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EXHIBITIONS

Wimbledon College Of Arts Degree Show 2019

   Charley Allen's 'My Home In Refuge' made me think about home, what home means in particular. At this point, I was already interested in abandoned buildings and the things that are left behind which remind you that it was once someone's home.

   I was very interested by the materials used in Nikita Russi's 'next-presso'. This piece was made by recycling old coffee machine pods. This got me thinking about what sort of materials I could use in my artwork to make it sustainable, I am very interested in recylcing items and giving them a new purpose.

Oriel Davies Gallery: Twist: Cecile Johnson Soliz

   “My drawing has always been very physical. Sometimes I draw on paper and it remains flat and is hung on a wall to look at. Other times I use the drawing and paper in a more sculptural way and consider space, light and gravity as part of the work: this makes them become a part of the physical world.”

   This exhibition really opened my eyes to how simple materials like paper can be manipulated to make all kinds of sculptures and structures, and a drawing doesn't have to be a 2D piece of paper hanging on a wall. Whenever I picture sculptures I always assume they have to be made from materials such a wood, clay and metal, so this exhibition reminded me that any material can be used to create sculptures.

   Although using paper in this way isn't very sustainable, paper sculptures can be made by recycling paper from old books etc.

   'She uses common, simple human gestures and actions like stuffing, wrapping, gathering, stacking and folding in a process of sculpture-making that is both poetic and playful, curious and familiar. In her exhibition at Oriel Davies she is transforming the building, its gallery spaces and the quality of light through ambitious new work.'

Wimbledon College Of Arts MA Show 2019

    At the Wimbledon College of Arts MA show I discovered the detailed paintings of Richard Glynn Roberts. These caught my attention because he had somehow managed to create beautiful paintings of quite a dark and depressing subject matter - the abandoned.

    'My latest work continues to explore narratives around transience, obsolescence and abandonment. I focus on depictions of discarded personal household clutter-worn out, spent stuff. The paintings reference snaps I take of recrudescent household detritus that appears and disappears in and around my part of South London. Banal stuff often deemed unworthy of attention in which I seek and detect meaning.'

Tate Modern: In Real Life: Olafur Eliasson

    'Eliasson has long been interested in nature and the weather. From the start, he connected his experiences of the Icelandic landscape to the practice of making sculpture. Some works such as Wavemachines 1995 replicate natural phenomena. In Moss Wall 1994 Eliasson adds an unexpected material from outdoors to the controlled indoor space of the museum. The aroma and texture of the work affect the senses too.'

   I wanted to see this exhibition as I had researched Eliasson in a previous unit and I really related to his motivation and inspiration for his artwork, nature. The piece that intrigued me most was 'Moss Wall 1994'. I was torn between whether the moss was taking over the wall, proving that nature is greater than man-made or if the moss was being controlled and restricted by man. This piece inspired me to think about using outdoor materials in my work such as plants like ivy which tend to 'take over' man-made structures.

    Like myself, Eliasson is concerned by climate change, which he often addresses through his artwork, either directly or abstractly. 'Eliasson often uses glacial ice in his work. Sometimes, the ice is intended as a call for action against climate emergency. In 'Glacial currents 2018', chunks of glacial ice were placed on top of washes of colour pigment. This created swells and fades of colour as they melted onto the paper beneath. 'Glacial spherical flare 2019' is consructed with glass made from small rock particles created by glacial erosion.'

    While viewing 'Beauty 1993' I again got a sense that Eliasson was trying to make a point about humans trying to control everything or recreate nature. In this piece, it was like he was bringing the weather inside. During my interaction with this piece, the mixture of the humidity and the spraying water made me feel like I was in a light rain shower in the middle of an overcast summer's day. I found it funny that people were amazed by this because it was inside and man-made, whereas they would be complaining about this weather if it was outside and natural.

The Pompidou Centre: Main Collection 2019

   So many artworks in this exhibition inspired me, especially the variety of sculptures. The first artwork that really stood out to me was 'Papillons de Colombie', it was so beautiful but it also made me feel quite sad seeing these beautiful creatures of nature, lifeless. Considering a climate crisis has now been declared, it really made me think about how if this piece was created in the 21st century, it would likely be a comment on the environment.

   Another piece that stood out to me was 'Compression Ricard' because I have been so interested in recycling different materials to create art and giving things that would be seen as rubbish a completely new purpose.

Hayward Gallery: Here Is Elsewhere: Thabisco Sekgala

   'Running through all of his work is a fascination with the idea of home, and the personal, political or economic conditions that determine our relationship to it' 

   This exhibition was a reminder for me about how third world countries are already struggling with the effects of climate change. It seems that in the UK we are oblivious to the fact that this destruction is already happening and will eventually happen to us in the not-too-distant future. The media only seem to care when these things happen to celebrities such as the fires in LA destroying wealthy peoples homes.

Garden Museum: Main Collection & What to Look for in the Garden

   'The Garden Museum was founded by Rosemary and John Nicholson in 1977 in order to rescue the abandoned church of St Mary’s at Lambeth'.

   I was most intrigued by Law's 'Vitrine' and Spragg's Peephole box, especially the fact that both of these artworks showed nature being contained in some way or another.

   I also found it interesting how differently we view nature compared to when these Ladybird books were published, I don't think nowadays we are as interested in British wildlife, such as knowing about different plants and flowers.

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National Museum Cardiff: Natural History Collection 2019

   A huge part of the Natural History Collection focused on climate change, pollution and wildlife conservation. It particularly raises awareness about protecting sea life such as whales and turtles by educating visitors on what the threats to these creatures and what we can do to help. 

   The museum also makes an effort to get children involved, to help them learn about issues such as pollution. For example, inviting children to write what changes they will make to reduce pollution and sticking them on the wall.

