Friday, 18 December 2015
Friday, 11 December 2015
The Light Room - Your Colour Perception Exhibition in Hampshire
The Sainsbury Gallery at the Willis Museum will be immersed in a kaleidoscope of rainbow lights as artist Liz West brings her exhibition, The Light Room - Your Colour Perception, to the Hampshire Cultural Trust venue on November 7.
Liz creates vivid environments that mix luminous colour and radiant light. She is interested in exploring how sensory phenomena can invoke psychological, physical and emotional responses that tap into deeply entrenched relationships to colour.
This exciting artist, who has exhibited both nationally and internationally, will transform the Sainsbury Gallery into a magical rainbow of light for visiting art lovers to wander through. The experiential exhibition will invite visitors to question their reactions to the intensity of light and colour.
Liz will individually wrap each lamp in coloured filters to create the vast rainbow effect in the gallery.
Liz said: "My interest into the science of light and colour is ongoing and has been integral to all of my works in the last couple of years, even the work I made on my degree was steeped in rich colour mixing and awareness. Colour can conjure long forgotten memories in the same way that other sensory experiences, such as certain smells or sounds, can be reminders of vivid past events.
"I find that reactions differ depending on age. In the past as young people entered the space they immediately took the opportunity to run as fast as they could from one end of the room to the other!"Janet Owen, chief executive officer at Hampshire Cultural Trust, said:
"We're delighted to be exhibiting Liz West's extraordinary art at the Willis Museum's Sainsbury Gallery. It’s a truly immersive experience that visitors will lose themselves in. Liz's work has been recognised as world-class and we're proud to be bringing her to Basingstoke."Liz graduated from the prestigious Glasgow School of Art in 2007 and has exhibited around the UK and abroad. Her work has been recognised in international awards and this year she was one of just 10 artists to win a RBS Bursary Award from the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
The Light Room - Your Colour Perception will be at the Sainsbury Gallery until 2 January.
Willis Museum and Sainsbury Gallery
Market Place
Basingstoke
RG21 7QD
Tuesday to Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 4pm
Thursday, 10 December 2015
Liz West Exhibition in Cardiff
Arcadecardiff is delighted to present the first exhibition in Wales by Liz West. Comprising new light work made site-specifically, the exhibition Zenith Blue + Primary Red features a physical demonstration of colour mixing and optics which fills the space with radiant colour and luminous light for visitors to explore.
Liz West uses multiple fluorescent sticklights to create intense colour blocks flooding the entire space with saturate light. By mixing primary red and zenith blue coloured light together, West demonstrates colour mixing in practice as the space is flooded with mauve and magenta. When the human eye focuses for a duration on either colour block, the complementary colour will be left on our retina as an afterimage when we turn away or close our eyes.
West creates vivid environments that mix luminous colour and radiant light. Reacting to the architectural space of Arcadecardiff, West has created a site-specific installation work which has transformed the room into an immersive and sensory experience. West aims to provoke a heightened sensory awareness in the viewer through her works. She is interested in exploring how sensory phenomena can invoke psychological and physical responses that tap into our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour.
"Light is a wonderfully diverse material,” West explains. “I enjoy working with it as has the power to completely transform space and become a--> physical and tangible entity for people to explore, feel and interact with” she says. “Saturate colour has the curious ability to conjure long forgotten memories and experiences. The meaning of each colour differs for each individual, making the exhibition a personal and sensory experience”. West added, “My interest in creating intense environments using artificial lights comes from my own need to be surrounded by light to trigger feelings of well-being as I have Seasonal Affective Disorder.” Liz West was the recipient of the Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award in 2015 and is most widely known for her chromatic light installations which often take the form of immersive environments using the notions of colour theory and the science of light together to create optical and sensory experiences.
Private Viewing: 6-8pm Wednesday 16 December 2015
Artist Talk: 12pm Thursday 17 December
Opening times: 12:30pm – 5:30pm. Wednesday to Saturday
Unit 3b
Queens Arcade
Queen Street
Cardiff
CF10 2BY
www.liz-west.com
Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Through No. 3 by Liz West
Castlefield Gallery is excited to be working in partnership with Allied London in commissioning artist Liz West to create a brand new installation for Spinningfields, Manchester.
Through No. 3 will be a six-metre long triangular corridor of light and colour installed on Crown Square in Spinningfields from the 25 November 2015 to Wednesday 6 January 2016.
