finding those words in an advertised opportunity was an indication of ambition and opportunities beyond one's home-town and comfort zone. I graduated seven years ago, but I would only now consider myself an emerging artist because it is only now that I understand the strengths and possibilities for my own practice, and the work itself. It has taken seven years to begin to find my place, my milieu.  People seem to emerge at different times and in very different ways. I would be interested to know what others think about how one should define the term: emerging artist.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Footnotes: the emerging artist Being Valued 1. This morning five beautiful catalogues arrived for RE:animate, the oriel davies open 2010, and an exhibition I have work in. It's fantastic to be part of something where the artist really feels valued. So often, galleries forget, or just don't bother, to put the artist's name on the private view card, let alone take the time and trouble (and funding application!) to produce a permanent record of the exhibition, like a catalogue. Even a PV card with, an artist's name on it, is a great piece of publicity for both parties but a catalogue is wonderful, and being given five copies, some of which one can be used to promote the work, is a great bonus, and very generous. Artists, so often give their time and work free, so it is great to have this appreciated and rewarded. Alex Boyd, curator at Oriel Davies, should be congratulated on the time and effort it must have taken to produce such a great catalogue. We are all winners! The RE:animate private view at the Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Powys, takes place tomorrow night, 7-9pm.  2. As an artist, one is always so hungry for feedback, and I find, the smallest amount of praise helps me to look at that particular piece of work in a new context. In a recent email from oriel davies, Alex Boyd said: 'I love your work by the way!' And, coming at a moment when I was thinking, is it time to move on, set me off making a whole new set of drawings inspired by the original oriel davies piece. (see drawing) 3. In fact, over the past year, a new body of work has emerged entitled: The Fritzl Drawings, which all stems from one newspaper photograph of the Fritzl family home. By concentrating on one image, and making a whole series of images from it, I found a new freedom, a world within a world. 4. This has been a great couple of weeks, as through a chance encounter of leaving my card at Core Gallery, I am one of three artists who have been invited to lead an experimental drawing workshop in September being organised by Rosalind Davis & Elisabeth Murton.  5. Meanwhile, I have been reading Rosalind Davis's a-n blog 'Becoming Part of Something' recording the setting up of the new Core Gallery at Cor Blimey Arts, Deptford. I have found it inspiring, amusing and, actually, quite moving, in terms of what people, working together, can achieve, and how new blood, and a generous, open spirit can be such a positive new force for an already established organisation.      ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Footnotes: the emerging artist Coming full Circle 1. In my twenties I worked in the City, and I had the super 'glam' role of promoting a leading British container shipping company. I wined and dined top shipping journalists and persuaded them to dedicate decent column inches to the cause. Meanwhile, my friends went to art school and university and became artists, filmmakers, and journalists, and I continued to smile - so much my (PR) face cracked. 2. I didn't even know what a shipping container was, when I first started. However, back in the late sixties and seventies, container shipping revolutionised the way cargo was shipped and did away with the corruption, smuggling and pilfering, by providing a secure and efficient way of shipping goods round the world - until, later, of course, when criminal gangs begun to ship people.  Last week, a new gallery called: 'cartel' opened in a swankily chocolate-brown-painted container at The Old Police Station in New Cross. Well I never ..... The containers also function as artists studios.  http://www.cartelgallery.com www.axisweb.org/artist/annabeltilley          ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Footnotes: the emerging artist On rejection  1. I know it is an uncool subject, and no-one wants to admit it. However, it is the season to be rejected – due to the almost unseemly number of Opens one can now apply to. Thus the emails appear with the words: We are sorry to inform you, on this occasion …… etc’. They are then followed by the inevitable: ‘But please do try again next year …. [the cash-register of the inevitability of hope, and their competition-fee sustainable-funding possibilities, ringing in your ears]. However, I have to announce that this week 4I of us really did nearly make it to being ‘International, ‘Emerging’ and ‘Contemporary’ all in one go! But sadly, after being shortlisted from 400, myself and twenty others were tossed onto the open slush-pile with the encouraging and soothing words: ‘this in no way should reflect or discourage you from submitting to other open calls planned for the near future.’ [Further rings on the cash register of future project funding, and not-yet dashed hopes] To add insult to injury, they sent me the email three times, so soon after I had read email 1, I received email 2, and fleetingly, tried to suppress the hopeful thought, that it was all a mistake and 21 artists had been chosen afterall. Of course, all hopes were dashed … until I received email 3 …..   The Woodmill   2. Last week, I ventured to a Peer Session with a group of ex-Goldsmith students at The Woodmill. [http://www.woodmill.org/] Peer Sessions was started by artist, Kate Pickering. [http://docs.google.com/View?id=dc9fj92c_158g9jz4thc.] [http://www.kate-pickering.com] It was really enjoyable to be part of a discussion on contemporary practice. An American artist gave a performance piece based on her beloved collection of guns, extra large pink cardboard replicas, and a miniature paper kalasnikov. It was clever, witty and poignant. However, parts of the Woodmill building, were like entering a post-nuclear strike area. The 70’s film Towering Inferno came to mind. What must once have been an immaculate but soul-less 1970's office block with matching sofas, desks and cheese plants, has now become a student-like trashed studio complex with little or no light, wires hanging down from dislodged ceiling partitions and, groups of old domestic sofas, rescued from tips, in the communal areas. It had a strange, rather eccentric but disturbing atmosphere, rather like walking through the set of the grim, ominous Tarkovsky film: Stalker, but minus the knee-high water! However, I did also spy small, neat studios full of productive-looking cavases and drawings, complete with the scent of oil paint.  I also got lost and, on trying to make my escape, had to leave through a door clearly marked: fire escape, and I set off the fire alarm! I really enjoyed the session, and hope to show some work myself in the autumn … if they’ll have me back. Deptford X 3. I am really pleased that as part of the Deptford X Fringe events in September, I will creating a drawing installation at The Old Police Station, Deptford, entitled: Drawing the likeness of brick ..... More about that soon.  http://www.deptfordx.webeden.co.uk/ The myth of being discovered 4. Two artist-lifers [artists who have been artists all their life] came to stay this weekend, and they said: 'Just keep making the work, that way, when you are discovered, you'll have lots to show'. That made me think about when is it exactly, we finally give up on the myth about 'being discovered'. Never, I suspect, otherwise what would get you out of bed - just making the work ? Perhaps that’s the sign of a real artist, no thought beyond creating the work itself. In which case, I'm a fake .... as I am always longing to see my work in the white cube space of a gallery, with journalists thronging to interview me ....... and in that dream, I speak so effortlessly and articulately about my work, it just trips off the tongue! And does the myth of  ‘being discovered’ go hand-hand with emerging, or are you discovered before you emerge?       ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Footnotes: the emerging artist Francis Alys 1. On Tuesday I went to see the Francis Alys exhibition at the Tate Modern, and it was all I hoped for, and more. Thoughtful, provocative, intelligent, and both funny and moving in places. How often does one spend two hours sitting in the dark, in an art gallery [rather than a cinema] on various leather sofas, laughing-out-loud with people you don’t know and enjoying every moment? For that instant this disparate group of strangers were connected by art. So glad Francis decided to forgo his other love, architecture, and give art a go, and with mad ideas like attempting ‘to move mountains with faith’,  or creating a continuous green line for miles and miles from a dripping paint-tin in a contentious middle-eastern hot-spot, Francis Alys really does have the courage of his convictions. 