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Design Museum: Moving to Mars

   This exhibition really made me realise how important it is that we do everything that we can to save our planet. I found it terrifying how much research has already been done for humans to relocate to Mars, from our accommodation to farming. This may sound exciting at first, however, the reality is quite depressing. We would be leaving our beautiful planet that has everything we need, amazing wildlife and we have the freedom to travel to pretty much wherever we wish. If we ended up moving to mars we would be stuck indoors, we would have to eat basic food, we would just be surviving really, and I think that humans would mentally struggle in these conditions without the freedom that we are used to. So let's stop taking advantage of the beautiful place that we live and realise how lucky we are.

   The most interesting part of this exhibition for me was seeing how we would grow plants and food on Mars. It was all so artificial. I was amazed at how plants will grow wherever they can, even in a man-made container that is nothing like their usual habitat. It made me think about how I wanted to use live plants in my artwork and what I can do to make sure that they thrive without natural sunlight.

St Fagans National Museum of History

   St Fagans has over 40 original historic buildings from all over Wales, it was so interesting to see how the way that we live has evolved so much. We used to have such a natural lifestyle, living within nature and embracing it. We produced everything ourselves, we built our own houses and grew our own food, it seems that we had such a wholesome life. Later on, we began to work for money and instead of growing our own food and making things for ourselves, we bought them from other people. Nowadays many people are stuck in unfulfilling 9-5 jobs, living paycheck to paycheck. I think we have become greedy as a society. We always want new things. Would we be better off starting again with a more simple way of life?

180 The Strand: TRANSFORMER: A Rebirth of Wonder

   This exhibition gave me a lot of ideas about the composition of my artwork, such as how different lighting and special effects such as smoke can create different atmospheres. This was important because I have been debating using a smoke machine in my installation to represent pollution and create an eerie effect, so it was useful to a see a smoke machine in action as part of Quentin Lacombe's 'Event Horizon', especially because we both work with similar themes. 'Prehistoric and futuristic, this installation is influenced by Lacombe's architectural background, and plays with the brutalist underground architecture of 180 The Strand... Event Horizon offers a portal to a universe both chaotic and mesmirising where we are invited to consider the human condition'. 

   Another artwork which inspired me was 'New Era' by Doug Aitken. His video installation addressed the issue of how technology, mainly mobile phones, affects us and how we see the world, which partly relates to my practice. I also found the way that Aitken used mirrors in this piece. It meant that the video was reflected all around the room which was quite disorientating, similar to a kaleidoscope. I found it interesting how these mirrors also meant that the viewers could see themselves, encouraging them to think about their own relationship to their mobile phone. It was quite amusing that many people were taking pictures and videos of this artwork on their mobile phones, including myself. 'The age of accelerationism has propelled us into hyper-individuality. The seductive, immersive nature of oyr relationship with mobile technology launches us into a new era, one of complete connectivity and one where the screen space has become equal to the physical space around us'.

Site Gallery: The River Project: Categories of Life and Death

   'With a focus on the outer edges of Sheffield, where a derelict Victorian Cemetery meets the River Don, The River Project explores notions of creation, destruction, rebirth and the soul. 200 years ago, when Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was first published, uncertainty surrounded categories of life and death, with a widely held belief that death could be cured.'

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   Eelyn Lee explains how the film depicts a 'conjuring of the Celtic goddess Danu and a creature of her making to explore themes of pollution and renewal'. This exhibition made me question what I think about mortality. Do I believe that human extinction would be something positive for the future of our planet? And would this allow nature to revive? Or would the damage that we have already done be irreversible? So I am torn on whether to portray Earth's future in a way that will make the viewers feel completely uncomfortable knowing that there is no hope for our planet, or if I want to suggest that there is still hope for nature to thrive, the existence of humans only evident by the ruins of buildings.

 

Site Gallery: Things to Come: Graham Ellard & Stephen Johnstone

   'Things to Come' was set-up and filmed in Site Gallery using a 15mm camera. 'Created over a period four weeks, Graham Ellard and Stephen Johnstone built an abstract, metal and glass model in the gallery based on a series of unpublished production photographs of Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy’s ‘future city’ set designs, commissioned for the 1936 science fiction film Things to Come.'

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   Ellard and Johnstone recreated this city using second-hand household items sourced from Ebay which relates to the materials that I use to construct by buildings, reusing old newspapers. Watching this film has also inspired me to experiment with light and shadows, and how that could add to the way that my sculptures are viewed. Could dark shadows make them more ominous?

   I find it fascinating how excited people were about the future during the 20th century, which are evident in science fiction films and writings during this time, something which I would like to explore further.

Manchester Art Gallery: Jerwood Makers Open

   The artworks which I was most interested by were Bethan Lloyd Worthington's 'Making all the greens stable' and Forest + Found's 'The Subjective Element'.

   The inspiration for Worthington's work was the controversy over the mass felling of street trees in Sheffield and its environmental impact: 'tree felling and revolution, growth and violence.

   Forest + Found create their sculptures using raw materials such as wood, earth and iron sourced from land around the UK, as they feel a deep connection to these earthly materials. I find this wholesome relationship with raw materials very interesting as it is completely different to the recycled materials that I tend to use.

   

Wellcome Collection: Being Human

   I visited the 'Being Human' exhibition just as Coronavirus began to spread across the world, in an attempt to find out more about such outbreaks and the effect that it will have on the world, as well as learning about other human activities that are having an effect on the planet.

   The exhibit that stood out to me the most was 'Refugee Astronaut', a sculpture showing how climate change will likely cause an increase in refugees as different areas across the world, especially third world countries, are destroyed by rising sea levels and an increase in natural disasters.

   

   

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