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From Bread and Roses to Bread and Jam …

From Bread and Roses, an ongoing personal project created in response to the 2015 election result, to a group show, Bread and Jam in a private, soon to be renovated home in Brockley, London – it’s been a productive few weeks, creatively.

 

 

The Bread and Jam show ended last Sunday, July 26th on what would have been my Nana’s 107th birthday. I’ve barely had time to acknowledge the date, let alone find the time to complete the piece of work I was inspired to make in response to the 5th anniversary of my Nana’s death. Anniversaries have always been important to me and I’m looking forward to finding time to be in the studio some day soon so that I can complete this particular piece of work, a homage to my late Nana – Five Summers Without You.

Being a part of the 11 strong group of artists participating in the Bread and Jam exhibition proved to be a really positive experience for me. Being actively encouraged to spend time in the house and to respond to our chosen space in any way we wanted, meant an opportunity for the invited artists to totally immerse themselves in their work and surroundings if they so wished. I found it completely liberating to have physical space in which to present my work, especially following my recent move from a studio where I had quite literally, boxed myself in and had no space in which to manoeuvre.

On the basis that there’s so much to say that it’s almost impossible to know where to start, I’m adding a few of my favourite images I took of the show – some close ups & details of my own and other artist’s work and the similarities, common threads, cross overs running through it. And some images capturing the fabric of the house itself – the patina on the walls, weathered, well-worn lino, water stains and so on. More will emerge, I’m sure.


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George Osborne’s benefit cuts set to make 13 million families ‘significantly worse off.’  Independent, July 9th 2015.

Bread and Roses’ is showing increasing signs of neglect, mirroring the harsh austerity measures imposed by the Tory government since the General Election. These images have been documented over the past few weeks since the Tory’s Election victory in May, 2015. Click on the link below to read more about how the ‘Bread and Roses’ project has developed:

http://www.katemurdochartist.com/latest.html

 

 

 


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In the garage this morning, delving into the archives, I discovered a box of  (mostly sprayed) gold objects amidst other small metal items.

The fortune cookie below is one of the ‘Stock Exchange’ gold pieces from 2009. Finding it is timely, having been reminded of this piece of work by an artist I hadn’t seen in a while at the APT gallery, Deptford on Saturday. The gold objects were exhibited and put up for exchange in ‘The Stock Exchange’ cabinet as part of my contribution to the ‘Alchemy’ exhibition for the Deptford X arts festival. The fortune cookie has lasted surprisingly well, considering it’s foodstuff and has been knocking around for so long.

This is what I wrote about the state of financial affairs in the UK at that time, in 2009:

‘It’s been a year of uncertainty and in the current economic climate, nothing seems to be safe. People are struggling to cope with the possibility of losing everything – their work, their income, their homes, their relationships, their communities.
While the rich rush to transfer their investments into gold, the poor pack up their jewellery in envelopes in response to the glut of Cash For Gold ads on TV.
The Stock Exchange’ gives you an opportunity to put right some of the wrongs that have been inflicted upon us. This is your chance to be an Alchemist and turn your base metal into gold.
Just bring along an item of non-precious metal (lead, copper, aluminium, zinc) and exchange it for one of my golden offerings. Watch the process of reverse alchemy unfold, and help to transform gold into base metal.’

Six years on, and nothing has changed. I sprayed a total of 79 objects gold in all, the number 79 representing the atomic number of gold. Despite a lot of exchanges being made at the time, I still found plenty of ‘gold’ in the box marked ‘Stock Exchange‘ this morning. Saturday’s conversation with the artist who remembered the work and told me he still has his ‘golden treasure’ made me realise how relevant the sentiments expressed in the above piece of writing still are – degrees of unfairness and greed continue to be issues, as the gap between the rich & poor/the haves & have nots in our society grows ever wider. I might just need to resurrect this piece of work.


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