- Venue
- Towner
- Date
- Wednesday, April 22, 2015
06:00 PM - Address
- Devonshire Park, College Road, Eastbourne BN21 4JJ
- Location
- South East England
- Organiser
- Blue Monkey Network
This popular event provides an opportunity for our five artist-presenters to brush up on their presentation skills, as well as a chance for artists to get to know each other better and explore the breadth and diversity of artistic practice in the region. The five artists will each talk for five minutes and show 15 images of, or relating to their work in these short and snappy Pecha Kucha style presentations.
The talks will be followed by time for discussion, chat and a glass of wine.
This month’s 5×5 event has been organised for Blue Monkey Network by Nikki Davidson-Bowman. The five presenters work across a diverse range of media and disciplines and represent all stages of career development, from early career to established artists. The five are Vanessa Marr, Steph Grainger, Stephen Piggott, Emily McLennan and Christine Gist.
Christine Gist is an artist and curator based in Hastings. After completing an MFA Sculpture at Yale (1983), her studio practice focused on object based work informed by vernacular architecture combined with artists-led curatorial projects in New Haven & beyond. This way of working continued through the 90s but around 2003, her concerns shifted to an effective response to the space & concept. In 2009, she initiated a collaborative installation ‘Iceberg’ – 100 tonnes of chalk nuggets on Hastings beach which significantly transformed the way she thought about her practice & working in the public space. Materials, context & site are now the elements which inspire & define each intervention. https://christinegist.wordpress.com/
Vanessa Marr is an artist, graphic designer and lecturer based in East Sussex. Her practice takes a critical view of the relationship between text and the visual, which she explores through design, drawing, handmade books, embroidery and poetry. Supported by a background in graphic design and an MA in Sequential Design and Illustration, her work is underpinned by visual design-theory and process, yet embraces an intuitive and physical approach that facilitates self-authorship and her continuing exploration of narrative and sequence. Vanessa is particularly interested in the domestic and feminine origins of fairy tales and the impact of these narratives in the modern home. Her recent embroidered dusters reference traditional ‘women’s work’ and inspired a collaborative project inviting other women to stitch their perspective on domesticity onto a duster. https://marrvanessa.wordpress.com/
Stephen Piggott draws and paints the human form. Drawing from life allows him to return to the form and painting comes from thinking and being imaginative with the life studies through colour and composition. Stephen says, “I like the play between figuration and abstraction that for me invites a more personal and emotional response. My method is generally I have to see something then draw it. There follows a sometimes long and intense exploration of what I have seen by drawing from drawings, relying on memory and the freedom to change things until I am compelled to continue exploring through paint and brush.” http://www.stephenpigott.com/index.php
Steph Grainger’s work exists somewhere between visual art and theatre. She sees these two interests as being symbiotic rather than polarised. Theatre is fundamental to Steph’s visual art practice; unlike a work of visual art, a theatrical performance is ephemeral, capturing a moment in time, held in a memory. Steph says, “Historical performances of roles are lost to us where as visual art can be seen as ‘preserved’ in the gallery – unchanged by time.” This idea is central to her work, as is the process of transcribing from one media to another, using performance, drawing, animation and print to investigate these relationships. http://www.stephaniegrainger.co.uk/
Emily McLennan is an artist and educator living in Uckfield, East Sussex. Her work was recently exhibited in a group show at West Dean College. Currently Emily is making photograms responding to the theme ‘the lines that connect us’. She is interested in the dichotomy between the lines we use to protect us and our property and the lines we use to reach out and connect with others. Preparatory work includes collage, making wire sculptures and projecting these to make light drawings and paper cut-outs. A short video about this is on her website: www.greybury.com.
Artists – all welcome
FREE to Blue Monkey Network members; £5 non-members
Refreshments will be available (contributions welcome) or please feel free to bring a bottle.