Hot from her major commission An Additive Mix at National Media Museum, Bradford and a Bursary Award from the Royal British Society of Sculptors, Through No.3 continues West’s exploration of colour and light as primary material for artwork. The walk-through structure will encourage visitors to literally look at their surroundings in a different light.
Working across a variety of mediums, West creates vivid environments with the aim of provoking a heightened sensory awareness in the viewer. She is interested in exploring how sensory phenomena can evoke psychological and physical responses that tap into our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour. Her intuitive and often playful approach to making sculpture and art installations leads to visually rich works that viewers cannot fail but to be drawn into. Underpinning West’s practice is Josef Albers’ colour theories and his Bauhaus teachings, which she references alongside an informed understanding of Newtonian optics and Goethe’s theory of visual perception.
After graduating The Glasgow School of Art in 2007, West now lives and works in Manchester. She was recently commissioned by the Science Museum London to create a new installation for the National Media Museum, Bradford; she exhibited at The Crypt in Leeds Town Hall for Light Night Leeds (9 Oct 2015), and has recently been announced as one of 10 winners of the Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Awards 2015.
The commissioning of Through No.3 has been managed by Castlefield Gallery. “It has been a pleasure to work with Allied London properties, and Chief Executive Michael Ingall throughout the commissioning and development of this new artwork for Spinningfields. Michael understands the importance of artists and creative practitioners to place making, and so it is fantastic to have had Allied London’s commitment to the delivery of this exciting new artwork by artist Liz West for Spinningfields.” Kwong Lee, director, Castlefield Gallery.
Press enquiries: For further information, to request images or to arrange interviews, please contact: Jennifer Dean, Communications and Audience Development Coordinator on jennifer@castlefieldgallery.co.uk or call +44 (0)161 832 8034 - See more at: http://www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk/news/through-no-3-by-liz-west/#sthash.QYuT9pSy.dpuf
Monday, 10 August 2015
Liz West talks about her practice for new LEE Filters mini-documentary
The new work, West’s largest commission to date, turns this occurrence of natural science on its head; reassembling the diffracted colours of the rainbow and projecting them to ‘infinity’ as visitors explore the space.
Within the installation 191 individual colours are combined with a surrounding series of mirrors, reflecting a dynamic and intense illumination throughout the space. An Additive Mix draws from the principle that white light comprises different colours of the spectrum, called additive colours, and immerses visitors in a physical actualization of the phenomenon. Those entering the exhibition space become completely saturated in varied hues that collectively create white light in a seemingly endless expanse.
Liz used hundreds of LEE Filters in the making of this new work, therefore LEE Filters decided to make a mini-documentary about Liz's practice and most recent works, including the development of An Additive Mix.
Friday, 8 May 2015
Liz West Awarded Major Commission at National Media Museum
Light Fantastic season celebrates the UNESCO International Year of Light.
Liz West's new light installation will take centre stage in a season of free events at the National Media Museum, celebrating the UNESCO International Year of Light.
Manchester-based artist Liz West has been commissioned by the Museum to create a brand new £30,000 installation inspired by the theme. It comprises a purpose-built 10m x 5m room containing approximately 300 coloured fluorescent tubes combined with ‘infinity’ mirrors. Titled An Additive Mix, it takes the principle that white light is composed of different colours of the spectrum (additive colours) and places people in the centre of the phenomenon; saturating them in individual hues that collectively create an intense white glow in a seemingly endless space.
An Additive Mix, which is free to enter and designed to be enjoyed by all ages, builds on themes developed in West’s previous works - most recently the acclaimed Your Colour Perception, which was described as ‘walking through a rainbow’. The new work, West’s largest commission to date, turns this occurrence in natural science on its head; reassembling the diffracted colours of the rainbow and projecting them to ‘infinity’ as visitors explore.
Liz West said:
“This is a body of work that I have dreamed of being able to make for a number of years. To be given the opportunity as part of the Museum’s celebration of light is thrilling and very fitting.”
“Artworks I remember seeing as a child are the ones in which I was completely immersed, and that’s what I hope An Additive Mix will achieve: taking people out of the ordinary into the extraordinary, and staying in their memories for a long time."