2. I’m off on holiday this week, to France to the seaside town of Etretat in Normandy, where the writer, Maupasant lived and wrote, and Monet and other nineteenth century French artists, came to paint the dramatic arches and needles that make up that part of the French coastline.. 3. What will I be reading – all things French, I think: The Secret Life of France by Lucy Wadham, an anecdotal story of the shock of marrying into the French culture. On Drawing by John Berger Mastering The Art of French Cookery by Julia Child And watching the related film: Julie & Julia with Maryl Streep, a recent film related to cooking oneself to happiness and starting a Cordon Bleu-type cookery school in Paris in the nineteen-sixties. Inspiration, I hope, for my own cooking, writing, drawing and, of course, emerging.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Footnotes: the emerging artist On winning - albeit unexpectantly! Last night I won a Deptford X Fringe Award for my latest project Drawing the likeness of brick. [PV Tonight! All welcome.] There were ten contenders for three prizes and when I looked around, everyone elses work looked so much more sophisticated! And, despite, three male judges, all three winners were women. It was funny winning an award and knowing virtually no-one. I sat next to the artist Mark Titchner, his partner and five-week-old son who were lovely, and immediately turned to congratulate me. Titchner was saying how the whole Turner prize experience, and all the demands that come with it [he was nominated in 2006] can actually de-rail your life for a couple of years. Sort of like winning the lottery but not! An article or a book about the whole 'Turner' experience would be interesting. Liz Harrison won the overall Deptford X 2010 award for a sound piece in Deptford Station of birds singing. On the Folkestone Triennial 2011 A couple of weeks of ago I attended a symposium at dlwp, Bexhil, where Andrea Schlieker, Curator of the forthcoming 2011 Folkestone Triennial, spoke engagingly and amusingly about her innitial reservations about 22 internationally-renouned artists showing their work in town called Folkestone - where was it anyway? That was back in 2005/6 for the first 2008 triennial. And what a success it was! I A thoroughly unexpected uplifting experience, as map in hand we wandered purposefully around the faded Victorian grandeur of Folkestone searching for obvious and illusive artworks. A great feeling of bon homie existed among visitors, but more than that .... a sense of wonder. Schlieker mentioned the phrase 'civic pride' a number of times in her talk, and it's true, living in the neighbouring seaside resort of Hastings, I understood, what a leap of faith and yet, conversely, how visionary the whole project was.  However, and here's a suggestion: alongside the hand-picked, well-paid international triennial artists [the famous names, that bring in the crowds] how about an open submission exhibition for professional, regional artists in the southern region area [Kent & Sussex] so that less well-known but equally talented artists can appear besides and gain recognition from the crowd-pulling 'names'. If you are reading this Andrea .... what do you think? On the Eighteenth Emergency - Core I enjoyed Andrew Bryant's curated exhibition: The Eighteenth Emergency at Core Gallery, Deptford. Particularly Daniel Lichtman's 'Untitled' - extracts from an adolescent boys diary, the death of his grandmother, the daily monotony of school life and the discovery of girls. Presented as series of printed texts on a dvd screen, in an appropriately deadpan manner, it was both funny and poignant.   Burcu Yagcioglu's film entitled: I would swallow you whole, was also moving - the intimacy of watching a women [or the artist at work] as she sculpts her own hair into a a type of scarf or veil. The result, for me, was not a political work alluding to women covering their heads in Muslim societies but a much more poetic work referencing medieval images of men and women in tight-fitting black caps, their facial features exaggerated by the puritanical nature of the object.  I saw the exhibition through an informal, but thought-provoking walk &  talk event led by Rosalind Davis and Andrew Bryant. Where we discussed the importance of titles, and how the idea of the title can change depending on the context, and the message you want to get across. It was refreshing to hear about Andrew Bryant's own bout of 'title-anxiety', and the fact the title for his piece 'My Black Ball' had changed several times during the exhibition. The piece was literally a huge ball of black plasticine - with an ominous, brooding presence, yet filling the viewer with an unquenchable desire to kick it across the space, or pet it or pat it ... but just to look down at it was not enough. The feeling of engagement with the object was almost primordial - an inverted black whole - the void that we fear, filled? Links Core Gallery  http://www.coregallery.co.uk/ DeptfordX http://www.deptfordx.webeden.co.uk/#/fringe/4543169484 Daniel Lichtman http://www.danielp73.com/ Burcu Yagcioglu  http://www.burcuyagcioglu.com/ Andrew Bryant http://www.an.co.uk/artists_talking/article/41767...... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Footnotes: the emerging artist   On Open Studios   My friend's Open Studios make me cringe, rather like Open Houses do. It’s either other artists wanting to look at the size of the studio-space/house or women with large buggies, and bored partners in tow on an art-afternoon out [no-one seems to buy art at these events].  However, as I ventured up the institutional staircase [smelling of disinfectant and yes, old-cabbage] it was an opportunity to find out who inhabits The Old Police Station building. Right at the top of the building, I entered a large white-walled, oil paint and turpentine-smelling studio to find, to my great joy, that it was peopled by a painter whose work I have followed for a number of years now – particularly because of the literary allusions in her work, referencing such writers that belong to the so-called ‘lost generation’ like Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald - the artist, Jo Wilmot. We had coffee in the sunny courtyard of The Old Police Station where my brick drawings are situated, and swapped basic paired-down life-art stories, the highs and lows, successes and failures, and yes, the difficulties.    On difficulty No-one writes about the idea of difficulty, anymore, only success. Or that is my impression. Yet there is something reassuring about hearing other peoples stories of difficulty, although, surprisingly not necessarily how they overcome it [complete with Disneyesque-happy-ever-after-ending] but much more how, one actually comes to terms with it; all that heartache, disappointment, self-doubt and the occasional bouts of fear that commonly overwhelm artists and writers.   I remember attending a funeral once where the presiding vicar spoke of his difficulty praying.  He said he often felt like he was speaking into a void where your words echo back to you, unheard. As an artist, making work, I often feel that void. Except for me it is not God but an abstraction often spoken of, generally and specifically, as the art-world, where too many artists, too much work, and too much ego compete for attention.   On Jonathan Franzen Difficulty is a subject I will keep coming back to, and a subject that the American author, Jonathan Franzen, does not shy away from, particularly in his 2001 epic novel of family disfunction, The Corrections. Currently I am enjoying his auto-biographical essays: The Discomfort Zone, as I relish starting his latest widely acclaimed novel Freedom. How does Franzen feel about emerging into a society that has dubbed him the next Tolstoy - no pressure there, then. Read an interview with Franzen by Genevieve Fox.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8035520/Interview- with-Jonathan-Franzen.html  www.axisweb.org/artist/annabeltilley  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   The Photograph 1. What we see      Our gaze scans across a square, flat, modernist concrete building, the windows obscured by foliage. Above the house a bright blue sky shines in the spring sunshine. Our eye travels down to the wooden-fenced roof garden, and stops briefly on what appears to be a blue and silver camera. [The inspiration for a drawing called Mass Observation.] The left-hand-side of the picture is dominated by the hair and head, red and white cap and sun-glassed profile of an Austrian state policeman. Bottom right a fence-post disappears while above the top half of a spiky fur tree can be seen. [The inspiration for the Spiky-Pop drawings.] However, the centre-piece is another conifer, a more elegant and wholesome-looking example, and one which obscures a window on the second floor. This tree is, in fact, The second tallest tree in Josef Fritzl's garden. [The subject and title of another drawing]. 2. Inspiration            I have been making work for over a year now inspired by a single newspaper image. The series entitled: The Fritzl Drawings explores and deconstructs a photograph, taken by the Austrian photographer Heinz-Peter Bader, that appeared in The Times on Monday 28 April, 2008. The photograph shows 40 Ybbs Strasse, the family home in Amstetten, Austria where Josef Fritzl, secretly imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth for twenty-four years, 1984-2008. 