London and sunflower seeds made out of clay.

On the 16th of April 2011, i went to London town for 3 days and during these 3 days i saw a lot of things but on the second day i went to the TATE, which i was very excited about. In the Tate Modern/ the headquarters of art and there were 3 exhibitions, of which i only saw 2 as you had to pay for the third but the two i did see contained some of my favourite ever artists in the same building.

The unilever series: Ai WEI wei

The first exhibition was an installation of massive proportions and covering the vast space of the turbine hall was what look like a lumpy grey carpet from the bridge yet on closer inspection you could see that these looked like individual seeds. The work was so large that it took your breath away, there must have been thousands of these seeds, which it was revealed were actually sunflower seeds all handmade out of clay and this information definitely adds to the sureen and overwhelming atmosphere of the piece. Here is some information off:

Sunflower Seeds is made up of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but actually unique. However realistic they may seem, these life-sized sunflower seed husks are in fact intricately hand-crafted in porcelain.

Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Far from being industrially produced, they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Hall’s vast industrial space, the 100 million seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape.

Porcelain is almost synonymous with China and, to make this work, Ai Weiwei has manipulated traditional methods of crafting what has historically been one of China’s most prized exports. Sunflower Seeds invites us to look more closely at the ‘Made in China’ phenomenon and the geo-politics of cultural and economic exchange today."

Juliet Bingham, Curator, Tate Modern

"Ai Weiwei's Unilever Series commission, Sunflower Seeds, is a beautiful, poignant and thought-provoking sculpture. The thinking behind the work lies in far more than just the idea of walking on it. The precious nature of the material, the effort of production and the narrative and personal content create a powerful commentary on the human condition. Sunflower Seeds is a vast sculpture that visitors can contemplate at close range on Level 1 or look upon from the Turbine Hall bridge.

The fact that the seeds were actually clay replicas and that i couldn't walk on the work for me almost made it, as it invited you in and then the temptation for some became to great, as i saw a group of people run onto the work and the lone security guard panicking. The work was so vast that it blew your mind that these were all individually made. I thought that they had been individually made by the artist when i first saw the exhibition but the fact that they were handcrafted in a Chinese factory, i suppose is quite meaningful in an arts context with the 'geopolitical' issues of china but i think i liked it better when i thought he had made them all.

' A fist full of love' The NOTPARTOF festival.

'A fist full of love,' is a musical or 'a drama with song' that i have been a production/admin assistant on since the beginning of rehearsals in March. The performance is very quirky and different and is due to open in AXM on Canal street AT the beginning of July. Thematically the show is very eccentric and is about lesbian domestic violence,insecurity and the fragility of the human condition. This quite dark topic is wrapped around a cabaret layout, dancing girls,drag queens, lesbian kissing,fight scenes and lesbian adultery.I found the idea quite fascinating and something i had never been involved in in a venue that will attract people from all different sexual backgrounds.
I've been involved in organising rehearsals and rehearsal spaces, getting to know the cast, sourcing dancers and i am hoping to soon be either a dancer or be involved in the choreography and also a possible projection and dance seen which i am helping to conceive. I was recently able to to photograph a fight choreography session at one of the rehearsals which i found quite interesting as a choreographer.Hopefully, i will be able to have some involvement in the set/lighting and sound design closer to festival and learn as many skills as possible.

Get tickets on SKIDDLE! £5! AXM 6th 7th and 8th of July.

Blue Link : Link gallery exhibition

My work ' Space is blue,' was exhibited as part of this exhibition from the 4th-8th of April 2011. The theme of the exhibition was ' blue' the only criteria that the work had to be blue.
The work is an image of a star or possibly the sun, with an overlay of an energy graph or possibly a seismic map, the details are hazy as not only do I have an odd memory but once I see an image ripe for the collage I often get over excited. I often use image juxtapositions in my collages that are subjective and when this work was recently shown in an exhibition at my university, I had a lot of feedback about my ' blue fingerprint work,' which pleased me actually, because It showed that people had interpreted this blue shape in their own way.
I've been asked quite a few times ...'what is the meaning/drive/ purpose behind this image?' The truth is that I am currently obsessed with sci-fi iconography and space, sparked by my discovery of approximately100 'science and telescope magazines.' It amazes me how subjective our individualized idea of space can be. The images of these far way exploding stars made me question how we perceive our world as stopping at the clouds, some of us don't even think that far, for some the positioning of their world stops at Tesco or Spain in the summer. When reading these 'Science and telescope' magazines I realised that I had actually forgotten we are simply floating around aimlessly in space, which amuses me but terrifies me and in some way I suppose the work in its abstract and hopefully subjective nature was aimed at highlighting how we fail to recognise the presence of a vast space surrounding us.
I also only ten to use very bold or slightly de-saturated colour, in this case I wanted to create an almost undefined image by changing the colour of the star/sun from deep orange and red to bright blue with a white background to make people further question what the image actually represents.

