My practice encompasses installation, object making, live work, and projects.  I moved to Sweden in 2011, I now live in Uppsala where I have my studio and am chair of the artists’ club.  I am also one of the team producing the Supermarket Stockholm Independent Art Fair.

Your comments and feedback are welcome and appreciated – thank you!

www.stuartmayes.com

@studiostuartmayes


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I understand that what one never had one can’t lose … but it feels as though I have lost something … namely an artist’s working grant of about £10,000.  I dared to dream that this might be my year to get one of the awards – several thousand are given out every year – but once again I am left feeling crushed and more than a little defeated.

 

Only two artists in the Uppsala region received grants – one of whom I know and there is no question that she deserves it, the other artist’s name isn’t one that I recognise but I shall certainly do a search and see what they are doing.  Uppsala is Sweden’s fourth largest city with a good if not exactly vibrant art-scene … what are we – yes we – doing wrong?  Are we victims of being in close proximity to Stockholm … the thinking being that if we were serious about being artists we’d obviously move there, it is only 40 minutes away after all.  Are we guility of not being sufficiently engaged in contemporary practice and debate – there’s not art school here and the level of critical discussion is embarrassingly low.  Are we simply out of context … neither sufficiently urban nor rurally remote enough to be interesting?

 

It would be interesting to see all the Uppsala artists who applied (fulfilled that criteria in case) and were rejected … what do we do? … is it really so uninteresting?  Even discounting the recent recipients in Uppsala – five last year, two the year before – there are a good few artists consistently producing good work and actively contributing to the art scene both here and further a field.

 

This rejection comes after a few successes which makes it seem somehow harsher.  If it was just another in a long line of rejections it would be more expected.  I dared to think that with the big project in Västmanland last year, the Spring Exhibition, and the Uppsala project funding, that my fortunes were changing.  I guess that this is a reminder that I can’t take things for granted!

 

It makes me especially glad that I have my new (can I still call it ’new’?) job.  If I didn’t have that I would be looking at an empty savings account and no choice but a return to Enköping – a position that I realise now was not very good for me at all.  

 

I am almost literally counting the days until the Artists’ Clubs’ annual general meeting – at which I step down as chair, meaning that I regain a great deal of both time and energy … mostly energy if I am honest, though the time I have given to the club is not inconsiderable.  It is going to be such a relief to hand it over to someone who is not only far more capable but has the distinct advantage of being a native Swedish speaker … in fact a fair portion of their capability in this capacity has do do with language.  I have found it incredibly tiring, frustrating, and demanding trying to understand and chair complex discussions involving eleven opinionated artists in my second langauge.  I know that all of the committee like and respect me but their frustration is also evident … especially towards the end of what regularly turn into three hour meetings – partly due my inability to quickly grasp the subject and reflect our options back to the group.

 

Not wishing to disregard the coming (and much anticipated) summer it won’t be long until it’s time to submit an application for next year’s round of artists’ grants, I wonder if no longer being on the Artists’ Club committee will put me in a better position to make a successful application.  Only time will tell …

 

 


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Something has shifted. I can’t say exactly what … or why … but something definitely feels different. Perhaps it is to do with my immanent stepping down as chair of the artists’ club, or perhaps it is to do with the immanent arrival of spring … perhaps it doesn’t really matter if I can identify the what and why or not.

On Thursday I sent a few emails to some galleries and konsthalls (council funding public galleries) introducing myself and expressing my interest in exhibiting, collaborating on projects, and contributing to their programmes. I kept it brief, included an image of my work in the Spring Exhibition together with a link to my website, and an open invitation to visit the studio. I can’t imagine that any of the galleries or konsthalls have already heard of me so no matter the outcome I have lost nothing and potentially might have won something – some kind of recognition.

It felt good to do something positive … something that polite artists ’shouldn’t do’ …perhaps that’s it – the thing that has shifted … I’ve reached the limit of being polite … or at least polite in situations that do not warrant it. ’Polite’ is perhaps not exactly right … more like deference … I have reached the limit of deference … inappropriate deference. I am tired of feeling inferior, unimportant, ignored, unworthy, and unequal.

 

 

I started writing this post on Saturday morning … it is now Wednesday morning and I am at the studio readying myself for another day at the computer writing the 2023 annual report for the artists’ club. I would much rather be working on the new chapter of Following Eugène … especially having seen Conny Karlson Lundberg’s beautiful show ’I Kiss Your Eyes’ (Jag kysser dina ögon). His work combines historical, contemporary, personal, and cultural narratives in works that are both poetic and political. His parred down aesthetic invites engagement that unfolds and rewards as it teases out lives lead across different times and countries.

What kind of artist do I want to be? That familiar, and as yet unanswered, question rears up again. Seeing Karlsson Lundberg’s show reminded me that there are ways of be being an artist that defy easy classification, that perhaps create their identity as they the work evolves …

… so I guess that I had better get on and make work

 

 

 


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This afternoon I got some simple advice on how I might capitalise (not sure I am completely with my choice of word) on being in Liljevalchs Vårsalong. I should identify some commercial galleries that I am interested in working with and in a few sentences present myself and ask if they are interested in working/collaborating with me.

