babssmithart

[babssmithart]

Steve Oliver’s Exhibition, Best Muscle is on at Home, Manchester is on two floors and is part of an investigation into structures that make the photographic image work. Without cameras these images are curious and cause the eye to move around the image as if it were a detective - perhaps a reference to the title. The fact that these works were conceived over a long period of time as the artist searches out the computer images, adds to the depth and tension. Found photographs and computer images are fused together. This exhibition makes you question what are you looking at and that can only be good. It is well worth a visit and is on until 26th May @homemcr #Manchester #art #exhibition

[babssmithart]

Today we had a tour of @islingtonmill Salford, over 100 artists and 50 businesses are working within this community which has helped over 5000 artists. We were shown the new studios and Caustic Coastal before listening to @Sally_Gilford@salfordmakers who explained the way that this creative community supports artists and participates in the community. This was a wonderful opportunity thank you to Sally Gilford for your time. @uos_artsmedia#Salford #fineart #community

[babssmithart]

Perspex is forming the base of my investigation into the memory of a rock climb. Repetition and light is playing a part in this maquette. #sculpture #climbing#rockclimbing #fineart #northwales#Salford #SalfordUniversity@plasybreninofficial

[babssmithart]

Working with my favorite colours recalling images from the Merz Barn. #kurtshwitters#artinmanchester #studiopractice2

[babssmithart]

At Manchester Art Gallery Rachel Holliday and Rox Mawdsley helped to host an exhibition to showcase work made by children with autism and their families. The sessions provide a quiet room where children can develop their skills with artists who understand autism.The evening included film of the children and music performed by them. It really was a celebration of them and their work! #Professionalcontext2 #manchester#autismawareness #artist5w

[babssmithart]

Joy For Ever is an exhibition currently on at the Whitworth Gallery celebrating the 200th birthday of the arttist,critic and social reformer Joun Ruskin. How to use art to change the world and its price in the market, is the subtitle and as normal I asked for a leaflet at the desk. I was told that the exhibition would be self explanatory. It was much more than I expected. This exhibition centered around the life’s work of John Ruskin, related to his beliefs that art could help us to change our relationships with the world. Ruskin believed that art and craft were social practices but living during the industrial revolution had changed the way that things were made as factories mass produced goods. Ruskin also believed that workers, factory owners and consumers became detached from the object and no one individual made something from start to finish. The exhibition creates 10 points of interest in Ruskin’s career and expands on them with art work and documentation such as letters written by Ruskin. It begins with the long talks he delivered during the 1857 Exhibition of Great Britain in Manchester, in which Ruskin made his opinion quite clear. During these talks he went beyond his ideas of art for local and personal use and began considering it as a means for citizens to rethink and remake their roles in society. This is linked directly with the ethos of the Whitworth. The collection is opened up to school children and to Friends of the Whiworth to choose artwork that they can relate to. The first image is one of my favorite of the show,it forms part of a project by Jorge Otero Pailos, The ethics of dust, Westminster Hall, London 2016. Using specialist cleaning latex he recovered an image and the dust from the wall and hung this beautiful impression with interesting possible comment on smears and cleaning up in politics. I spent hours at this exhibition, each of the 10 stations opened up so many diverse elements. #professionalcontext2

[babssmithart]

Emma Smith 5Hz & Euphonia is an intriguing exhibition on at Home, Manchester that transcends language barriers. It is created as a partnership with Nottingham University after a year long investigation into the psychological and neurological responses to the human voice. A new singing language made up of three components: an alphabet, syllabary and glides, which you can compile how you like. Made up of 5 areas, this exhibition takes your mind and bombards it with beautiful meaningful sounds. My first thought was that the sounds reminded me of learning Spanish and the different pronunciations of the vowels. The sound was similar to choral music and as each speaker in booths sounded out, your ear homed in on different sounds, just as with to the understanding of language. But this was so beautiful and futuristic. Imagine a language that transcends international barriers. This would have far reaching cultural implications. I Recommend this exhibition and that you spend as much time as you need to just be in the room and listen as you think of these possibilities. I made some sketches as I listened and will make some work of my own from these sketches. Fabulous! Please go and see it, it is on until 19th May. @homemcr @artistemmasmith #Manchester #exhibition #art #sound#language

[babssmithart]