3. Image At first I drew the house, verbatim, as it appeared in the photograph. Then I began to include a ‘stinkhorn’, a common phallic-shaped fungus, as a symbol of Josef Fritzl. In turn this inspired a number of drawings entitled: Josef Fritzl’s Garden. Here the foliage developed a character of it’s own, becoming sharp and jagged. I made paper models of the house, and repeat drawings that concentrated on specific elements, like the trees.  Repetition conveys the idea of time, and the habitual nature of seeing. I wanted to understand what the passer-by might have seen, so innocently but would not have known, so tragically: a normal-looking concrete house, a garden, trees, a blue sky and sunshine.  Eventually, my thoughts turned to Elisabeth Fritzl, and what she did not see for those twenty-four years. This spurned a sub-series entitled: The world outside (what Elisabeth Fritzl could not see 1984-2008). These pen and ink drawings concentrate on single objects like a fence-post or the distant view of a roof and chimney. They are sparse and grim.    4. How to continue? Like someone standing up high, looking down, and feeling momentarily compelled to jump - I continually return to that original newspaper image. Might the artist be considered obsessive, or freakish, or the exploiter of a disturbing and tragic tale? When people ask about being drawn to such a subject? I think.  Twenty-four years is a long time, perhaps a third of a total lifetime to be trapped in the same place, imprisoned. While we were free. What did we do with our 24 years? (apart from 'collectively' walking past, unknowing and unseeing) How did she survive?  40 Ybbs Strasse, and it’s shocking secret narrative is an unseen, unknowable world. Apparently distant yet personal, as we, the viewer, unfailingly ask ourselves the same questions: how could it have happened? And, if it had happened to me, how would I have coped? In part, after a year of drawing, it is this tension – how the subject creates questions in the viewer - that most interests me.   6. How to emerge? Since 2009 I am glad to say The Fritzl Drawings have been emerging into the world, one by one: 1. Josef Fritzl’s Garden, The Ing Discerning Eye Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London, Nov 2010 2. 64 almost identical drawings of Josef Fritzl, blindfolded. Relay, Core Gallery, London,  Nov-Dec 2010 3. Mass Observation. BHVU Winter Open, London, Nov-Dec 2010 4. The second tallest tree in Josef Fritzl’s garden. Oriel Davies Open 2010, Wales, August. 5. Miniature paper model of an Austrian townhouse (belonging to Josef Fritzl), Agency at agency, London, April 2010 6. Three views of an Austrian townhouse (belonging to Josef Fritzl), Police & Thieves, The Old Police Station, Deptford, London, March 2010 7. Paper model of an Austrian townhouse (belonging to Josef Fritzl), C4RD, London, November 2009 8. Stinkhorn stands guard, Austrian townhouse. Brina Thurston’s Open Call 09, Frieze Projects, Frieze Art Fair, London, 2009 9. Proto-type paper model of an Austrian townhouse (belonging to Josef Fritzl). Art, Value, Currency, A three-part project curated by Isobel Shirley, The Pigeon Wing, London, New York, London, 2009-10 10. Stinkhorn, FringeMK 09, Milton Keynes, September 2009 11. Austrian townhouse, Travelling Light, WW Gallery, London & Collateral Event at 53rd Venice Biennale, June 2009 For more images see: www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com www.axisweb.org/artist/annabeltilley  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   It was jolly affair, at last night’s opening of The 2010 Discerning Eye Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. A mixed show ranging from contemporary drawing and painting -Graham Crowley and Tania Kovats - to traditional watercolours and oils. Including examples by Prince Charles, and not many of us have shown with royalty before! As a first-timer, it was great to take part, especially when I found I was in the good company of Core Gallery's Rosalind Davis [invited by critic, Timothy Barber], Kaori Homma and Marguerite Horner. The overall winner was a hyper-photo-realist painting of a bowl of strawberries & cream, so no surprises there. However, it is all too easy to be cynical, turning ones nose up at the nudes, still lives, and mediterranean watercolours, when actually, it was rather humbling and, even, democratising, being part of such a variety and wealth of experience and vision. Not to mention the general feeling of bonhomie. However, the Discerning Eye could not have been more different from a show I saw at Gift, Vyner Street, featuring work by Elaine Wilson & Paula Chambers. Wilson produces elegant ball-gowned porcelain figures, like an elderly aunt might have on her mantle-piece. However, entitled: 'Ne toucher pas', these traditional-looking china-figures cum-with-attitude, and make you smile, as they pout in blood-smeared gowns while somewhat, erotically, pointing a gun, at you, the viewer. Paula Chamber’s exquisite objects [for babies] remind one of Mona Hatoum. Chamber’s chain-mail bonnet made from 'copper wire stripped from an electrical appliance' and entitled: 'For your own good', and the baby-grows made from stinging nettle yarn, entitled: 'For the love of God'. Another example of how the choice of title can so brilliantly enhance a work, adding another layer of understanding and cultural context. Ideas hinted at but unexplained, leaving the viewer to ponder. I am delighted to have been invited by Jane Boyer to take part in an exhibition called Relay at Core Gallery. Jane & I met and became interested in one another's work through our respective a-n blogs. It is very exciting, to me, that what began as a virtual relationship with many intelligent and challenging questions, on Jane's part, has turned into showing work together. So I was really pleased to see that Jane's a-n blog Working in Isolation has been selected and praised by Sarah Rowles for exactly this reason. Jane articulates succintly many soul-searching questions about being an artist today. And on the same subject, I want to thank Jane for her great comments about my 'stinkhorn'. [Post 9 - 2nd November] Jane Boyer writes:  'I love the use of the stinkhorn image (how can I say that with this work? It is so difficult to separate what you do artistically with such a heinous subject). I'm responding to the stinkhorn because I've actually seen and smelled a stinkhorn mushroom and the images conjured in my mind of that memory and experience merges perfectly with Fritzl's character. In my painting: 'Stinkhorn stands guard [The family home of Josef Fritzl, Amstetten, Austria], I used the image of a 'stinkhorn' [a phallic-shaped fungi found in countryside] completly instinctually, symbolising Josef Fritzl, and his sexually-predatory presence as jailor to his daughter, Elisabeth. Also, more subtly, as a way of considering [through the idea of fungi, itself and where it grows] what the dark, foul, airless conditions might have been like down there for 24 interminable years. However, I initially felt uncomfortable and shy about using the image. It did take courage. Yet it fitted so perfectly. And a year later, I am able to live with the image as an accurate representation of what I wanted to express, even if at first it comes across as obvious. More recently, I have begun to draw the stinkhorn again [but from books - not a field trip!] I like the way 'time' is such a great and true friend in determining the strength and value of a piece of work. For myself, the pieces that have true meaning, are the ones that I return to and take more things from.    Relay: Core Gallery, 27th November - 18th December 2010.  http://coregallery.co.uk/current-exhibition/   The Discerning Eye exhibition: 11-21 November 2010   http://www.discerningeye.org/exhibition/gallery/gallery.php  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Privilege On Saturday I was given the privilege of a one hour crit with British artist, Graham Crowley. This much-needed and very welcome initiative came curtesy of Core Gallery, and Rosalind Davis. Wow, it is seven years since I had a one-to-one crit, with someone who is prepared to look at your work and tell you, honestly, what they see. I am a great believer in the peer critique, where a group of artists get together and discuss their work. indeed, I ran one called: Talk About The Work at Claremont Studios, Hastings for three years. And it was a great success. However, the one-to-one crit with an 'art-elder' is something else. Something unique. It is a conversation between two people. And when it works one achieves a momentary intimacy and connectivity, relating to one's own work, that is a rare and wonderful thing. Indeed, the connections, sparks, observations, book recommendations [and temporary euphoria] that arrived out of that hour will nourish me for a long while yet. Overall, the experience was painful but postively liberating. I now feel energised. And today, after months of considering: how to emerge? while in actual fact often thinking: what is the point? I did some things that I didn't know I wanted to do: I applied for a new open I sent off an initial-proposal for co-curating an exhibition I have been thinking about for ages I said 'yes' to giving work to an Xmas Charity auction at WW Gallery, Hackney I wrote down some tentative ideas for new work I wrote some lists - always a good feeling! What happened on Saturday was a sort of purging. I expressed out loud my doubts, anxieties and hopes for my work. It was a moment when I physically felt myself turning a corner - away from the dark alley I had become lost in. I realise I have been on a treadmill - making work, just for the sake of it. When actually, a bit of quiet reflection will probably pay equal dividends. To end on a more amusing note: thinking I was being professional, I have recently begun to paint the edges of my stretchers .... something I now remember from art school that is extremely uncool! And, for all that was said in that one-hour crit, that was the only cringe-making moment. I didn't mind that three months of work was slated, I could see it's unrelenting vacancy, it's pointlessness. But to be caused to cringe at one's own mistaken, petty vanity .... now that was hard.  www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com Graham Crowley's paintings can be seen at: http://www.grahamcrowley.co.uk http://coregallery.co.uk... