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Convenience Gallery

One of our Tuesday lectures, we were introduced to Andrew Shaw & Ryan Gauge, creators of Convenience Gallery. Throughout the presentation, they explained how leaving university, they were struggling on how make an income in the creative industry. They produced a gallery that would allow local artists to present their work by exhibiting in non-traditional spaces. They were an extremely helpful insight into potential careers for after university and how to achieve them within realistic boundaries. 

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FACT Museum

Whilst completing my Fine Art studies, I wanted to explore museums and galleries close to me to discover new artists to implement into my studio work. I visited the FACT museum and found a combination of both digital and traditional work, but one piece that stood out to me was Ai Hawegawa’s, ‘(IM)POSSIBLE BABY, CASE 01: ASAKO & MORIGA‘. This digital piece explores the construction of equal genetic children for same sex couples, a concept that cannot naturally be achieved. Therefore, Ai Hawegaw digitally modified both partner’s facial features to create genetic children, she combined dominant features and recessive features to create a lifelike combination. Her series of photography further explores this concept by illustrating scenarios if this were longer a concept but a scientific breakthrough. I really enjoyed this combination of scientific research and digital photography to produce a breathtaking concept.

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Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

The Searchlight Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer coordinates and projects extravagant light sculptures and installations in various placements, combining the public and technology. Born in Mexico City and graduated with a B.Sc. in Physical Chemistry, Rafael has been exploring the relationship of light sculptures and the public by producing large displays that importantly, allow the participation of the public and their creativities.

An early installation in Rafael’s career was ‘Surface Tension’ (1992), where a TV displaying an eye, would follow you around the room, not taking its eye off the subject. Inspired by philosopher, Manuel De Landa’s book ‘War in the Age of Intelligent Machines’, which analyses the idea of computers having executive control and the choosing of their targets, translating into Rafael’s ability to create a watchful eye whom chooses a target in the installation room. 2005, a similar motion installation was displayed at Tate London, where a computer would detect movement in the room and shine subtitles of third person verbs. In this installation, in order to eradicate the words, you’d have to physically pass the word onto someone else.

A large scale interactive piece was produced in 2001 called ‘Body movies’ which greatly relied on public participation. The inspiration of this piece was Samuel van Hoogstraten’s shadow dance (1675) which explored shadow puppetry, evolving into Rafael fabricating a large puppet show but the puppets having their own intuition. The piece was constructed of 1000’s public portraits which would light up on a screen in Rotterdam’s square with configurative lighting that allowed the public to overlay themselves onto the projection, embodying the portraits. The involvement the public had allowed this transfer away for cooperative control, allowing people to enjoy the space rather than using it for shopping, as Rafael states ‘the best public art needs out of control’. The expressive interaction of the public, allowed this piece to constantly shift and evolve, as each interaction led to a new perspective, advancing new layers and progression to the piece as people would start to interact with one another, drawing refreshing work constantly from the installation.

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Christiane Blattmann

Christiane Blattmann creates sculptural and installation pieces that shift between bodily and architectural, focusing on the desire to isolate her pieces and heighten the need to stand alone. Christiane graduated with a Fine Arts (Diploma) at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, 2013.

The Constant Glitch, embodies the depiction of a cold body, represented by the metal, correlating to elemental features often captured throughout her work. A centring torso, illustrated as an oven, conveys a fiery elemental figure to generate warmth, produced by the heart of the fire. Similarly, emphasising the heart of the body as the carrier of warmth, travelling throughout the body to produce life and movement, juxtaposing the metal used for the legs, as the warmth has yet to travel there.

Blattmann created unreachable architectural structures into graspable proportions in the form of her ‘High Rise boots’ (2016). As she displayed the shoes, she captured a sense of motion from a lacking body and stood them as if in stride. Capturing the dramatic scale of these high rise buildings, emasculates the towering structure into a fashion piece, used to tread of these very buildings. The combination of avant garde fashion with an installation that turns one function into another, as traditionally buildings were to hold people in, translating into a smaller scale purpose of holding people but in a dynamic sense.

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Cecilia Vicuña

The Chilean feminist, activist, poet and artist, Cecilia Vicuna produces large scale textile works and sculptural pieces that explore activist and femineity. Vicuna received her scholarship at 17 to study abroad in Miami where she felt perceived as ‘contaminants’ and used an old Mexican myth to describe the impending doom she felt moving there.