Light Fantastic: Adventures in the Science of Light (18 July – 1 November), forms part of the National Media Museum’s Festival of Light. Throughout 2015 the festival, inspired by the UNESCO Year of Light, will be home to exhibits, family activities, a series of contemporary science events, a Lates (late-night opening) and more.
Entrance and activities are free.
Contact: Phil Oates, Press Officer, phil.oates@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk, 01274 203317.
Friday, 6 March 2015
Exhibitions & Events in March
Your Colour Perception
Your Colour Perception was installed in Castlefield Gallery’s 5000 square feet New Art Spaces Federation House fourth floor gallery in Manchester for a 2-day only exhibition on 31st January and 1st February. The work was developed in direct response to the space prior. West reacted to the architectural space using colour and light to create vast immersive installation art.
West transformed Federation House into a sensory, visceral experience by overloading it with artificial chromatic light in which to test the psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual responses visitors experience during their encounter. This work utilises the darkness outside to raise the strength of the illumination and colouration in the work. Using this enormous space to install a light work in the darkest Winter months allowed the colour to bleed with more saturation than if displayed any other time of the year.
Amongst the appreciation for Your Colour Perception were articles on BBC News: The Big Picture, Frame Magazine, urdesign mag, Professional Lighting Design Magazine, Illumni, Creative Boom, The Creator's Project, Hi Home Magazine (Russia), Trendland and Design Boom to name a few. As a result Liz will be collaborating with the International Association of Lighting Designers and BDP in April for an artists talk in Manchester. Details to follow.
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Unnatural Pleasures, Radiant Space, Plymouth
27 February - 17 April
The latest in the R[eff]uge series, supported by Arts Council England and Plymouth University, UNNATURAL PLEASURES focuses on synthesised experiences and the discomfort which is often the unfortunate by-product of attempts to comfort ourselves through man-made items. Liz West has made new site-specific work Complementary Afterimage which uses multiple fluorescent sticklights to create intense colour blocks flooding the entire space with purple light. Featuring work by Liz West, Alana Tyson, David Sargeant, Johanna Schmeer and Yvette Hawkins.
Subjective Mixtures #1, Bloc Projects Billboard Commission, Sheffield
2 - 30 March
Liz West’s new work Subjective Mixtures #1 was created in situ for the Bloc Billboard on Jessop Street, Sheffield. West explores drawing as something not confined to two dimensions. During the creation of her work, whether making arrangements of objects and lights or drawing on paper, she uses elements of composition and arrangement to experiment with colour and space, often creating work is that is harmonious with its surroundings and examines our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour.
West uses light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers, highlighting its significance within our understanding of colour. Her interventions and installations forge new spaces and environments, in which colour floods a physical site through a rich layering of light or disrupts the flatness of white paper.
Through - Liz West, &Model, Leeds
11 - 29 March
Within physical architectural spaces, Liz West uses light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers. She playfully refracts light through using translucent, transparent or reflective materials, directing the flow of artificial light. These ephemeral interventions forge new spaces and environments, by flooding a physical site with a rich mixture of light. This project forms part of a recent series of spatial light works based on the artist’s research into colour theory and light fields. The saturated light in this work casts sumptuously vivid colour reflections out of its containing space, through the windows, and reflects onto the road below. In the evening the darkness outside raises the strength of the illumination and the colour intensity in the work.
This work will be viewable from outside the gallery only.
No Grey Areas, Ha Ha Gallery, Southampton
28 February - 14 March
A group exhibition in black and white featuring new monochrome work by Liz West. No sweet fades or indefinite transitions of colour. A sophisticated stripping down with the saturation off and the contrast from one to the other is complimentary and resolute.
Fingers Crossed Pt.2, The Engine Room, Manchester
13 March
The second in a three part series of one-night-only group exhibitions featuring new work by Liz West. Each exhibition explores different approaches to luck, chance, accidents, fate, coincidence and superstition as a subject or a part of the creative process.
Your Colour Perception was installed in Castlefield Gallery’s 5000 square feet New Art Spaces Federation House fourth floor gallery in Manchester for a 2-day only exhibition on 31st January and 1st February. The work was developed in direct response to the space prior. West reacted to the architectural space using colour and light to create vast immersive installation art.
West transformed Federation House into a sensory, visceral experience by overloading it with artificial chromatic light in which to test the psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual responses visitors experience during their encounter. This work utilises the darkness outside to raise the strength of the illumination and colouration in the work. Using this enormous space to install a light work in the darkest Winter months allowed the colour to bleed with more saturation than if displayed any other time of the year.
