Nothing is Finished, Nothing is Perfect, Nothing Lasts

After a lot of problem solving (budget + huge wall + fabrication + safety etc = this), I spent a really fun couple of days in March planning and making the work with Philip Hutfield from McD Marketing Ltd and Corian® using Cutting Edge plc’s amazing workshop for fabrication.

It’s made using Corian®, the same material the wall is clad in. We baked the material in a sheet 2.5 metres long (big oven) and used a mould to create the soft loop shape while the Corian® was still pliable. The work was fixed to the wall using silicone – in the same way that windows are fixed into skyscrapers. Some images to give you an idea before I get chance to document the work properly.

A huge thanks to Phil for all his hard work on the project. It will be up at Open Eye Gallery until September 2nd, unless the silicone is so strong it has to stay permanently! The work is part of the external wall, so can be seen outside of gallery opening hours, although the exhibitions inside are well worth a visit.

CUTTING EDGE ///  CORIAN® /// OPEN EYE GALLERY

Panoply schedule & review

Denis Joe has written a review of the exhibition on Manchester Salon.

A few dates if you’d like to catch me performing in Panoply before the exhibition closes on 22nd April. I shall also be doing an informal Walk & Talk event at the Bluecoat on Thursday, you can reserve a free place on their website here if you’d like to attend.

Performance schedule:

Easter Monday: 2-4pm

Thursday 12th April 2-4pm followed by Walk & Talk: 6 -7.30 pm

Saturday 14th: 12 – 2pm

Monday 16th: 11am – 1pm

Saturday 21st: 2-4pm

Sunday 22nd: 3-6pm

(I may appear at additional times, but these are guaranteed).

 

Panoply

Some images of my new work, Panoply, at the Bluecoat as part of Topophobia. I’ll be inside the work next on Saturday from 12 – 2pm and will post a schedule of future performances here very soon..

All images courtesy of Anne Eggebert.

Panoply, 2012
Space for a body: scaffold and painted wood.
20ft x 3ft x 8ft

[A panoply is a complete suit of armour or a complete set of diverse components.”panoply” refers to the full armour of a hoplite or heavy-armed soldier, i.e. the shield, breastplate, helmet and greaves, together with the sword and lance.] Source

Panoply is a kind of hiding place made high above the normal passageways of the gallery, shielding me from the other inhabitants, like armour for my body. Fractured glimpses of my body are visible as I move around the space. This narrow corridor is like a wooden cloak or carapace, but the privacy it affords also turns into a trap; a claustrophobic space I can’t leave without being seen.

Bound by Silence

‘and all of the spaces inbetween’ will be in this exhibition of artists’ books at SUNY Cortland, New York State from March 12th to April 6th. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Exhibiting artists: Dean Ebben, Jennifer Grimyser, Candance Hicks, Christopher K. Ho, Alison Knowles, Jessica Lagunas, Dani Leventhal, Barbara Rosenthal, Buzz Spector, Emily Speed. With work from the permanent collection by Carl Andre, John Baldessari, Peter Bernett, Jenny Holzer, Jeffrey Keedy, Barbara Kruger, Edda Renous, Ed Ruscha and Linn Underhill.

Exhibition flyer here: Bound by Silence

“These works examine the relationship between the visual elements and literary devices at play and emphasize the correlation between meaning and metaphor.  They were selected based on three criteria: the approach to craft tradition and the conceptual motivation, the source of the content, and the materiality of the language.  The purpose is to trace the heritage of these components back to the artist’s overall practice, most of them working with familiar forms, and to question the ways in which the information is being transmitted and consumed”

Camp Out

Upcoming exhibition at Laumeier Sculpture Park:

Camp Out: Finding Home in an Unstable World

June 2 – September 16, 2012

Camp Out: Finding Home in an Unstable World is the third in a series of summer projects that will use the natural and cultural resources of St. Louis as a site for artistic inquiry and production. The artists invited for Camp Out will conduct “action research” to comment on, add to or question the unique history of the St. Louis region and of the role artist’s play in addressing urgent social questions. The title Camp Out suggests the two extremes of living in the landscape. For some, camping is a deliberate “back-to-nature” experience precluded in our urbanized world. For other past and present global citizens, however, displacement from home and finding basic resources for living is a great struggle.

Laumeier will animate its public spaces by presenting artists whose practice addresses long-neglected issues of concern in our region, such as the disappearance of “public space”, the conversion of arable agricultural land for suburban sprawl or industrial use, the isolation that comes with suburban living and the persistent social and economic divisions between racial groups caused through the mechanisms of history. Artists for this project will work off of ancient and contemporary forms of human shelter, using new materials and processes to create unique sculptural forms. The resulting works will encompass shapes deeply rooted in nature to those that use new technologies to engage the aural and visual landscapes that say something about the way we live—or need to live—now. These projects will unpack a range of American myths, from the self-sufficiency of the rugged individual to the sense of land as empty and conquerable, where resource extraction is without consequence. This project signals a refreshed direction for Laumeier’s artistic goals, and will allow artists a unique opportunity to experiment with space. 

Artists for the project include: BGL: Jasmin Bilodeau, Sébastien Giguère, and Nicolas Laverdière (Canada), Oliver Bishop-Young (UK), Cyprien Gaillard (France), Isabelle Hayeur (Canada), Edgar Martins (UK), Mary Mattingly (USA), Michael Rakowitz (USA), Emily Speed (UK), Dré Wapenaar (the Netherlands), Yin Xiuzhen (China), Kim Yasuda (USA).

Topophobia

After a great opening at Danielle Arnaud Gallery, the exhibition is open and the publication on sale. There are some fantastic essays in the book and it’s beautifully designed by Ken Kirton – great use of different paper stocks and embossed cover. The book will be available as an e-book on Amazon shortly. I will be talking about my work in Topophobia at the Symposium at Central St Martins on 10th February – more information on this, the publication, artists, exhibition etc HERE.

Topophobia

Last few days in the studio on the work for the Topophobia exhibition, opening at Danielle Arnaud on 13th January. ‘Star Fort’ will be a fold up structure built and documented in the gallery (some preliminary sketches for the work shown). The second leg of the show, at the Bluecoat from 2nd March, will also feature a newly commissioned work that will occupy the corridor space.

The fear of place and the manifestation of this in contemporary art is the territory for TOPOPHOBIA. As an anxiety disorder, this phobia is understood as an irrational dread of certain places or situations, yet, considered as a cultural phenomenon topophobia connects us to the existential human question of how each of us finds our place in the world. The exhibition and related publication take a look at the representation of place and space as threatened or threatening.

TOPOPHOBIA is a group show featuring the work of ten UK and international artists. The range of media and approaches is wide. Anne Eggebert makes detailed drawings derived from images on Google Earth; Matthias Einhoff uses high-end corporate video techniques to make a spectacle of an urban wasteland; David Ferrando Giraut creates a state of anxiety with his filmic pan of the aftermath of a car accident; Polly Gould constructs distorted topographical watercolours reflected in the surface of a globe; Marja Helander depicts herself out of place between her two cultures of contemporary Finland and Sami nomadic heritage; Uta Kogelsberger reveals uncanny night visions of urban and desert America in her photographs; Almut Rink appropriates the 3D software used by architects to take the viewer on an imaginary journey in a virtual space; Abigail Reynolds exposes disjointed time and place in her use of old book illustrations in collages and assemblage. Emily Speed houses her body in a fortress made from shutters; and Louise K Wilson uses sound derived from her work at a previously top secret Cold War testing site.