In 1971, women marched in opposition to the right wing Chile government, leading Vicuna to create rally paintings with quotes “Down with capitalism” and “Feminine liberation”, evoking her feminist ideals and promoting equality for all genders. The theme carried onto further works when she created a book honouring the rally girls, called El Zen Surado (Zen for Zen), also displaying herself naked in support of feminist liberation. The empowerment of women to use their bodies in combat of the constant sexualisation as a mean to display their rage, liberates the dehumanisation of the female body and reinvigorating it as a canvas to battle against the censorship and marginalisation of their mouth.

2006, Cecilia installed a large textile piece called Menstrual Quipu (the blood of glaciers), a practice inspired by the Andean culture whom knotted ropes as a way to carry messages, however, the practice was banned by the Spanish, fearing the lack of understanding to decipher the messages. Cecilia states the piece was inspired by her work Espiral Borrado, a sculptural piece on a sacred beach by the mouth of a river, representing the birth of life which has now been contaminated by the government, causing it to be a deadspace. The knotted ropes illustrate a sinew type shape, capturing a blood like flow with its deep red tone, further portraying the menstrual aspect as it evokes a flow of blood, representing a beautiful canal and cycle of life. Her large scale textile works embody an emotional connection to her femineity, additionally describing her work in sultry poetry, encompassing her passionate beliefs.

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Anna Zacharoff

The Swedish born artist Anna Zacharoff, dives into the traditional medium of painting, trying to define and understand the fundamentals to the practice and the lack of emotion shared between herself and the process. As a child, Anna showed a fondness of the artist Henry Matisse which you can see translated through the composition and flow in her sea life themed work.

The fluidity in her work represents that similarly to the light reflections in the ocean, the shimmers of her shading and use of light colours evokes the shallow mixture of sand and water. Anna illustrates the emotional look that people don’t usually get to see underneath the stingray, adding to the lightness of her work. In Anna’s pieces, you see the sea life accompanied with negative space and in this case, may represent how stingrays usually travel alone capturing the isolation found in the vastness of the ocean. The colour of the canvas juxtaposes the ocean and may also portray the colour of sand, where the sea life settles outside of water.

Anna sometimes primes the back of her canvas to add more depth rather than having a light background which represents the depth these animals will travel in the ocean. Her limited brushstrokes which capture the highlights and shadows of the fish, focuses the features of the goldfish like the comical face and shimmering scales.

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Pt2: Fine Art MA

Vinnie Quirk

Vinnie’s work is directly inspired by his trauma, channelling it into pieces which can vary from escapism or the direct expressionism of his place within the trauma. A short film was created of Vinnie hammering nails into a piece of meat, signifying him as the meat, void of personality and meaning other than being a punching bag for the nail, a harbinger of trauma. Another example of Vinnie’s exploration of his subconscious was developing a board game similar to crystal maze, memorable for being an escape to his childhood difficulties. His work construes significant areas of his subconscious that he realised stemmed from his trauma, the mixture of light in competition with darkness in his work, conveys that of his mind.

Simone Schofield

Simone work comprises of architectural structures and site specific installations usually involving objects and mediums suited to the exhibition. Her pieces encompass the loss of her parents, capturing the emotions that followed their passing. ‘The Void 2017′, represents the emptiness she felt missing her parents. It was a site-specific piece at Tobacco Warehouse, creating a coal circle print,  which the sulphur later left marks on the silk embodying how grief changes over time, first darkness and then light. An evolved version of ‘The Void’ was produced with salt on coal. The weather began to alternate the appearance and made salt fragmented. Coal represented her father and the salt her mother, communicating how the experiences were very different for each loss. The squares were for salt and the coal was for circles. There was a yellow mark left by the coal, similar to the mark people leave behind, the traces of her parents.

Mary Hennessy Jones

Mary created a site specific piece for the Tobacco Warehouse exhibition, focusing on theatre and projecting memories through shadow puppetry (The darkness has got there first). The slideshow presents a child and their mother playing and then follows with the child throwing mud at the mother, giving the mark of motherhood, the passing on through heritage. The projection was displayed through a peephole, as though you’re not supposed to see in, capturing your reflection. Another piece featured at the Warehouse was a site-specific piece that captured the workmen. ‘Screening 2′ was a piece of fencing installed in the exhibit with cigarette papers wrapped around the bars of the fence with fingerprints of workers marking the paper. Mary portrays a sense of life to the architecture, embodying the workmen as the nervous system and the warehouse as the skeleton.

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Pt1: Fine Art students MA

Oak McLaughlin Barnett

Oak’s achieved a BA in English literature with creative writing so their artistic output usually consisted of poetry and creative writing. Beginning a Fine Art MA allowed Oak to experiment with alternative media and focus on a a beyond look into the textile of bodies and plants with the occasional hint of their Irish roots. Usually, Oak produces abstract paintings but they have explored multiple mediums like a performance of a creative writing piece, using different angles, different feels and even the sound of charcoal. 