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   Drawing trees and elephants   Never mind: How to emerge?  What about: How to make work? Or, at least, how to think about it? That is the current question. Reading and drawing is often my way in. Drawing is a direct form of visual thinking for me. I need to draw. My first work day since the 'big crit' and I've gone from: shall I draw a tree to what about an elephant? Seems a long way away from my usual cheery subject: murder and abduction Why trees?  Because I took hundreds of photos of blurred winter trees from the car, last winter in Normandy. In the pictures, the grass is very green and the tall spindly trunks very black against an insipid blue sky. I love the way French trees [in Normandy] are so often planted in lines, as wind-breaks, but also very commonly planted in rectangles round the edge of a field, a farm or house as protection from the weather and perhaps, as a form of ownership and privacy. I know there is a name for this special tree planting ...  And Elephants ...  because I've been reading Jonathan Franzen's intense, complex and strange, even surreal, 1988 novel Twenty-Seventh City* [before I relax into his supposed 2010 Tolstoyian masterpiece, Freedom]. Describing a decision by one his characters, Martin Probst, to consider himself as an elephant, Franzen writes: 'Caution dictated that he determine the boundaries of his role right away. He decided to see himself as a costly and essentially immobile fixture. He saw himself as an elephant.  Elephants weren't very articulate ... Elephants didn't zip around ... Elephants were heavy, however, and Probst agreed to trample whatever influentials needed trampling.' [Franzen, p. 333] Several times after this, Probst uses the concept to justify and make shortcuts in his decision-making process: [Think] 'Elephant, he told himself'. Elephants as a provision against difficulty.  Raymond Carver, in a short story entitled: Elephant, describes a character who is bogged down with responsibility for his family's debts. In a dream, he thinks back to being a child, and sitting on his father's shoulders, safe and happy, without cares or responsibilities.  'My dad went on walking while I rode on his shoulders. I pretended he was an elephant. I don't know where he was going. Maybe we were going to the store, or else to the park so he could push me in the swing.' [Carver, p. 86]. Elephants as a larger-than-life form of security - strong and safe. For anyone who hasn't read the short stories of Raymond Carver, I couldn't recommend him more highly. The ittsy-bittsiness (?) of everyday domestic life, relationships, materialism and often a close-up view of blue-collar America in the 70/80's. There is also a sort of rythmic, dead-panness to his prose, and the stories often begin and end rather abruptly, like you are just catching a glimpse of someone else's life. Tragically, for the readers, RC died early aged 50 of lung cancer. A favourite story is Cathedral, where a sighted man draws a cathedral with a blindman, so he might understand something of a cathedral's magnificence & grandiosity - typically deadpan but equally, moving. See below for link to a great, well-designed Raymond Carver website.  *Franzen, Jonathan, Twenty-Seventh City (London: Fourth Estate, 2003) **Carver, Raymond, Elephant & Other Stories (London: Collins Harvill, 1989) http://www.carversite.com www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com    ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 From there to here I like this time of the year because it is a chance to start again, or re-invent, finish the old and start the new.  I am beginning to look for inspiration from new subject matter; turning from newspapers to contemporary literature, moving from fact to fiction, and thinking of new ways of making work. And of course, new ways to emerge? Following the crit I had three weeks ago with, artist, Graham Crowley. Two things have stayed with me since then: the observation [made about my drawings] that 'you hold our attention with something fragile and sensitive,' and the simple phrase: 'move closer to home'. fade away Yesterday I saw fade away at Transition Gallery, curated by Alli Sharma. Very much a show about painting today, and subtitled: 'painting between representation and abstraction'.  A carefully chosen cluster of new, emerging and emerged artists, and hung in a charming sing-song, up and down motion, that leads one eye from work to work, giving them space and rythm. I enjoyed Kaye Donachie's 'Under my hand the moonlight lay', Jo Wilmot's 'Burn', and Mahali O'Hare's 'Mickey'. As well as Clem Crosby's glorious, 'Picabia'.  So much of the works here, and later, at the Crash Open salon show at the Charlie Dutton Gallery were ambiguous. Seeing the two genres together was helpful, suddenly there seemed less distance between these two opposing positions, making one see new connections, and possibilities. The idea that this new generation of paintings could be meditations on an uneasy world, might seem rather trite. However, coming in the wake of this summer's Jerwood painting show, which similarly presented the ambiguous, and the un-obvious, the purposefully ugly and uninhibitedly grim for us to puzzle over, it would seem there is something in the air and leads one to consider if, and how, this work might reflect the uncertain times we live in? Saturday On that theme, I have been re-reading Ian McEwan's prophetic and quite brilliant [if one is interested in the universal] 2005 novel Saturday. Set in February 2003, it tells the story of one day in the life of Henry Perowne, a mid-forties, well-off, happily married neurosurgeon who lives in central London. When, in the early hours of one Saturday morning, he thinks he sees a burning plane flying over London, it sets off a series of thoughts and feelings about the times he is living through. From the safety of his Georgian home, in an affluent London Square, Henry Perowne stares out from his bedroom window, and thinks:  'And now, what days are these?' Reading those words in 2005, when the novel was first published, was for the reader, an instant and recognisable reference to a post 9/11 society, and the global fear of terrorism. The War on Terror was at its height etc, and 7/7 was still to happen - yet the novel, highly prophetic in this respect - still acknowledges the daily fear city-dwellers felt, then, about the threat of a terrorist attack. However, today, in the wake of a new global crisis and one that is financial, on reading those words: 'And now, what days are these?' It seems our anxieties have moved closer to home, and, quite literally, as cut-backs, retrenchment and the age of austerity take hold, people fear losing their jobs and their homes, and with it, a life-style that they have become used to. If Ian McEwan were to continue the story of Henry Perowne and he was to stand him once more at that tall sash window overlooking Fitzroy Square, that John Adam designed in the eighteenth century, the question could be the same: 'And, now, what days are these?' but rhetorical it wouldn't be, because five years later, Perowne would conclude that as a nation we have moved closer to home, and from the global to the personal - global anxiety to personal fear - from abstract worries about terrorist attacks to doubts about financial security, and the future of home. annabeltilley.moonfruit.com    ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Message to Self Really enjoyed Emily Speed’s list of high and low points for 2011.    