Amongst the appreciation for Your Colour Perception were articles on BBC News: The Big Picture, Frame Magazine, urdesign mag, Professional Lighting Design Magazine, Illumni, Creative Boom, The Creator's Project, Hi Home Magazine (Russia), Trendland and Design Boom to name a few. As a result Liz will be collaborating with the International Association of Lighting Designers and BDP in April for an artists talk in Manchester. Details to follow.
Unnatural Pleasures, Radiant Space, Plymouth
27 February - 17 April
The latest in the R[eff]uge series, supported by Arts Council England and Plymouth University, UNNATURAL PLEASURES focuses on synthesised experiences and the discomfort which is often the unfortunate by-product of attempts to comfort ourselves through man-made items. Liz West has made new site-specific work Complementary Afterimage which uses multiple fluorescent sticklights to create intense colour blocks flooding the entire space with purple light. Featuring work by Liz West, Alana Tyson, David Sargeant, Johanna Schmeer and Yvette Hawkins.
Subjective Mixtures #1, Bloc Projects Billboard Commission, Sheffield
2 - 30 March
Liz West’s new work Subjective Mixtures #1 was created in situ for the Bloc Billboard on Jessop Street, Sheffield. West explores drawing as something not confined to two dimensions. During the creation of her work, whether making arrangements of objects and lights or drawing on paper, she uses elements of composition and arrangement to experiment with colour and space, often creating work is that is harmonious with its surroundings and examines our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour.
West uses light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers, highlighting its significance within our understanding of colour. Her interventions and installations forge new spaces and environments, in which colour floods a physical site through a rich layering of light or disrupts the flatness of white paper.
Through - Liz West, &Model, Leeds
11 - 29 March
Within physical architectural spaces, Liz West uses light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers. She playfully refracts light through using translucent, transparent or reflective materials, directing the flow of artificial light. These ephemeral interventions forge new spaces and environments, by flooding a physical site with a rich mixture of light. This project forms part of a recent series of spatial light works based on the artist’s research into colour theory and light fields. The saturated light in this work casts sumptuously vivid colour reflections out of its containing space, through the windows, and reflects onto the road below. In the evening the darkness outside raises the strength of the illumination and the colour intensity in the work.
This work will be viewable from outside the gallery only.
No Grey Areas, Ha Ha Gallery, Southampton
28 February - 14 March
A group exhibition in black and white featuring new monochrome work by Liz West. No sweet fades or indefinite transitions of colour. A sophisticated stripping down with the saturation off and the contrast from one to the other is complimentary and resolute.
Fingers Crossed Pt.2, The Engine Room, Manchester
13 March
The second in a three part series of one-night-only group exhibitions featuring new work by Liz West. Each exhibition explores different approaches to luck, chance, accidents, fate, coincidence and superstition as a subject or a part of the creative process.
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Subjective Mixtures #1 for Bloc Projects Billboard, Sheffield
Liz West’s new work Subjective Mixtures #1 created in situ for the Bloc Billboard on Jessop Street, Sheffield.
West explores drawing as something not confined to two
dimensions. During the creation of her work, whether making arrangements
of objects and lights or drawing on paper, she uses elements of
composition and arrangement to experiment with colour and space, often
creating work is that is harmonious with its surroundings and examines
our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour.
West uses light as a material that radiates outside of its
boundaries and containers, highlighting its significance within our
understanding of colour. Her interventions and installations forge new
spaces and environments, in which colour floods a physical site through a
rich layering of light or disrupts the flatness of white paper.
Thursday, 19 February 2015
Time Lapse Video of Your Colour Perception Installation
Time lapse video of my work Your Colour Perception showing the saturation of colour increase as day turns into night.
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Imagine walking through a rainbow - Your Colour Perception
On Tuesday (27th Jan) I started installing my new site-specific chromatic light work Your Colour Perception at Castlefield Gallery's New Art Spaces Federation House on it's vast fourth floor gallery space. It opened just 3 days later on Friday 30th Jan.
Those three days were hard work, spending the whole time up ladders, wrapping cellulose theatre gels around each individual fluorescent bulb in a huge 5000 square foot space. There were hundreds of them...