In the large scale piece with the focus of abstract bodies and plants, the colour palette and shading adds a sense of mortality to the grey, lifeless coloured plant. The positioning of the figures, dancing around the sense can argue whether they’re providing life to the plant or stripping, almost god like. The colour palette illustrates a sense of mortality to the bodies in the painting.

 Elena Platt

Elena has studied a BA in philosophy which has translated through her work becoming the key focus. Her work revolves around the concept of space, time and the fragility of our realities. Her work responds intuitively to the space and intersensory translation, beginning with sound rather than visual. Elena has created films focusing on sound with shards of mirror, making towers and filming the use of shards with a combination of visual. Also, Chopping cabbage and representing it in a visual way and using ping pong balls as bubbles. 

The addition of textures and lighting allows for an intergalactic solar system presentation. 

Joshua Cook

Joshua primary focus is on site-specific work, often working with the framework of the environment and unpacking working condition. Independently from the course, an exhibition was held at the tobacco warehouse and began documenting polaroid's of workers who would be outside smoking, to capture the life in the warehouse. Joshua projected these series of polaroid's on a overhead projector. He collaborated with artists at the exhibition, taking pictures of their work as a form of interactivity and participation he liked to involve in his work.

Exploring the histories and incorporating the architecture of the site, allows more properties to the piece. Showcasing the characteristics of the site through a tv, allows the viewer to gain a further empathetic understanding of the exhibition lot.

Jioni Warner

Jioni illustrates portraitures that unpack the meaning and components of ‘Black British’, seeking to highlight experiences for black women such as the Windrush, dehumanisation and sexualisation of black women. Jioni began to research her practice and begin investigating her ancestry and upbringing of her Kittian and British culture to find the root of her connection and ancestry. 

Aside from her series that focused on the characterisations often place on Black women, Jioni wanted to no longer embody a character and instead embody her ancestors. She used passports transferred onto canvas and designed a collage, layering emblems of Black British culture.

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Shwetal A. Patel

Shwetal A. Patel one of the founding members of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, began focusing his career on the growth of local Biennales, showcasing the communities arts rather than globalising and colonising locals work, allowing the community to grow culturally. Patel explores the fundamentals of creating a Biennale that can evolve and bring together the community whilst taking into consideration the poverty, landscape, religion, education and accessibility. The Biennale would create a cultural advancement whilst also giving local artists the opportunity to safely display their work. Patel prioritises the fundamentals of foreign artists educating themselves on the culture and socio-political of Kochi, conveying the site-specific framework of the region. 

After focusing on Kochi Biennale, Patel began working on Oslo’s first Biennale in 2019, transferring his knowledge of and process of Kochi’s first Biennale to Oslos. The unique factor captured in Oslo’s Biennale is that it’ll last for 5 years, rather than 2/6 months every 10 years. Patel prioritised curating with the local community and performed local research.

Patel explores the making and sustaining of art platforms in the digital age and the contribution Biennales have to local communities, fuelling more diverse cultural artists. Patel explains the standardisation, urges artists to continuously adapt to relate to new realities like geographical, political, regional and locality.

KLF (band) made a book (1988, The manual) explaining step by step how to make a number one hit, inspiring Patel to produce a manual for a Biennale. Similarly the constant adaption music makes is similar to that of a Biennale with the art world constantly adapting.

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Lara Almarcegui

The artist Lara Almarcegui has been exploring the relationship of urban and forgotten terrain from cities around the globe, examining the evolving landscape created by economic and social change. Lara’s practice stems from her architectural interest, contrary, she finds cities overrun by architecture, a claustrophobic landscape, leaving little space to breathe and ponder.

She explains how land is owned by the small elite, leaving many urban spaces untouched for plans of future development. Consequently, she’s been striving to defend the wastelands whilst documenting her process. Lara’s process usually consists of launching an investigation to discover more about the land alongside partnering with architects and the community, bringing to question, what happened to the land?

One of Lara’s works ‘Water Tower’ contradicts the belief that architecture is concrete walls, that the state before construction is architecture, that air is architecture. She borrowed construction materials from a company and analysed the materials and volume that would be needed for construction, like deconstructing the elements, illustrating the skeleton and exoskeleton.

‘Construction materials Big Hall Secessions Vienna’ demolition materials are formed into numerous neat piles around the exhibition room, illustrating different pragmatic relationships, contrasting to the water tower. The demolition materials are arranged like ingredients, displayed like spices on a plate, additionally the array of desert colours heighten the spice imagery.