Here are mine: High-points Moving my practice to Deptford, albeit, on a temporary, experimental one-year-basis. Can I afford it? To be reviewed end March 2011. Meeting new artists in Deptford who are really focussed and serious about their work. Getting to know Deptford, and watching the art scene change and grow before my eyes. Deptford is the new Hoxton, twenty years later. Having a studio space again where I can be alone, draw and be quiet [or listen to Mick Jagger singing Faraway Eyes with that cheeky southern lilt in his voice: see U-tube link below. It's addictive. Getting work into the 2010 Oriel Davies Open, and the curator, Alex Boyd Saying she really liked my work. Artists need to be valued, rejection is bad for our fragile egos – which definitely need to be stroked from time to time Taking part in Deptford X & winning a runners-up Deptford X award Meeting Rosalind Davis, Core Gallery founder & manager Seeing the Francis Alys at the Tate Modern Joining the a-n blogging community – a great bonus. Thinking about the idea of the emerging artist. Is it just a 'tick-box-funders' phenomenon, or a real state? Meeting Jane Boyer through a-n's artists talking and being invited to partner her in Relay, an exhibition at Core Gallery, Deptford. Building a website and having 300 hits in 6 weeks Being offered a tutorial with Graham Crowley. It has thrown my work up in the air, but given me much to think about, and new work starting to emerge as a result. Thinking: ‘I completed an Open University MA in literature recently [in my spare time, and, of course, just for fun!] – and why am I not using that experience in my visual work? Realising, in terms of inspiration I might turn from fact [newspapers] to fiction [literature]. Having work in this year’s Discerning Eye Show, which is always quite mixed but several friends were in it, so we all enjoyed a glass of wine together, and it was a lovely evening. Finding the artist Jo Wilton had a studio at the Old Police Station, and spending several hours, since, talking art etc Amazingly, this week, receiving £58 from the payback dacs fund .... for doing nothing ... just having my work featured in a number of magazines and catalogues over the past two/three years. And, wait for it .... I believe you re-apply with the same list plus new ones next year.  Thank you DACS!   Low-points Being shortlisted for two shows I would have loved to have taken part in, so tantalisingly close but ……. The number of proposals, opens and exhibitions I entered work for, when you hear nothing. Not even a courteous email – just a PV invite a month later listing all the lucky beggars who got in … All that waiting ……. to find out whether you have got into something Jerwood Space – Had an interview in January. They loved a Fritzl piece entitled: 24 Years, [see my website, link below] which consists of 24 hand-made and drawn paper models of the Fritzl family residence. It was going to be shown on a long purpose-built shelf in the Jerwood Project Space [the café!] and I was sooooo excited but, after a few months, I had a phone call saying: they had decided the subject-matter wasn’t  appropriate ….  I suppose I understood but I was disappointed. Then the next time I visited, and had a coffee in the Project Space, I noticed  there was a colourful array of painted magazine collages on the walls, featuring … blood & guts. Realising I feel a little estranged from my artist colleagues and friends in Hastings, now I spend more time in London I looked back at my 2009/10 accounts and found I made £4,600 last year from projects and commissions. This year, £350 [!] after purposefully moving my practice 60 miles north from seaside to cityscape.    To look forward to Message to self: Surprise me!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVEdYYMlOJ4The Rolling Stones/ Faraway Eyes Emily Speed – Getting Paid. No 237. 17th Dec 2010.                                     http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/497389 www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com          ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 How to emerge? [or make New Year resolutions that you keep] It is noticeable that writing one's New Year Resolutions always involves more of the word more, and less of the word less. When, so often, less is more .....    Message to self, and anyone else ... Resolutions for 2011   Measurable 1. To be in studio, on studio days, by 9am latest.  2. To give up sugar [& alcohol? Are you sure?] for January.   Less measurable but equally desirable 3. More time drawing, less time on computer. Everyone should draw. 4. Check emails less! Are you addicted to that little frisson of possibility? 5. Focus on thinking as well as making  6. See more shows & write more reviews. Thinking about what we have seen, and writing about it is good for us. 7. More walking and talking with friends and colleagues, instead of sitting. Walking aids the thinking process and combines exercise and communication, and increases happiness endorphins. Why not walk and talk for a meeting, than sit down for a coffee at the end, and sum up the main points.  8. Make more lists ... very satisfying, and can be ticked off!   Unmentionable but desirable 9. More paid art opportunities 10. More exhibition opportunities 11. More emerging [whatever that means] Happy New Year, everyone!     www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   Art Without A Heart: How not to emerge!   On Wednesday I attended an exhibition called: Future Map 10, which promised it would be: ‘Showcasing the finest talent from the University of the Arts London’.  It was slick, so slick and professional the actual hand of the artist was missing. There were no works on canvas or paper. Unbelievable! Six top London art schools got together and chose no drawings or paintings? What’s going on? Conspiracy or accident? To read a full review of Future Map 10 follow this link: www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/984463   Meanwhile, I also visited the Museum of Everything in London's Primrose Hill, and as usual it delivered beyond expectation. Exhibition 3 is an eclectic collection of weird and wonderful stuff from Victorian screens, shell boxes and Punch and Judy to exquisite collections of taxidermy. From minature dogs to stuffed, boxed Edwardian Squirrels in a school setting, stoats wrestling and two-headed lambs, you've got to see it to believe it. Sketch-book heaven! www.museumofeverything.com www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 After visiting last week’s Future Map 10 exhibition* at London's Zabludowicz Collection, with it’s boastful bi-line: ‘showcasing the finest talent from the University of the Arts’, I have been thinking:  Why are we churning out so many artists?  Because we seem to have created a culture of art-school factories: get-em-in and churn-them-out, resulting in an unsustainable number of artist-graduates, for whom an actual career as artist, curator or administrator is unlikely.  Why do so many people want to go to art school?  One theory points to the past two decades where the YBA’s, and the likes of Banksy etc have become cultural celebrities, resulting in the media-led idea that art can deliver culture, status and money. But only for the fortunate ones: the so-called successfully emerged artist?   Making a living from art is difficult. The value placed upon the idea of emerging, and taking part in activities that may help you to emerge is a double-edged sword – sometimes beneficial but always costly - in both the artists own time and/or money. Most internships are voluntary and, while providing useful contacts and experience, rarely lead to a paid job within the organisation. This is precisely because few organisations can actually afford to pay for staff, unless they are free. Another example of artists being used for their skills but exploited  or undervalued in terms of remuneration. Due to cuts, few galleries, public or otherwise, are able to offer artists an exhibition fee. Rather one is expected to exhibit for free, not just for the glory, but in exchange for the esteemed value this may or may not have in enhancing one’s career or CV value - that slow accumulation of competitive tick-box experiences. There are more open art competitions than ever before, but often artists pay the gallery a fee - £8 to £50 - for the chance of having their work selected. However, research shows that many of these competitions attract hundreds or thousands of aspiring entrants, so chances are limited. Administering these opportunities can’t be cheap [even with the hardworking unpaid interns ] so that the competition proceeds provide some sort of life-line for less commercial galleries. Yet, galleries would cease to exist without artists. However, it seems doubtful many artists feel this sense of power. Yet we live in hope – Why?  Because of the advent of a whole new generation of purpose-built, modern art galleries - Tate Modern, Baltic, Towner, and the soon-to-be-finished Turner, Margate and Jerwood, Hastings.  Art is the new religion - quite literally, as churches and chapels become art galleries. These art-venue success stories, said to be across all classes, have sold us a new and successful image of art in our culture. Art being valued, artists seen as heroes, cultural leaders and people to look up to. It used to be film stars and pop stars, and now it is [a few] artists. No wonder young people want to grow-up to be artists, it equates to the celebrity culture of the past two decades, but with a middle-class culturally- aspiring twist. What is the point of making art?  