British Art Show 8

Leeds City Art Gallery is currently holding the 8th British Art Show - a national touring exhibition that showcases the artwork of forty two contemporary artists who have made a significant impact on the art world within the last five years. Curated by Anna Colin and Lydia Yee, the exhibition covers a wide range of art that includes film, sculpture, instillation, painting, photography and design.

Living in Leeds means I will be visiting the exhibition on a regular basis and because of the diversity of work on show there is plenty to see. The art is very contemporary and many pieces were made specifically for the exhibition. A fundamental theme running alongside all the work is the "changing role and status of the object at a time of increasing convergence between the real and the virtual" which is evident in pieces such as 'Feed Me (2015)' by Rachel Maclean.

This is quite a lengthy post with lots of photos so if you would like to see my top picks from the exhibition all you have to do is click the read more button!

My New Website!!!

It's finally happened, I now have a website! As part of my university course I need to develop a professional online profile. I was already doing that with my Blog, Cargo and Shop but to make things easier for my tutors I now have a Wordpress website here which acts as a hub for all my social media. It's nothing fancy, just a simple website that easily connects everything together and I just wanted to create a small post to update you on what's been going on. Please feel free to take a look, follow the links and enjoy what I have to offer.

A Trip To Liverpool: Tate Liverpool and The Walker Gallery

Image taken from here

Image taken from here

Image taken from here

I recently went on a trip to visit Tate Liverpool and The Walker Gallery which I thoroughly enjoyed. Tate Liverpool is currently holding a great exhibition of Jackson Pollock's artistic journey (shortly closing October 18th) called Blind Spots, which I was super glad to see. Having never seen a Pollock piece in the flesh before I had an image of the exhibition being a room full of his iconic 'drippy' paintings but it was so much more than that, I never realised or fully appreciated the extent of Pollock's work and life until I saw this exhibition. There was a huge spectrum of work ranging from gouache and graphite pieces to screen prints and ink drawings on Japanese paper - It caught me off guard. I loved his work before but I love it even more now, it's something you have to see in real life to really appreciate it; the light glistening off the paint, the texture of the layers and the scale of each piece. That is something you just can't reproduce.

There was also a lot of art from other major names in the main gallery including Franz Klein, Grayson Perry, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman and Rachel Whiteread. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the work because I didn't take my camera into the gallery but I guess there is more to life than looking at art through a camera lens.

Image taken from here

I then went to The Walker Gallery to see an exhibition called Reality which brings together major 20th century and influential contemporary painters (Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud and Chantal Joffe to name a few) to produce a fantastic show full of colour. 

My favourite artist from the exhibition was Caroline Walker with her paintings of women completely unaware that they are being observed by us as the viewer. I loved the style and concept of the viewer becoming the voyeur - something we have discussed before in our critical studies.

I also had a little peak at the John Moores Painting Prize Winners (1957-2006) exhibition while I was there. I picked out two of my favourite pieces below - Slump/Fear by Alexis Harding and Untitled (yellow Ochre) by Fiona Rae.

Alexis Harding won the John Moores Painting Prize in 2004 with his paintings based on the process of painting. Harding came to Leeds College of Art last year to talk about his work so it was great to see one of his pieces up close, I really like how he uses oil and gloss paint to make paintings of the controlled vs the uncontrolled. He uses guttering with holes in as a tool to create grid-like formations on the paint surface which I think is a really unique, clever process.

Alexis Harding - Slump/Fear

Fiona Rae's painting really caught my eye because of the superimposed marks and gestures on a flat background of yellow ochre. I really admire her use of abstract shapes painted onto a canvas as if the canvas is a object itself. These raw shapes, flat tones and colourful marks are something I really want to try and incorporate into my own still life paintings in the future.

Fiona Rae - Untitled (Yellow Ochre)

Inside The Studio: Photo Every Hour

So Amy recently decided to take a photo of what she was doing every hour for a day to give an insight into what she does. I didn't realise this style of post was a thing but it is, and it's great! Anyway I decided to do one too as I thought it was a really cool way of showing you what a typical day in the studio is for me. I sometimes think my family and friends from back home think I go to university to paint pretty pictures all day, which would be amazing, but there is more too it than that. This is a short, visual 'day in the life' kind of post and I hope you all find it interesting.