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Joanna Zielińska

Joanna Zielinska explores abstraction and representation using a mixed media process of photography, recycled materials and cotton. Joanna analyses the elements and processes that people approach art and the contextual thoughts that accompany it whilst having echoes of constructivism and conceptualism.

 Her piece ‘No Colour’ reflects on the contrast of her polish upbringing with that of someone from America who grew up with MTV, whereas she grew up soviet art that promoted propaganda characteristics. At a young age she was tactful with her material choices and began photographing cardboard boxes as motifs, which became a turning point for her process. American art characteristics usually consist of bright and bold colours that reflect the pop culture it has birthed. However, the Soviet Union that was dictating Poland camouflaged art that would reflect pop culture as a means to discipline the country; Joanna took elements from the muted colours and tonal art which contributed to her upbringing.

 A piece that conveys her lack of identity is ‘No Story’, simply stating that she has no story to share about herself. Her story was a mixture of society, the church and her family which reflected somebody else’s story. Joanna began rewriting her day in her notebook, similarly to an autobiography, building up her identity and story. . Comparable to M.Duchamp’s ‘self portrait’ which reflects multiple images in the mirror, empathetically feeling lonely or lost in identity like Joanna describes. 

Her series of work act like missing puzzle pieces to her identity as they build up this portraiture of elements that she personally feels like shes missing, resulted from isolation and her absent identity. The objects create an essence in which she feels connected to them and states that essence isn’t fixed but the spectator plays a role and the agency.

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Pádraic E. Moore

Pádraic E. Moore

The writer, curator and art historian, Pádraic E. Moore focuses on the spirit realm’s engagement with modernism and delves into the impact philosopher’s material had on the 19th to 20th century, industrial age and the beliefs that have bonded religion, science and philosophy, similarly to a collage of religious symbols.

Padraic interest comes from the philosopher’s contribution to art, specifically the book ‘Thought Forms’ (1901) which is a book assembled by the members of the theosophical society (A. Besant and C.W. Leadbeater) that explores the correlation of colour, emotional state and colour charts, attaching abstract forms to emotional states.

A solo exhibition Padraic curated for Lucy Mckenzie (Tour Donas), picks up the historical threads from Irish art history. He was energised by the thought of a collaboration to bring artists from various fields to produce something together. An additional artist that shared a subject of interest was Martha Donis, a Belgium artist, who left Dublin in 1916 and travelled to Paris. Donas birthed the androgynous persona ‘Tour Donas’ to gain attention in a male-dominated art world.  Their groundbreaking work highlighted the impact the cultural signifcance Ireland had on the rest of Europe which was often found overlooked. Padraic showcasing Martha Donis’s work continues the legacy they had brought, by recreating it in the 21st century.

Padraic’s focus on the spirit realm’s engagement with modernism is highlighted by the display ‘Du Cubisme’. The piece merges together the christian ideology and cubism which was often displayed in Hone’s, Jellet’s and Donas’s work which was frequently displayed through pamplets.

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4D Project Short film

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Yeşim Akdeniz

Yeşim Akdeniz is a painter and textile artist who explores topic like sexism, feminism and racial stereotypes conveyed through many thoughtful and surrealistic pieces.

Her work ‘self portrait as orientalist carpet 8’ (2020) analyses the origin of the term ‘Oriental’ and the oppression that follows it. Oriental is a term created from western countries to describe the East-Asian population which is offensive to the community, displaying the internalised racism that the has integrated in the western culture. Her textile piece stands at a 25/30 metre thickness and evokes how the carpet can slide into cultures. The piece features clothing details like pockets which are unusable, comparable to the dysfunction of oriental racism.

An exhibition I found contemplation was Yeşim’s ‘Club dystopia’ (Istanbul) where she researched the modernisation of Turkey where attempts of modern architecture were being built. The buildings were inspired by cubism due to the support of the government in an attempt of taking western value. The government’s effort at aesthetic propaganda, fell short as the buildings were demolished. Featured pieces at the exhibition focused on the ideology of affected human life was represented through the paintings and conveys how nature is transformed by “human touch”. Yeşim also cut out the doorway allowing a generous view to onlookers, almost enticing them to take a further look.

I thoroughly enjoyed her exploration of the internalised racism and stereotyping that East Asia experiences and how she captures it with a textile narrative, allowing the viewer to go through a journey and understand this metaphorical analyzation of the western culture and reflect.

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Amy Sillman

The abstract painter Amy Sillman explores her internal narrative and unconscious thoughts with paintings and experiments with animation to manipulate the viewers perspective.

Amy works in a process similar to an archeologist; carving, layering, digging and scraping to create fragmented works. Her piece ‘Window’ (2009) with an orange and blue colour pattern with mixtures of paint strokes and thickness to convey the unknowing that comes within the process and the satisfaction of the final product.