I can’t speak for a twenty-something. However, for those who choose to study in their forties or fifties, a second [mostly unpaid] career in fine art, obviously isn’t about money and success. It is fundamentally a more philosophical pursuit, in search of trying to make sense of: how we live now?  I believe work is made, in the hope of asking: how to be? and how to live?  Not: how to emerge? However, in the end, whatever age, stage or experience we are at, we all seek to be valued - to have our large, insatiable art-egos stroked - and be told that our work is good. And for that, most artists give their time free, give their art free, and [happily?] continue to pay-up for the poor odds of gaining an exhibition opportunity. So remind me, why do we do it? What is it all for?  And, what real alternatives are there?  ends   * To read  'Art without a Heart' a review of the Future Map 10 exhibition follow this link: http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/preview/984... www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com                  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   How to write? Just received my February a-n Magazine and I see that on p.16 an extract from my New Year’s Resolutions (Blog 15) has been quoted: ‘See more shows and write more reviews. Thinking about what we have seen, and writing about it is good for us.’ What I mean by this is that the time, thought and analysis that goes into writing a review usually means that the writer has had to think about the work they have seen on a deeper level, and I believe this feeds into our own practice. I am currently writing about difficult things because I want to understand them. I don’t find the process easy. I don’t mean the writing itself, but working out ones ideas, what one wants to say, and how best to say it. Writing is a craft where less is always more. One easily writes 1500 words, and then has to hone it down to 750. And it is this process of self-editing that is so liberating. As you do this you find the essence of your idea, the real thought behind your words suddenly becomes clear. The easiest reviews can be where you feel something extreme, you love it or hate it, so that the passion carries you through. The hardest are when you feel nothing, the work is so mediocre [in one’s own humble opinion]. And one thinks: ‘What’s the point?’ For this work. And for looking, thinking and writing about work in general. Mediocrity is a passion-killer, in all aspects of life. Then, occasionally, you see something. Something that appears to come from nowhere, that catches you off guard, and momentarily, your visual thirst, and sense for seeing something new and good is quenched. It is that inspirational. ‘That’s how I felt last night about seeing the work of painter, Phoebe Unwin, for the first time. Put crudely, there is a David Hockney – on largactil* – about them, more faded, and of course more abstract, but still that wonderful awkwardness, the pause, the hesitation, the small steps, you feel in the painters mind as the brush moves across the canvas to capture the idea of an image, something just out of reach.’ ends   *Largactil is an antipsychotic drug. Psychiatric patients taking it often suffer from restless limbs and the desire to keep walking on and on, using small shuffling steps, despite the lack of anywhere to go.  This is commonly referred to as the ‘largactil shuffle’.   Part of the latter pargraph includes an extract from my review: ‘Phoebe Unwin: Between Memory and Observation’. You can read this review and others at Interface. www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/single/16286 www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Update: New Year’s Resolutions & January 2011 Giving up sugar It is now 39 days since I last ate any sugar – chocolate, cakes, sweets, biscuits, sugar itself, etc. And far from feeling deprived, I actually feel liberated! Perhaps, unconsciously, I am giving up things beginning with ‘S’ as I stopped using shampoo to wash my hair in September, instead using plain or rosemary infused water, and occasionally a pinch of baking powder. In studio by 9am Yes, most of the time, and it feels great! Writing more reviews I have written several which can be viewed at the link below, and really enjoyed the experience. It has caused me to think on a deeper level about artists making work today, printing and painting in particular, and how these new concerns and trends might relate to my own drawing practice. “What I see in all the work is a sort of anti-painting; often colourful, sometimes grim, featuring out-of-context motifs, small windows of intense drawing, elements of wall-paper type decoration, out-of-focus objects and figures; and, occasionally, paint [usually gloss] thrown smartly across the surface of the canvas; a definite blurring between reality – the object, the figure – decoration, and a sort of grimey, plasticine-coloured abstraction.” Extract from my February review on Phoebe Unwin - www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/preview/1086603 More drawing Yes, yes, yes and being fed by seeing more shows. Thinking and writing about them. Walking & Talking I do this three or four times a week with artist and writer friends. It is a great opportunity to discuss books we are reading and shows we have seen etc, as well as escaping out into the open away from being desk and computer-bound. New Projects Towner: I will be showing a new drawing installation entitled: Silhouette in the East Sussex Open at the Towner art gallery in April. Jerwood: I am currently creating a new series drawings for The Jerwood Project Space which will be shown in July/August 2011. The idea is based on the traditional still life with a modern twist. Core Gallery: Excited to be co-curating an exhibition called: Home at Core Gallery, Deptford with Rosalind Davis. I had the idea back in November, suggested it to RD, and off we cantered, with no backward glance. It has been a valuable time of new ideas and collaboration, an incredibly stimulating and enjoyable experience – particularly, the give and take, and slow build of ideas when you are learning to work with someone new.  What has also been highly gratifying is that all the artists we wanted to work with, have come back and agreed to take part. Susan Collis, Delaine Le Bas, Rose Wylie, Lucy Austin, Peter Davies, Rich White, Kate Murdoch, Emily Speed, Freddie Robbins, Graham Crowley Best Shows: Painting – Phoebe Unwin – Wilkinson, Vyner Street  - until 6 March Also really enjoyed The Salon Photo Prize at Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner St, until 26th February. Reading: Fiction: Just starting We had it so good by Linda Grant. Non-fiction: At Home by Bill Bryson Listening: When I am drawing Radio 4 and also, Radio 7 [soon to be renamed Radio 4 plus]. At the moment I am enjoying brilliant readings and adaptations of Middlemarch by George Eliot and The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky Looking forward to: High-abstract – an exhibition by abstract critical, a new organisation supporting abstract art. This means I am going to have to think about, read about, and probably write about abstract art – something new for me. Already, I have reached for Alan Bowness’s compact tome Modern European Art* for a short refresher course on the birth of abstract art. The press release says: An exhibition of high-ambition, high-complexity abstract painting and sculpture 1960–2010.The exhibition will feature key works by artists Alan Davie, John Hoyland, Fred Pollock, Alan Gouk, Anne Smart and Robin Greenwood. A catalogue will be available with essays by Mel Gooding, Robin Greenwood and Sam Cornish. High-abstract: Poussin Gallery, London – 11 Feb – 12 March ends .* Modern European Art by Alan Bowness [London: Thames & Hudson, 1972] www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com Interface reviews: www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/single/16286 www.mattroberts.org.uk www.poussin-gallery.com www.wilkinsongallery.com... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   how to emerge? Drawing ... Spent three hours, yesterday afternoon, between London's National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square drawing and looking, and all for free! Aren't we lucky. YES WE ARE! I know we are in the midst of savage cuts. Cuts, cuts, cuts but, still .... there's something amazing about being able to spend a warm afternoon, out of the rain, looking at Tudor kings and queens. Seeing the real thing. And a whole history of modernism, up close and personal, Monet, Degas, Pissaro, Matisse. And for nothing ... not a penny [except TAX, of course, but it's so worth it]  Then, squinting up at Nelson, I walk straight on up to Picadilly Circus and Regents Street -dodging Japanese tourists - to Saville Row and Hauser and Wirth to see the new Martin Creed show. Fantastic, in parts. Still thinking about the colourful abstract paintings in the first gallery, and the Dog photos. They did made me laugh, and think of Crufts, dog-lovers, cheap birthday cards, and what a sentimental dog-adoring nation [not me!] Britain is, all in one. Presume irony reigns? Then on to Gallery two, two doors down - a vast white space with a single revolving sculpture [or strong simple message]. And spent a wonderful hour contemplating Creed's monumental neon sign: MOTHERS ... and loved it. The word revolves slowly, then faster, up to 7 revolutions a minute, so you feel a light rush of air on your face. What simple joys, sketching and watching. The audience, students and the well-dressed, alike, drifting in off the street, intrigued.  