There are a few galleries in Stockholm that I like … that I pay attention to and visit when I am in town. There are also some that I pay less attention to but that for some reason appeal to me. I need to do some more research into those to see what kind of artists they are already working with, and see if I can work out how they work with their artists.

I should also identify and approach some non-commercial galleries – council and ’foundation’ funded ones rather than artist-run.

Writing this I think that it might be a good idea to return to the show this week and take some better … more useable … photographs.

 

I am still thinking through my reaction(s) to a critic’s lazy and disrespectful comment aimed at me and several other exhibitors * – that we have merely copied other artists/artworks. His comments are actually disrespectful to the selectors too – suggesting that they didn’t see the implied plagiarism (that is to say that the selectors are not as well informed as he is), and by extension weren’t up to the job. The thing that niggles at me is that this is not the only case of such poor … ignorant …criticism that has been made about particular pieces in the exhibition. I am thinking of a specific instance, made by a different critic, which at best could be called misjudged and at worst blatant racism.

Before I posted my response to the critic’s words on my Facebook and Instagram accounts I wrote to him directly at the online magazine that he directs and publishes and where his review appears. I concluded my letter by inviting him to get in touch. So far he has not … and to be honest I do not expect him to do that. Doing so would be too large admission of culpability.

I shall, when appropriate, continue to refer to this in conversations and discussions regarding how one’s work can be so inaccurately assessed by someone who certainly should know better.

The incident has also made me realise that I should never underestimate someone’s … anyone’s … ability to miss what is actually right in front of them. I am pretty sure that I have mis-read other artists’ work, or not given it the time that it required to make more than a cursory judgement. The difference is that I am not then putting in this print. I think that it was while studying and then working with David Barrett and Lucy Head that I learned something very important – if you don’t have time to make an informed comment then don’t make a comment at all. Neither David nor Lucy ever said this outright … they didn’t need to because they simply embodied it and for that learning I am very grateful.

 

 

*the article is Swedish so here’s a translation of the closing paragraph:

A peculiarity of the Spring Exhibition 2024 is the number of participants who more or less shamelessly choose to get close to other artists’ works/expressions. Postmodernism’s credo of art as a source of art is celebrating a belated triumph, where the artists – with their current soul mate in parentheses – Stuart Mayes (Charlotte Walentin), Linus Bronge (Helene Schjerfbeck), Anders Ekblom (Ola Billgren), Æsa Saga Ardal (Meret Oppenheim), Anna Clarén (Tuija Lindström), Frank Bruzelius (Tom of Finland) and Susanne Bonja (Kristina Jansson) casually flirt with both older and newer art history. Perhaps this is what the multifaceted Art Sweden 2024 really looks like: an aesthetic smorgasbord where originality and uniformity are not mutually exclusive.

 

 

 


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So what do I do now? How do I make the most of being in a very hyped exhibition? The new gallery director together with very media savvy colleagues, selectors, and curators have certainly created a great deal of interest and enthusiasm … they have re-invigorated the Spring Exhibition – the headline in yesterday’s ’other’ broadsheet: Is the Spring Exhibition Becoming Cool? My work is one of several accompanying the article!

Not only that but my work appears in short report in the culture news on the national tv channel!

And literally as I am writing my ’Google alert’ let me know that my work is in another paper: Ålands Newspaper.

My mind is racing …

 

 

 

 


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Truly enjoying my Hotel Breakfast … still a ’course’ or two to go! … after a lovely evening and good night’s sleep.

It was lovely to see so many friends and colleagues at the opening last night … I am getting a goose-bumpy, and almost tearful (again), realising that I am part of the art-scene … I know people and people know me. Some I know through the Supermarket Art Fair – as both co-workers and exhibitors, some are artists that I have met in other contexts, some are ’other’ artists professionals – curators, and gallerists. It was great to meet the exhibition’s selectors and curators, as well as some of the exhibition team and the new head of the gallery.

I was very excited to hear that one of the selectors, who was also one of the curators, visits Uppsala to see his parents … and that he wants to do a studio visit. He’s very active in the art world and is really making his queer POC voice heard in what is the rather conservative Stockholm/Swedish scene.

And my work looks great! I have a whole wall to myself! The installation has been done brilliantly – by chance … coincidence … I was standing close to the pieces shortly after arriving and someone that I know walked by – he is one of the recently appointed new teachers on the foundation course just outside of Uppsala, I met him at the County Council’s Christmas dinner. We said hello and I asked if he was in the show, ’no’ he said he was one of the lighting technicians, and he asked if I was exhibiting. ’Yes’ I said and pointed to my work. ’Oh!!!!’ he said ’that was the first piece that I lit – it was my apprenticeship!’ He then apologised for not having read the label and not realising that it was my work! With nearly three hundred pieces to light in a high-profile exhibition I was not surprised that he was focussed in his task rather than seeing who had done what. And I have to say that he, with advice from the senior technician, has done a great job.

It’s going take me some time to digest all the feedback that I got – both verbally and visually … that is what people said to me but also what it is to see my work exhibited like that, in that context and given that attention. For now I will just say that I am truly thankful, and very very grateful.

 

(my first show with a rope/courdon!)

 

 

 


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