I decided to begin with blue at the outwardly facing end of the room, reason being; as the day turns into night there is a 20 minute slot when the sky turns an amazing luminous sapphire. I wanted the work to extend out of the space and into the sky at this special time of day.
After decided which colour (either green or indigo) to continue into, I cracked on with my installation, moving from one colour to the next throughout the entire space, until it was full of chromatic and saturate light.
On Thursday evening I finished install and spent Friday tidying up, and having time to go clothes shopping with my mum.
At 6pm the doors to the space opened (via a phone number people had a ring on the door downstairs to gain entry into the building) and people started trickling in. A healthy 130 people turned up to my preview and I had some wonderful and meaningful conversations about your colour perception, how it affected people mentally, emotionally, psychically and even spiritually. Other's seemed to be having similar conversations as well as spending time dancing, walking slowly, running, sitting and meditating in the space.Your Colour Perception incorporated all 5000 square feet of Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces Federation House fourth floor in Manchester. The work was developed in direct response to the space prior. West reacted to the architectural space using colour and light to create vast immersive installation art.Within this work, West was interested in the influence and perception of luminous colour in architectural space and on visitors experiencing it. West transformed Federation House into a sensory, visceral experience by overloading it with artificial chromatic light in which to test the psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual responses visitors experience during their encounter.This work utilises the darkness outside to raise the strength of the illumination and colouration in the work. Using this enormous space to install a light work in the darkest Winter months allowed the colour to bleed with more saturation than if displayed any other time of the year.
The work is extremely photogenic - I know that! Visitors started taking photographs of the work (which even looked good on a camera phone) and sending them to their friends, family and sharing on social media. I went to bed that night feeling happy and content, not aware of the success and buzz I had created...
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| Your Colour Perception. Photo Credit: Stephen Iles |
I should add that normally I am not keen on letting images of my work circulate before the exhibition is over, but on this occasion it helped. People wanted the experience of being inside this magical colour, the opportunity to feel what it might be like to walk around inside a rainbow!
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| Your Colour Perception. Photo Credit: Stephen Iles |
In the afternoon pop star Miley Cyrus had seen a photo of my new work via someone she knew and had started following me on Instagram and my phone was alight with new followers, something was stirring...
On Sunday the same happened again, phone was ringing on our way in. An unprecedented 160+ people showed up to bask in Your Colour Perception. Gallery people, scientists, families, students, and people of every walk of life traveled from all over the country to see and experience it whilst they still could after seeing pictures of the work on the internet.
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| Your Colour Perception. Photo Credit: Stephen Iles |
On Sunday evening we (me and my husband) started de-installing, it took just 2 hours for it all to be cleared away - mind you, it was a backbreaking and very intense 2 house. We finished our day by indulging in a take away pizza and chips. Perfect!
Since, the work is starting to pop up all over the internet, on social media and blogs. People are still asking if its open... sadly its not. Miss it, miss out!
As the title suggests, Your Colour Perception belongs to the audience. It is triggered by the viewer. The work needs people to activate it. It came alive!
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| Your Colour Perception. Photo Credit: Stephen Iles |
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Liz West - Your Colour Perception - Solo Exhibition
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Equal amount of blue #2 (detail)
112 x 112 cm, hand-cut strips of 300gsm card |
Your Colour Perception is Liz West’s largest site-specific installation to date, incorporating all 5000 square feet of Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces Federation House fourth floor. The exhibition will include new work developed in direct response to the space prior. West will react to the architectural space using colour and light to create vast immersive installation art.
This exhibition is the culmination of West’s ideas and works since being artist-in-residence at Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn on the Cumbrian Cylinders Estate in October 2014. Your Colour Perception includes new light work as well as works-on-paper and drawings.
This presentation of new work will open on Friday 30th January (6-9pm) and remain open on Saturday 31st January and 1st February between 2-8pm, intentionally utilising the darkness outside to raise the strength of the illumination and colouration in the work. Using the enormous space to install a light work in the darkest Winter months will allow the colour to bleed with more saturation than if displayed any other time of the year.
Fourth Floor Gallery
Federation House
Manchester
M4 2AH
Open 2-8pm Saturday and Sunday
Monday, 12 January 2015
2014: My Year in Review
As we all try and combat the January blues (again), I find it a useful pick-me-up to reflect on the previous year hoping that it will serve up some interesting revelations.