Reflection on Salford Quays Print

09 May 2019

The final print/painting is still ongoing, although the journey element is strong in this subject as it is in my other work.  I lost momentum in it as I worked in 3d. However this has given me a chance to add to the layers a contemporary issue - that of waste and plastic in particular. The fact that I have reused an old map and incorporated past and present times creates a portal that is worth looking at in the future. The work of Julie Mehretu whos work I looked at extensively in SP1 influenced me heavily. To take a landscape and document it visually is the basis of her work. The fact that time is the space between the layers gives the work depth and asks the viewer to consider elements in one place that belong in different times. Adding the recent effects of the storm and the debris will give a new contextual addition to these layers. The mediums are print, paint and markers strangley in these works they seem to co-exist but it takes a lot of thought about what to add each time and how the viewer might consider each layer as it folds behind another.

The first print/paintings were submitted and the feedback was that they were too much like the work of Julie Mehretu. I have begun to make the last one more of my own. As I finish it the mark making will still become busy because this is what takes the eye around the objects and draws in the viewer but the objects will be contemporary as is the plastic debate.

Substratum was the first one I finished and has been exhibited and will be the gift at this summer's graduation with the scroll in Salford University. I interpret this as having a strong local meaning and connection to local people which is a success. Feedback is critical as some of the work is busy. It seems that the explanation of the elements and the overall context needs to be explained before it is fully understood. I hope that this process will continue to develop so that the message is clearer without explanation. If I look at the work of Julie Mehretu, there are more specific references that occupy the mind as you consider the whole. A key of meanings is created and developed as part of the resolving of the work. Although I have not spent a lot of time on this medium I believe that this method could cross over into the 3d work I make in level 6

[babssmithart]

A cast of my hand onto which I played a film through the overhead projector. This was an early stage experiment to explore the media and consider the subject of the rock climb for PC2. The hand is in a grip that is the way a climber holds on to the rock. The theme was initially on a female  climbing so I used my own hand. Later the context of the work developed and it centered on the movement of the climb and its memory as recalled by the climber.

[babssmithart]

7th May 2019 The Howarth Charitable Trust presented three worthy winners with their prizes on Friday at the opening of the exhibition. The work in this exhibition was said to be the best yet. Lots of talent from different creative courses at #universityofsalford #artist#figuratuve #fineart #Salford the exhibition is on for a while at the Old Fire Station opposite the University of Salford. #professionalcontext2

[babssmithart]

Climber #1 & #2 #ink#climbing #art #SalfordUniversity#northwales

[babssmithart]

More artwork from Exposed @paradiseworks_ by level 5 Fine Art students @salforduni A great exhibition! Well done!

[babssmithart]

Exposed Paradise Works was a great success. An opportunity to see the diverse work of fine art students @salfordunicurated by the students themselves. A fab evening and a chance to meet some lovely people. #exhibition#fineart #Salford

[babssmithart]

The opening of Acquired an exhibition at Salford Museum this evening was really well attended by artists from level 5 Fine Art, staff, local dignitaries and public. Students created prints in response to their chosen piece of art from the Museum and University collection to celebrate 100 years since it began. #salforduni #salfordmuseum@salford_museum #fineart #print

[babssmithart]

10th Feb 2019 An exhibition entitled Speech Acts @mcrartgallery and included in Works in conversation is a painting by Alan Davie Elephants Eyeful 1960 the sweeping brushstrokes and chaotic movement buzzes around the eye in the centre that is pulling and pushing at the oval shape in red and yellow. The eye being the only recognisable object. Davie was interested in the subconscious and the intuitive. This part of the exhibition considers contemporary artists in London working in dialogue with American abstract impressionism. @mcrartgallery #Manchester#abstractpainting

[babssmithart]

10th Feb 2019 The @mcrartgallery Gallery has a fantastic exhibition of of the work of Photographer Martin Parr. Capturing the culture of the local area so beautifuly. His work is timeless and enjoyable to interact with. It is so important that we have these photographs in the digital age. #photography #Salford #Manchester

[babssmithart]

10th Feb 2019 David Bethel Fleeting Flights is the story of a man's struggle to escape from his own self induced purgatory. The short film explains the subject's frustration as he tries to escape his ramshackle shack via a wooden balloon that speaks to him. It was intriguing and the time spent looking at the shed afterwards was time for the viewer to lament. A disturbing piece that will resonate with many visitors. @homemcr#Manchester