Her recent installation ‘Landline Dub Stamp’ (2018-19) invites the viewer into Amy’s creative process, allowing them to manipulate their outlook on the piece choosing the angle and the sequence. The piece was a deconstructed animation of tormented bodies on double-sided acrylic, ink and silkscreen works on paper, she describes it as “abstraction as interruption structure”.

Sillman examines the space her work is displayed in adding further elements to her work that allows more investigation from the viewer. The piece ‘Test Strips’ (2014) is displayed on one side of the room with an accompanying piece on the opposite wall, ‘Key to Test strips’ (2014), illustrating a structural representation on how to view the painting with accompanying annotation of Sigmund Freud work. I think what makes these works so thoughtful is the juxtaposition of the presentation and that to understand the two piece of abstract art, you need to be looking at the pieces together instead of separately.

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Hetain Patel

Hetain Patel is a visual artist who incorporates his Indian culture and heritage into his performative and sculpture based work.

Hetain’s most recent work is the final instalment of his trilogy series ‘Trinity’. His series is heavily influenced by his love of pop culture and the film industry whilst also combining visual references from his life and Indian background. Patel morphs traditional Indian practices with a classic Hollywood approach to create a short film involving a young, British Indian woman (Vidya Patel) and a deaf garage worker (Raffie Julian). The story shows both woman fighting in a mix of martial arts and sign language choreographers, exploring the physical communication of a “martial language that once united humanity which could be suggesting the language of war which could be dividing humanity and being the a prevalent issue to systemic racism. Trinity examines the British Indian experience and “Intergenerational conflict” whilst injecting his characteristic humour, lightheartedly capturing struggle between his responsibilities and interacial identifies. His film medium conveys a story of his upbringing, his hardships and a his love of pop culture.

Patel further explored his relationship with his family which is an apparent theme in his art. ‘Baa’s Gold’ (referring to mother in Gujarati), is derived from a traumatic experience his grandma had where the home that housed generations of family was broken into and she was forced to pant with her sacred golden bangles. Incidents like this furled Patel’s Art as he displayed the affects of micro aggression, assault and systemic racism to heighten how things are taken from his family, like many others. The golden bangles signify these basic rights that are being forcefully stripped due to the ignorance of those in a systemic hierarchy. The images were displayed on boards using distinctive patterns from Baa’s house, injecting a domestic lens personal to him.

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Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread is a sculptor who’s best known for casting concrete models of buildings and objects. A repetitive symbolism of her work is “making memories solid” and “giving space authority” which led to her making outstanding pieces globally.

One of her most controversial pieces was “House” (1993), a piece created by spraying liquid concrete onto the buildings exo skeleton before it’s walls were removed. The mummification of this forgotten house granted her both the best artist of 1993 and the worst. Along with her achievement of being the first woman to win a Turner prize, she was also crowned worst artist by the ‘K foundation’. The prize money was doubled and Rachel expressed how humiliating it was to claim this prize in personally .Rachel was nominated for the Turner prize (1993) for a piece that deconstructed the delicacies and intricacies of Art and showed something that was so grand and sentimental in an art form that wasn’t greatly displayed. Eleven weeks later, alls Rachel’s hard works and efforts put into this award winning piece were demolished when ‘House’ had to be destroyed which she said was “heartbreaking”.

Whiteread’s mother was also an artist but created art in a time where female artists weren’t cherished but neglected. Rachel states that she is great full for her mother’s generation of feminists that allowed her to be the successful artist she is today. In homage to her childhood, she produced a piece called “closet” (1988) which was a plaster cast of the interior of her parent’s wardrobe to evoke the comfortable memory of seeking shelter inside.

Her practice grew from visiting Victorian tips with father where she’d collect scrap materials and made them into art, channeling her energy into small neglected objects.

Later in life, Rachel Whiteread moved to Berlin to begin her next project; Whiteread entered a holocaust memorial contest in 1996 with the idea of creating a cast of the ghost library. However, the winning idea, when conversing about the technicalities, no final decision was decided, disallowing her the ability to produce it. Summer 1997, the British pavilion took her incredible piece and displayed it. Later allowing her to display the work in Vienna (2000). Vienna has a sense of contemplation and reflection, completely carried by the memorial.

I’m so fascinated by her ability to look at an unassuming landscape and create art pieces that solidify memories. Her art form being so controversial yet so highly praised, heightens the conceptualism of Art, proving its deeper than the finished product. I hope to explore her 3D work more and create work that doesn’t focus on the aesthetic or the final product.