Finally, a Nelson's Column for Women. ends www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com www.hauserwirth.com www.martincreed.com... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Art is difficult Many of us struggle everyday with the difficulty of making work and the pertinent questions that often emerge afterwards like: But is it art? [and is it any good?] “Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art. All this can be hard work. Sometimes in recent years I’ve felt that the parameters have changed. It seems too often a luxury product, a weekend hobby. The only question asked is ‘what’s the price?’ When I was studying the stakes seemed higher. Art was challenging, like Kant or Hegel or Derrida. It was something really worth thinking about. A part of it should always include having to scratch your head.”  The simplicity of this statement from a world-renouned artist like, Anselm Kieffer, puts the daily struggle [and joy] of being an artist in perspective. If Kieffer finds art difficult, then there is hope for the rest of us. Kieffer's words speak to this artist as she has just struggled through an uneasy six month period of making new work. Letting go of the old and, frankly, not knowing where to turn. Total freefall.   how to emerge? Back to books, history, textiles, nature and seeing old things in new ways. www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com   Anselm Kieffer Interview Review section, The Guardian, Saturday 19 March 2011.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/mar/21...      ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 'Only in the making can things happen.' Wonderful quote from Michael Atavar's exquisite, earnest, philosophical and wry book: HOW TO BE AN ARTIST. And each time I begin to draw, those words become a revelation on the page .... Jerwood: Attended the Jerwood Painting Fellowships last week. Is it a coincidence but the artists - three women - seem to be reinventing painting. Painting as painting by Cara Nahaul, painting as collage by Clare Mitten and and painting as photography by Corinna Till. An imaginative show - that stretches the idea of what painting is, and can be, and not with a loud, yah, boo, sucks attitude or in a macho let's counter: painting is dead fashion but in a quiet, thoughtful, sincere way, that an investment of time - 6 months - and money - £10,000 - from the new Jerwood Painting Fellowships has enabled. On until 26 June at Jerwood Space, 171 Union Street, London Se1. And then touring. Proust: I am reading Proust - Rememberance of Things Past. À la recherche du temps perdu, (In Search of Lost Time). A novel in 7 volumes, and first published in France between 1913-27. Have tried before but never got past first 100 pages - so doing six times better now - and enjoying it. Friends have variously commented: 'Why?' & 'Wow!'. Top tips to self: Don't try too hard! It is a time-consuming occupation, give yourself time - a year or two. Endeavouring to keep the sense of a long sentence in one's mind, from beginning to end, is often impossible and frustrating.  Let the words and images enter your mind like music or poetry  Strive for essence rather than meaning But the great news is .... after  a few hundred words you realise there is meaty, twisting, turning plot, afterall! Funny, no-one mentions that ... but they often mention the infamous madeleine-scene, which happen right at the beginning. Also, at hand, I have Eric Karpeles's volume 'Paintings in Proust'. What a culture-vulture that Marcel was, so many words, so many artists, so many works of art described in words - from Botticelli to Turner, Da Vinci, and Gozzoli to Whistler - which gives you a hunger for seeing the real thing. Art history as natural curiosity! Drawing: Engaged in new large scale drawing derived from a 1950's Encyclopaedia of Plant Portraits. Fascinated by the composite small b/w photographs that range from 2 inch flowers to 300ft trees. Scale and variety, mesmerising. Working on large roll of 300gm Fabriano (Grosso). Surely the Rolls Royce of paper. Title: 'Rememberance of Plants Past (hand-drawn extracts from: The Encyclopaedia of Plant Portraits compiled by A. G. L. Hellyer, 1953)'. [See details of images above]. Show & Tell: I am currently organising a series of talks entitled: Show & Tell at Core Gallery, Deptford, where we ask artists to tell us through words and images how they got where they are today. Jenny Wiener was our first speaker. I think the audience enjoyed it so much, because JW was generous and honest in the telling of her story, the highs and lows, the joy and disappointments of being an artist today. We all learned something. Next up (May 31) will be painter, Graham Crowley - chaired by Rosalind Davis. And in July (5) I will be chairing the talk by another massively talented and original painter, recently with work in the British Art Show, Phoebe Unwin. Can't wait! I sold two drawings earlier this month - hurrah - best feeling in the world! Had lunch with the artist, Susan Collis, yesterday and found myself saying: 'I am still emerging ... and probably will be until I'm ninety!' www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com Follow me on twitter@annabeltilley http://coregallery.co.uk/show-and-tell http://www.jerwoodvisualarts.org/page/3097/Jerwood...        ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   What is Painting? [how to emerge ... from the cultural weight of painting] I want to respond to David Trigg’s call for less categorization in the arts. Starting with the idea that a Jerwood Painting Fellowship could become a more contemporary and inclusive: ‘Jerwood Artist Fellowship.’ I couldn't agree more; why do we feel the need to continue to label the various art forms? Control? Tradition? Exclusivity? Money? That’s a big question. However, occasionally, the emphasis on one type of art form can be useful. The  last decade has done wonders for drawing, in terms of raising its status, and causing it to be considered independently from painting. Drawing has always been appreciated by artists as something special, that old ‘window into the artists mind/soul’ etc. Rather a clichéd, sentimental approach. Equally, it has often been sidelined or dismissed as an appendage to painting, the sketch for the real thing etc. However, thanks to enlightened educators, once you could do an MA or BA [Wimbledon/Camberwell] in Drawing or enter a competition like The Jerwood Drawing Prize, gallerists and the public begun to take it seriously as the profound and flexible medium it is. This has been extremely important for not just reinterpreting the history of drawing but also, it’s future status. Today, I am happy to say, drawing just is. However, art schools, due to financial constraints, are turning back to less specialised courses, often simply entitled: Fine Art. Yet, this might not be a bad thing. Allowing different mediums to integrate, reassert themselves and lessen the obsession we have with painting, and the secretly-held-belief that 'real' artists only paint [and maybe sculpt!]. Ten years ago, people were asking: What is drawing? Recently, I suspect the question has become: What is painting? Especially in the wake of this first year of Jerwood Painting Fellowships and its thought-provoking legacy in the work of Mitten, Nahaul & Till. Work that shouts loudly for David Trigg's idea of a clear and simple: 'Jerwood Artist Fellowship' And, can we have more of them, please ... three is not enough.   See: When is Painting Not a Painting? By David Trigg on The JVA Blog http://blog.jerwoodvisualarts.org/?cat=10    ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682   how to emerge? What has Sluice taught us - Be independent but work together! By attending this year’s impressive Sluice Art Fair, and taking part in the Twitter/blog/pub conversations that immediately ensued, I believe many of us, including independents like Core Gallery, have become unoffical participators in an exciting, and as yet undefined, movement that heralds the beginning of a new era of generosity and collaboration between networks of like-minded artist-led spaces who are just beginning to understand the power of solidarity. Sluice art fair is an example of how when times get hard: the sparkling rhetoric of the commercial galleries – as represented by Frieze - begins to recede, making way for the less glitzy, purer [and poorer!] artist-led concerns to present an alternative way forward. Hayley Harrison summed this up poignantly in her a-n Artist’s Talking blog: Something’s Happening*, when she suggested that we cease to talk about ‘the art world’ but rather begin to call ourselves ‘an art community’. Thanks to Ben Street & Karl England and their innovative spirit, I believe that ball is now firmly rolling.  Indeed,  Core Gallery, is now looking forward to attending another gathering of the innovative artist-independent clans at the Conference for Emerging Art Organisers in Goldsmiths on Thursday 24 November. The place to be! * Hayley Harrison, Something’s Happening #25 [17 Oct 2011] www.an.