10:00am - Straight into the studio first thing on a morning - This is my studio space at the moment.

11:00am - While waiting for paint to dry I make notes and draw ideas out in my sketchbook.

12:00pm - Finally finished a piece I have been working on this week. I'm super pleased with how it turned out!

1:00pm - Now its time for some photoshop and research on the Mac's. Documenting work seems to be never-ending. 

2:00pm - I also spent some time creating a website using wordpress. Link to my new site is here.

3:00pm - It got to that point in the day where I didn't want to start anything big so I decided to record some of my exhibition visits in my journals.

4:00 - Home time! A view of my wonderful university.

Poppies: Wave Exhibition

Wave was originally a huge arch of red ceramic poppies cascading from a high window of the Tower of London to the ground. Now, a year since that exhibition, the amazing sculpture has made an appearance in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park as part of the 14-18 NOW programme. The sculpture was part of the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red instillation in the autumn of 2014 and the red poppies serve as a memory to those who lost their lives during the First World War.

I never managed to see the instillation down in London so it was fantastic to see it here in Yorkshire. The backdrop of the YSP is spectacular with acres of land to walk and explore which gave you perfect time to relax and reflect on the piece. I love how the poppies rise from the surface of the river and flow over onto the bridge, it's got great shape and movement. Unfortunately the sun was in the wrong position so getting a front view photo of the fantastic red wave was near enough impossible but I tried my best to get some photos that served it some justice.

New Ideas, New Paintings

This past week has been all about sketching and getting my ideas down onto paper and following on from my tutorial I have been doing research on different artists and sketching out painting compositions. I am really keen to experiment with scale, colour and shape and above are some small pencil drawings and gouache tests for possible future projects.

I really like how the middle gouache sketch worked out so I decided to give it a go on a larger scale. I already had a square canvas frame made from the wood workshop so once I had stretched and primed it I was ready to go. One thing that worries me when increasing scale is my technique of using masking tape as a stencil because as it gets larger the stencil becomes much more delicate. Fortunately for this canvas it was okay and didn't cause any problems but if I want to go any bigger I will definitely need to reconsider the process.

I am delighted with how this painting went and I fully believe I am going in the right direction with my practice. I love the colours, shapes and textures within the painting and building it up from separate layers of stencilled colour works well for me. I do however need to work on getting that really crisp, hard edge to the shapes; more often than not the paint is slightly seeping under which is something I don't want. Maybe upgrading the quality of tape and with a bit more practice I will get the effect I desire.

Currently I am working on some more sketches and I have a couple of bigger canvas frames so hopefully within the next few weeks I will have more impressive artwork to show you!

Made You Look - Documentary

Made You Look is an amazing documentary film about creatives working in the digital age. It discusses why graphic creatives are turning to analogue means of making work in an era when technology is booming.

I went to see a screening of the film at Hyde Park Picture House and afterwards a panel of five local creatives (including the director of the film and an illustration tutor from LCA) talked about the film and answered questions the audience had. I found the whole event extremely interesting and it was great to get different opinions from some of the top designers and illustrators like Jon Burgerman, Antony Burrill and Hattie Stewart.

The point of the film was to say that there is no real 'side' but suggests that analogue and digital techniques work alongside each other in harmony. We need both; we need technology to speed up processes, network and inspire us but we also need to know when to unplug, get into our studio and make something physical. There is nothing more satisfying than holding a print you've made, a painting you've created or a dress you've sewn.

You really do need to get the right combination of both worlds if you want to be successful in the creative industry and the film was a great reminder of this. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and where better to watch it than the beautiful Hyde Park Picture House.

Start of Year Tutorial

I am so excited to be starting university again and now that the boring welcome back talks and mac suite reminders are out of the way it means I can actually start creating! I have a great studio space and it is now full of sketches and inspirational pictures to get me back into the painting frame of mind.

I also had a brief meeting with my tutor to discuss where I am with my practice and where I will go next. It was great to talk about my ideas and get a new, fresh perspective of my work from someone else. In conclusion to the tutorial I need to:

• Increase scale.
• Practice colour mixing.
• Experiment with different mediums.
• Research artists (Monique Prieto, Patrick Caulfield and David Hockney).

I really want to nail this year and I feel much more confident in my work. I don't want to let anything hold me back and I am definitely going to give it my all - I will keep updating and recording my progress here on the blog!