2014 was a productive year for me; I entered the year being not quite sure what it was going to deliver (the same with any year), but as time passes more and more opportunities raise their head to me.
In January I was trying to focus on my studio practice and hit a massive creative block. I decided that in order to overcome this, I would start a daily project - I nicknamed this 'The Construction Project'. I would make, document and take apart a new idea every day I visited my studio, I would then write about the work on my blogs. This was a hugely useful experience as not only did it get my creative juices flowing again, it also allowed me to practice my writing skills.
At the end of January I installed my work Vanishing Boundaries in The Studios at MediaCityUK as part of Future Cities and Quays Culture Sculpture Series in collaboration with Mark Devereux Projects. During its residency, I gave an artists talk at Salford University; I love doing talks, maybe its because I enjoy what I do, like talking and am comfortable with an audience (I wanted to be a Spice Girls as a youth and a ballerina or actress as a teen - this explains a lot!).
In February I traveled to g39 in Cardiff as co-director of Mark Devereux Projects to take part in an In Conversation as part of the WARP programme. This trip was the first of many, in 2014 I saw more new spaces, met more people and visited more new places that ever before, this can not be a bad thing!
In March my proposal for an exhibition at Exeter Pheonix' Gallery 333 was successful and I set about fabricating, packing and instructing a new site-specific work to be shown for the month. It was the first time I have shown work in the South-West, I always enjoy hearing the responses of a new audience. As a result, my work was featured on the cover of the regional magazine Exeter Living. In the meantime I clambered on with my Construction Project, blogging daily.
In April I spent a lot of time in the studio and even more time perfecting my writing skills. I was startling to get better and felt more confident.
May brought some sunshine and also my first public outing for a couple of months; I presented my work for Cornerhouse's Show & Tell event alongside other North-West based practitioners and creatives. It was a fun day, but as always, it went too fast! As well as this, the long-awaited publication featuring my work and written by Jac Scott was released, The Language of Mixed Media Sculpture is an reference book including the work of 28 international artists. Before the Summer kicked off I was also commissioned by Adobe to create a digital artwork to help launch their new version of Creative Cloud.
June and July were a write-off! I indulged myself in a couple of family trips - one of which being my Hen-weekend in Carsingson Village and a week away with my mum in one of my most favourite places in the world: Southwold. My wedding followed in early July and then a honeymoon in Italy. Staying in Limone on Lake Garda and trips to Florence and Verona were culturally and artistically delicious. However, I did manage to slip in one cheeky artistic outing thanks to Turf Projects who commissioned me to make a crazy golf hole for their 9-hole PUTT PUTT #2 extravaganza in Croydon.
As soon as our flight landed at Manchester airport in August my phone was ringing... I had been commissioned by Eden Arts to make a new work for Kendal Calling music festival in Cumbria as part of their Arts Council England funded Woodland Arts Trail. It was a fantastic opportunity to test a new work in the great outdoors. It rained all weekend, the music was good, the pies were even better and the work survived 4 horrendously wet days and nights. Success?
In August I also took part in Bury International Summer School; a wonderful 5 days were spent getting to know great people. I must say that the food was amazing (thanks to Sue Trehy) and kept all our minds concentrated throughout. I made some wonderful connections which will hopefully lead to some AMAZING projects this year! Please watch this space...
At the end of August and throughout September I helped lead several workshops for LeftCoast in Blackpool. The aim was to share ideas with the great people of Blackpool to illuminate their bikes and dogs for two separate events: Ride The Lights and LumiDogs. I was also commissioned to design and light up loads of bikes for the event in which 10,000 people took to the promenade and ride their bikes underneath the famous Blackpool illuminations. A real spectacle and a privilege to be part of!
In the month I re-made, re-interpreted and installed my Barnaby Festival commission into Sevendale House in Manchester's Northern Quarter. This is still in situe if anyone wants to catch a glimpse before it comes down in March. I also found some time to move studios from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor at Rogue. Phew!
At the end of September was Rogue Artists' Studios annual Open Studios event, which was a great success this year with more people attending that ever before. I was put in charge with all the marketing for the event as well as taking the job or Social Media officer for the studio group on a continuing basis. I made a new light installation that filled the whole of my space and allowed me to explore my new home. Thank you everyone who came, it was a great weekend. September was a CRAZY month!
