ALAS Residency

Wednesday was the last day of presentations, we saw Seetha Alagapan, Karolina Magnusson-Murray, Ventiko, Charley Peters and Zoe Fudge

Seetha works in collaboration as Moorland Productions. She has exhibited widely in Europe and participated in many residencies, so it was really useful to find out about her experiences of these.

Karolina presented some really powerful work exploring father/daughter interactions in really brave and poignant performances and films. It was inspiring to see the sensitive way she includes members of the public in her work.

Ventiko takes photographs that have the gorgeous asestic of Renaissance paintings, they are beautiful and layered with meaning. She has lighting skills that I would love to learn and hopefully I will have time to see her shoot and light.

The approach to drawing in Charley’s work I find really interesting, she often uses time intensive systems to produce an abstract drawing that is beautiful in it’s simultaneous complexity and simplicity.

Her background as an architect informs Zoe’s work, giving it precision and grace. She makes abstract constructions that still hold a functional quality with out being directly intended for practical use.

www.moorland-productions.com

http://www.karolinamagnussonmurray.com/

http://ventiko.com/

http://charleypeters.com/

http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/219697-zoe-fudge?tab=PROFILE

Yesterday we started the day but talking about South London galleries and answering some questions about galleries in general and how to approach them which was really useful.

We had time to do some studio work over lunch and I experimented with my non-functional electricity pieces (pictured)

I the afternoon we heard from four more of our fellow artists again: Caroline Halford, Hannah Futers, Susanna Thornton and Sarah West

Carolines’s work has a wonderful spontaneity and formal aesthetic. She almost curates found objects in a way that give them a new power.

The sense of play and potential in Hannah’s work was really inspiring, she reminded me that sometimes we can become comfortable in our skills base and forget to learn new things. And how important that is.

Susanna’s Photography is very beautiful, she take quite abstracted pitures of night time, being more interested in colour and composition than the subjects of the photos. She made me want to get out the medium format again!

I’m fascinated buy the formal process Sarah engages in with her work, making composite painting from banks of hundreds of drawings from magazine sources that come together into a new fractured world. The value she puts on process and ritual within her work gives it an real integrity

http://www.susannathornton.com/

http://www.sarahweststudio.com/

A personal reflection:

One of the reasons I decided to take part in this residency was to make some important decisions about where to take my art career, and to make a solid plan of how to move forward.

As it stands, with the jobs and interests I have I can see three clear routes for myself ahead: Arts education as an organiser, arts education as a freelance artist, or working as an artist.

I would like to always keep these things in my portfolio of activities, plus add other things, but I feel I need to focus my energy and make some clear goals.

At the moment I am really drawn to concentrating more on promoting my own artwork but want to keep a strong link with arts education because I love being involved with it so much.

and this combination in many ways would be perfect; it would allow me to keep my art practice pure in it’s vision but at the same time exercise my passion for promoting engagement in arts.

So, now that is decided it is time to start thinking of a plan…

So, on Saturday we visited lots of galleries in the East End and had some introductions to gallerist where possible. This was a really interesting experience and we got a lot of first hand information about how artists are selected for the spaces. The general summery seemed to bit that mainly people are either introduce to a gallery by an existing represented artist or are “pick up” at a group show, open show or art fair.

The biggest message so far has been it is so important to get stuff out there, get involved, get talking and get seen.

I am still wondering about how viable this is as a regional artist??

Today we had two visiting lecturers: Rosalind Davis of Zeitgeist Arts Projects and Sarah Rowles of Q-Art.

Both were talking about peer networking and artist led organisations, there was some really valuable insights and practical tips. The importance of social networking was brought home (something I need to re-evaluate) all part of this network, network, network message that is coming across so clearly.

Something that Sarah talked about particularly captured me: she was reflecting on how outside of London there are very few places with a structured art scene, which means graduates can sometimes feel a bit lost BUT she said that she saw this as a really exciting thing, because people can re-invent the art culture in that city, there is space to change, move and expand.

http://www.zeitgeistartsprojects.com/

http://www.q-artlondon.com/

In the afternoon we had four presentations of our fellow residentees, Julia Miranda, Araba Ocran, Paul Stanley and Jane Oldfield.

Julia’s work I found very beautiful and I am very interested in her process. She works with automatic marks often on found surfaces, and here confidence in her own vision and aesthetic makes for very seductive pieces.

The sculptural pieces that Araba showed spoke of carefully considered production, paring away until she distilled the core of what she wanted to communicate, for me her work has an iconic quality.

I was deeply impressed by Paul’s articulation of the ideas around his work, which obviously comes from a solid theoretical framework. I feel I could learn a lot from this, giving more consideration to to the wider context of ideas my work deals with.

The variety of Jane’s work was both inspiring and comforting to me. I often feel that my work is quite scattered because of the variety of media that I cover but I could see clearly in her work that a theme can unite a body of work as strongly as a material.

http://www.juliamiranda.co.uk/

http://2009.atcamberwell.com/courses/bahons-sculpture/students/araba-ocran

http://paulstanleyart.com/

http://www.janeoldfield.co.uk/

Another successful day, spend all of it drawing and exploring ideas for the show.

Tomorrow we are going on a tour of galleries in the East End to hopefully meet some gallery owners and see some shows, really looking forward to it, I am starting to feel like I am getting to grips with the art scene here and much more confident about my prospect of showing in some London galleries.