Random crab: public project one

Sheepskin St Ann:

As part of my interest in poster art at present, me and Karol (as our collaboration Random crab) decided to create an installation in St Anne's square in Manchester's designer boutique area. We used old, smelly circular sections of sheepskin rugs which were also spray painted bright pink and stuck these on the top of 11 concrete balls in the square,covering quite a large area, so the installation was unmissable.

We strive as a collaboration to create public interest and give them a spectacle outside of their everyday experience of the landscape,that thing that makes you think or alters your day. After completing the 'sticking on' we sat in the Starbucks overlooking the work to watch public reaction and photographed the work. When we returned 3 hours later the council was removing the sheepskin...at least we didn't get caught. our next project is bronze shoes and a blow up sofa.

This work ties in with my poster art project, i am trying to display how i see poster art not only as 2d and commercial as through my research i found it is much more than that. over the next 2/3 weeks i will installing a few things with and without my partner in crime as part of my work.

over and out ...><

Retrospect: Poster art exhibiton at CORD Feb 2011

Above: Swoon

Above ashes57

I visited a small poster art exhibition after attending a zine fair at the Art Corner (R.I.P) were a member of the one69a guys suggested i visit a poster exhibition at COrd. The exhibition was mainly fine artsy/graphicy/surreal/commercial posters that varied in what they were trying to convey,stylistically. Personally i favour the more surreal,sci-fi, collaged style but also interesting typography and characterisation with splashes of colour. I actually forgot my camera on this particular day...slightly annoying but i've managed to find some work by the collaborations/artists featured in the show..some more recent, such as a public art, screen printing project by ONE69a, who are heavily based at Islington mill. They work in scree printing on various different materials and for purposes such as exhibitions,festivals to restaurant menus.

http://one69a.com/portfolio/manchester-working-bee-on-the-street/ : note to self : sticking cardboard with your work on up onto a wall is not illegal.

Ashes 57: a female: black and white curving,swerving lines, installation, exhibiting artist. ( shown at the top of the page) http://ashes57.com/Silkscreen_work.html and http://ashes57.com/Portfolio.html

swoon : USA based: shows how you can take poster art into a 3D installation-like exhibition expirience,different from the layout of the CORD exhibiton.

aNISH kAPOOR at Manchester art gallery

Anish Kapoor: Flashback: 5th March 2011- 5th June 2011 His first major show outside London WITH No photography allowed and 1 pounds for a information leaflet (which i did consider stealing.) This show felt more like an interactive event then a traditional exhibition because Kapoor played with the space, using our perception and making us question how the work had been installed and conceived..also asking us to question how our eyes and consciousness perceive differently. The exhibition was full of energy,excitement and mental challenge. Kapoor has been one of my favourite international ,contemporary artists since i became an art student. His work is usually bold in presence and colour, it holds a definite presence in the room whilst he plays with space,shape and colour. His work is surreal, realistic and definite in its shape, he often questions the possibilities of materials such as the texture of paint/its' structure but is also sometimes quite futuristic in his shapes and use of reflective metal. His work crosses the boundaries of sculpture, installation and interactive art.

Liverpool trip 2011: FACT: pscychedelic HUT.

Nam June Paiks' psychedelic hut.An interactive light installation which involves the viewers lying underneath a tall tent,so that you can see up the entirity of the tent, in whcih linial and circular lights move up and down the centre of the shape. The room is under a blanket of low lighting and the lights in all their shades of red,green,yellow and blue both relax and excite the viewers who also begin to communicate with each other during this very interactive expirience. I used the installation to my advantage by taking photographs of the shapes that the light formed to create my own photography work, i managed to get some pretty nice shots..