At the Autumn drew in, so did the opportunity to create more light-works. At the beginning of October I took part in Light Night Leeds, where I created a brand new site-specific installation in Leeds Art Gallery. Thousands upon thousands of visitors came and saw the work, a great event to be part of! In October I also had a piece of writing published in online magazine EDGEcondition vol.3 Art & Architecture, have a read if you haven't already?
Mid-way through October, I took the opportunity to go on my first artist residency to Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn at the Cylinders Estate in Cumbria. I blogged about my experience every day. It was a tough week as I had, by this point in the year, started to totally pull apart and reassess my practice. The residency acted as a well-timed retreat, where I took time to think, draw plans and read a lot. Thank god I went with friend and fellow-artist Alana Tyson for moral support.
In November I had my work included in Hanover Projects' In The City publication as well as featuring on the cover and inside The University of Texas publication/journal Reunion: The Dallas Review. I am gathering a nice little collection of books that my work has featured in, they all sit there on my shelf, in date order...
At the end of November I was asked to write a piece for A-N News about the 30th anniversary of Castlefield Gallery. This really tested my writing skills and was a very useful exercise. More of that please? I also did some filmed with A-N for a new film they are making about their bloggers, all will be revealed soon!
I installed new work at Airspace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent for their In The Window space, this allowed me to create another site-responsive work, this time using cellulose acetate and florescent bulbs. A wonderful opportunity to see the development of my practice and the working-up of fresh ideas in the flesh.
To finish off the year with a bang, I was approached by I-D Magazine and Vice Magazine in New York who were/are making a series of documentaries about obsessed collectors. Me being the Guinness World Record holder for having the Largest collection of Spice Girls memorabilia was a perfect subject for one of their films. The filming took place in December and was tiring but fun... not as glamorous as you imagine and involved leather trousers (I will say no more). The mini documentary will be shown in the Spring via online channel Noisey TV.
So, there it is! My 2014. It was a good one personally and professionally. Thanks to everyone who made it so brilliant. x
2014 was a productive year for me; I entered the year being not quite sure what it was going to deliver (the same with any year), but as time passes more and more opportunities raise their head to me.
In January I was trying to focus on my studio practice and hit a massive creative block. I decided that in order to overcome this, I would start a daily project - I nicknamed this 'The Construction Project'. I would make, document and take apart a new idea every day I visited my studio, I would then write about the work on my blogs. This was a hugely useful experience as not only did it get my creative juices flowing again, it also allowed me to practice my writing skills.
 |
| Day 22 of my Construction Project |
At the end of January I installed my work Vanishing Boundaries in The Studios at MediaCityUK as part of Future Cities and Quays Culture Sculpture Series in collaboration with Mark Devereux Projects. During its residency, I gave an artists talk at Salford University; I love doing talks, maybe its because I enjoy what I do, like talking and am comfortable with an audience (I wanted to be a Spice Girls as a youth and a ballerina or actress as a teen - this explains a lot!).
 |
| Vanishing Boundaries at MediaCityUK |
In February I traveled to g39 in Cardiff as co-director of Mark Devereux Projects to take part in an In Conversation as part of the WARP programme. This trip was the first of many, in 2014 I saw more new spaces, met more people and visited more new places that ever before, this can not be a bad thing!
In March my proposal for an exhibition at Exeter Pheonix' Gallery 333 was successful and I set about fabricating, packing and instructing a new site-specific work to be shown for the month. It was the first time I have shown work in the South-West, I always enjoy hearing the responses of a new audience. As a result, my work was featured on the cover of the regional magazine Exeter Living. In the meantime I clambered on with my Construction Project, blogging daily.
In April I spent a lot of time in the studio and even more time perfecting my writing skills. I was startling to get better and felt more confident.
May brought some sunshine and also my first public outing for a couple of months; I presented my work for Cornerhouse's Show & Tell event alongside other North-West based practitioners and creatives. It was a fun day, but as always, it went too fast! As well as this, the long-awaited publication featuring my work and written by Jac Scott was released, The Language of Mixed Media Sculpture is an reference book including the work of 28 international artists. Before the Summer kicked off I was also commissioned by Adobe to create a digital artwork to help launch their new version of Creative Cloud.