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/1299464      ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 how to emerge? Blogging versus Tweeting? Last night I attended a talk at the Peckham Space led by Andrew Bryant on the subject of blogging. The blogger-speakers were Alex Pearl and Aliceson Carter. Long before the talk, and in my own mind, and on Twitter, the talk for me had become a debate on the merits of blogging versus tweeting. Probably, because, until this week, I hadn't blogged for 158 days.  In reality it was a talk on blogging, with a couple of us louder audience members pointing out the merits of Twitter, not least, for sign-posting your blog! In Andrew's Bryant's introduction it was interesting to hear some of the reasons why people read or write blogs today: 'a window onto someone's practice' 'a place for discussion & dialogue' 'a way of reflecting on one's own practice, and also as an extension of one's practice'  I have only come to Alex's blog 'Redundant Alex' recently, and through his own sign-posting on Twitter. In it he talks about everything but art, except in an off-hand way to comment on the creation or demise of certain pieces - cress-based, and proun to life and death at the whim or forgetfulness of the grower. It is self-deprecating, humourous and, occasionally, reading between the lines of this character, Alex, as he cleans the house, and gets rejected from commissions he was personally rung-up and urged-on to take, poignant and moving. Alex gave a really good talk: a talk he told us (without irony?) his girlfriend, Annabel, had written for him - in the third person. So, as he pointed out, it was like reading out your own obituary! I was listening too hard to write much down:  'I don't talk about Art much in my blogs, more about my life around it ....' 'Nowadays it is quite fashionable to think about the back-room place of an artist'. 'I hide behind the pretense that it may or may not be real.' And my favourite, on the number and variety of blogs: 'They are like me quite unsure about what they are.' He also mentioned that he tries to end on a cliff-hanger! Now I will now go in search of Aliceson Carter's blog, which I don't know.   Thinking about the 'me, me, me' culture and the art of self-promotion, it occurred to me that the days of an artist sitting in their studio waiting to be discovered are long gone, now there are so many artists - or would that be: too many artists? As Market Projects recently asked - that artists have been forced to take steps to bring themselves to the attention of others - artists, curators, gallerists, press etc. A decade ago all the talk was about having a website, now that is so passive (although still necessary) then about five years ago it became about blogging and now it's Twitter. But the irony is that each one, faster and less labour-intensive then the last, leads one with perfect symmetry from one to another and back again. An artist makes work, they place pictures on their website, they write on their blog, they tweet a message that they have written a new blog piece, the blog piece links them to the website, and the website provides Twitter/or other links with the artist.  More recently this has been interrupted with the introduction of pictures straight onto the Twitter site. The end of writing? The beginning of pictures with twitter-length captions - comic book/zine world? Indeed, in a recent Garageland call-out proposal I suggested writing tweet-length answers to big questions, mainly because I wanted to see if it was possible, and what would happen if one limited oneself to around 140 characters? Would ideas become such small nuggets of information, they could only be formed into questions to make any sense, and create the usual Twitter-type banter. I felt rising panic as I pressed the send button, it seems an impossible feat.  Finally: Why do we tweet? Because it's like texting but better because you have a whole audience! Why do we blog? Because writing into the silent ether can also be satisfying. ends www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com twitter.com/annabeltilley redundantalex.blogspot.com/ www.marketproject.org.uk/ Aliceson Carter: www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/article/1608428... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682 Yes Emily Speed you started a positive trend in 2010 .... The annual Summing Up In 2011 1. No SUGAR! I gave up sugar for a whole year [minus alcohol]. Feel marvellous. Sugar addiction fixed! I ate no biscuits, cakes, chocolate, sweets or Xmas pud etc. Absolute bloody miracle!* Only made possible by new passion for work with:  2. Rosalind Davis - Brilliant, intelligent, funny, passionate, generous & the Marketing Queen. I have learned so much .... 3. Show&Tell 2011 @ Core Gallery. Great gathering & generous sharing of artists knowledge by Freddie Robins, Edwina Ashcroft, Andrew Bryant, Lucy Day & Eliza Gluckman, Graham Crowley, Delaine Le Bas, Lucy Austin & Jenny Wiener to name but a few. 4. ZAP The sad demise of Core Gallery, founded by Rosalind Davis but the fortuitous birth of ZeitgiestArtsProjects to take the vision, for supporting artists with shared knowledge & generosity, forward and expand it together. 5. AIR Being elected to the AIR Council 6. Berlin Going to Berlin - 'just like that!' and creating a wall drawing for Anschlussel London/Berlin at fruehsorge contemporary drawing curated by Andrew Hewish from the Centre for Recent Drawing, London. 7. I discovered Twitter! I love it. Easy, quick, efficient for putting news, ideas & images out there, meeting new friends and having a good giggle. Brilliant invention. Downside: I neglected my blog but who has time to write 500 words when 140 characters can do it too. 8. I created my first 'flower' drawings: Rememberance of plants past. A breakthrough in my drawing. Realised I wanted to work from books - old books with black and white pictures to draw from & literature like Proust - with brilliant ideas in words that can be turned into visual feasts. A turning point. Helped by tutorials with artist, Graham Crowley.     Best Moments etc Best moment Changing trains at Canary Wharf and Rosalind Davis saying: 'Let's do it .... let's start a new organisation together!' Pre-birth of ZAP [Approx. 3pm, Wed 9 Oct 2011]. And later that day: Best mini-moment Sitting on London-bound train from Colchester after Market Projects: 'Too Many Artists' event [especially brilliant Alex Pearl performance] at Firstsite with Professor John Hutnyk, Julie Freeman & Rich White etc drinking ice-cold G&Ts courtesy of Ros, and discussing the rise and demise of the YBAs.  Best achievement Being elected onto the AIR Council. Finding out people had bothered to vote - in droves! Best Feeling Being picked to create a wall drawing by Andrew Hewish (C4RD) for Anschlussel London/Berlin at fruehsorge contemporary drawing - a one-off drawing survey show. Best Idea ZeitgeistArtsProjects - ZAP. Finally coming up with a name for our new organisation inspired by recent events: the inspirational Sluice Art Fair and the Alisn conference at Goldsmiths for Emerging arts independents. Best 'feeling moved' moments Curating Home Exhibition with Ros and realising all our effort and work had been so worth it. Thanks to the artists: Rose Wylie, Lucy Austin, Freddie Robins, Graham Crowley, Carolyn Lefley, Kate Murdoch, Delaine Le Bas, Peter Davis, Rich White & Rosalind Davis. Celebrating drawing in Berlin in France with English & French family & friends   2012 - Things to celebrate 1. Excited to be starting new body of work as I draw my way through the history of English painting in a series entitled: Re-draw. The series will literally involve redrawing classic paintings from history, in images drawn from old b/w books about English painting. I.e The Connoisseur New Guide to English Painting & Sculpture, pub. 1962 etc.  2. The Launch and future development of ZietgeistArtsProjects with Rosalind Davis at our new premises in South London with a fantastic 2012 Show&Tell programme of speakers & events we have lined up inc. Sarah Williams (Jerwood), Ben Street & Karl England (Sluice Art Fair) & Andrew Hewish (C4RD) artists: Susan Collis, Phoebe Unwin, Virgina Verran & Alex Pearl etc. 3. ZAP support: Lewisham Arts Services confirming a grant for two artists seminars to be held at Goldsmiths in March & the brilliant continued support of the Fenton Arts Trust 4. Taking my new role in the AIR Council forward 5. Starting The Drawing Group with fellow draw-er Jack Hutchinson 5. No more sugar ever! 6. Celebrating 20 brilliant years of being married to TheGoodHusband.   Conclusion: How to live & how to emerge - Create & maintain relationships & sustain them through generosity & time! * mentioned on Radio 4 last week as major new trend for 2012 - 'Giving up sugar' ends www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com twitter.com/annabeltilley   Links www.sluiceartfair.com www.coregallery.co.uk www. air-artists.org/air/article/1801061/778528 www.alisn.org www.tilleydavis.moonfruit.com www.jackjhutchinson.wordpress.com/  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/642682