June and July were a write-off! I indulged myself in a couple of family trips - one of which being my Hen-weekend in Carsingson Village and a week away with my mum in one of my most favourite places in the world: Southwold. My wedding followed in early July and then a honeymoon in Italy. Staying in Limone on Lake Garda and trips to Florence and Verona were culturally and artistically delicious. However, I did manage to slip in one cheeky artistic outing thanks to Turf Projects who commissioned me to make a crazy golf hole for their 9-hole PUTT PUTT #2 extravaganza in Croydon.
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| Colour Intervals in PUTT PUTT #2 |
As soon as our flight landed at Manchester airport in August my phone was ringing... I had been commissioned by Eden Arts to make a new work for Kendal Calling music festival in Cumbria as part of their Arts Council England funded Woodland Arts Trail. It was a fantastic opportunity to test a new work in the great outdoors. It rained all weekend, the music was good, the pies were even better and the work survived 4 horrendously wet days and nights. Success?
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| Beyond Space at Kendal Calling |
In August I also took part in Bury International Summer School; a wonderful 5 days were spent getting to know great people. I must say that the food was amazing (thanks to Sue Trehy) and kept all our minds concentrated throughout. I made some wonderful connections which will hopefully lead to some AMAZING projects this year! Please watch this space...
At the end of August and throughout September I helped lead several workshops for LeftCoast in Blackpool. The aim was to share ideas with the great people of Blackpool to illuminate their bikes and dogs for two separate events: Ride The Lights and LumiDogs. I was also commissioned to design and light up loads of bikes for the event in which 10,000 people took to the promenade and ride their bikes underneath the famous Blackpool illuminations. A real spectacle and a privilege to be part of!
In the month I re-made, re-interpreted and installed my Barnaby Festival commission into Sevendale House in Manchester's Northern Quarter. This is still in situe if anyone wants to catch a glimpse before it comes down in March. I also found some time to move studios from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor at Rogue. Phew!
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| Consumed #2 |
At the end of September was Rogue Artists' Studios annual Open Studios event, which was a great success this year with more people attending that ever before. I was put in charge with all the marketing for the event as well as taking the job or Social Media officer for the studio group on a continuing basis. I made a new light installation that filled the whole of my space and allowed me to explore my new home. Thank you everyone who came, it was a great weekend. September was a CRAZY month!
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| Shifting Luminosity at Rogue Open Studios |
At the Autumn drew in, so did the opportunity to create more light-works. At the beginning of October I took part in Light Night Leeds, where I created a brand new site-specific installation in Leeds Art Gallery. Thousands upon thousands of visitors came and saw the work, a great event to be part of! In October I also had a piece of writing published in online magazine EDGEcondition vol.3 Art & Architecture, have a read if you haven't already?
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| Intervals at Leeds Art Gallery |
Mid-way through October, I took the opportunity to go on my first artist residency to Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn at the Cylinders Estate in Cumbria. I blogged about my experience every day. It was a tough week as I had, by this point in the year, started to totally pull apart and reassess my practice. The residency acted as a well-timed retreat, where I took time to think, draw plans and read a lot. Thank god I went with friend and fellow-artist Alana Tyson for moral support.
In November I had my work included in Hanover Projects' In The City publication as well as featuring on the cover and inside The University of Texas publication/journal Reunion: The Dallas Review. I am gathering a nice little collection of books that my work has featured in, they all sit there on my shelf, in date order...
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| The Dallas Review |
At the end of November I was asked to write a piece for A-N News about the 30th anniversary of Castlefield Gallery. This really tested my writing skills and was a very useful exercise. More of that please? I also did some filmed with A-N for a new film they are making about their bloggers, all will be revealed soon!
I installed new work at Airspace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent for their In The Window space, this allowed me to create another site-responsive work, this time using cellulose acetate and florescent bulbs. A wonderful opportunity to see the development of my practice and the working-up of fresh ideas in the flesh.
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| Assaulting the Asphalt at Airspace Gallery |
To finish off the year with a bang, I was approached by I-D Magazine and Vice Magazine in New York who were/are making a series of documentaries about obsessed collectors. Me being the Guinness World Record holder for having the Largest collection of Spice Girls memorabilia was a perfect subject for one of their films. The filming took place in December and was tiring but fun... not as glamorous as you imagine and involved leather trousers (I will say no more). The mini documentary will be shown in the Spring via online channel Noisey TV.
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| Me with some of my Spice Girls stage costumes on the I-D shoot |
So, there it is! My 2014. It was a good one personally and professionally. Thanks to everyone who made it so brilliant. x
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