Mixed Media Jewellery at Manchester Gallery and Salts Mill

Recently on a visit to Manchester I visited the Manchester Art Gallery to look at they're jewellery display. On the whole I was underwhelmed by the display of jewellery as it didn't look like anything new or innovative. However one artists whose jewellery i could appreciate was Angela O'Kelly. She creates bold jewewllery such as bangles using materials such as paper, felt, fabric, and steel. Her use of materials such as paper is something that i have never seen before in jewellery, but the combination of materials is really effective in created texture and line. I also love her use of colour which is bold just like the overall feel of the jewellery. Specifically I loved the colours in one of her sculptural arm pieces where she used pink, green, purple, red and orange. The overall effect was bright and very tropical and it felt quite uplifting. I also visited the Kath Libbert jewellery exhibition 'Fragments' at Salt's Mill which shows the work of young graduates and helps them 'find their place'. I found this exhibition a lot more refreshing withh more boundary pushing ideas. two of the jewellery designers i particulalry loved were Kelly Munro and Emma Gregory. Kelly's work looks at weathering wood and metal with charring, painting and inticate sawed net work producing beautiful structures made up of delicate layers. Emma's work is very different, using only stainless steel wire to produce isometric shapes inspired by the lattice structure of gold. I love the delicateness of her work and how she experiments with new technology such as laser welding machinery to produce her work. After visiting these two exhibitions it's inspired me to use materials that are not nessecarily expected and to push the boundaries when experimenting with them.

Bradford Animation Festival-Simon Filliot

On the 13th November I went to the Bradford Animation Festival and went to see a collection of short animations produced by students. My favourite film was 'The Kiosk' by as i loved how the childlike drawn textures and simplistic shapes used complemented the feel good story. However i think that the most impactful animation had to be The Bungled Child [La Ravaudeuse]by Simon Filliot. The film conists of cloth characters and revolves around the story of twins who are born joint at the shoulder so that they have an arm each. They hate being seperated from each other, much to their mother's dispair, but when a travelling salesman comes along the mother pays him to give the children an extra arm each made from a metal hinge. The children hate their new arms and pull them out whilst the travelling salesman is raping the mother. Later the mother finds that the two children have tried to sew themselves back together but have died in the process. Overall the story is very sinister and the characters have very strong personalities even though they are only made from cloth. The corsness of the cloth and the way it is roughly joined together is a reflection of the hard lives of the family and the daily struggles which wear them down. I also think the way lighting is used is particulalry effective. At the beginning when the mother is giving birth the room is lit by a fire. Usually fire signifies warmth and cosiness in a home, but in this case the fire seemed weak, like the coldness was taking over, much like the hardships in the families life take over their happiness. Below is a link to the video which i found on youtube.

Tino Sehgal-Turner Prize 2013 Nominee

Tino Sehgal is a British German artist who is currently nominated for the 2013 Turner Prize and whose work is currently on display at the Tate Modern. The Turner Prize is an award for British artists under the age of 50 and it celebrates contemporary art. It was set up in 1984 by the Patron's News of Art group and was named after J.M. Turner who was contraversial in his own day. Over recent decades the prize has sparked debate about the validity of contemorary art. After researching into Sehgal, his work is quite illusive in that there is no physical evidence of his work after it has occured. His work relies on performance art and the interaction between people. He does not like his work to be photographed or filmed as his work is to exist purely in the moment. In short videos that people have posted on youtube, i gleened that his work 'This Variation' is held in a darkened room which you are to walk through. As you pass through the room there are performers all around the space who are singing/chanting. The fact that the room is dark hightens your other senses as your sense of sight has taken away. I can imagine that the experience of Sehgal's work is one that is unforgettable, however having not experienced it myself, and only seeing short snippets of badley shot footage it is hard for me to give a full opinion on his work. Adrian Shearly of the Guardian newspaper says of Sehgal's work: 'These associations is one of the best Turbine Hall commissions. There are no objects: we are the subject. It is about communality and intimacy, the self as social being, the group and the individual, belonging and separation. We’re in the middle of things. It is marvellous.'

Brice Marden, Cold Mountain Addendum

Brice Marsden is an American artist and printmaker. His work is simple, yet still intense, with meandering lines forming monochromatic pieces that use interesting markmaking for a dramatic effect. His painting 'Cold Mountain Addendum' uses ink and gouache materials over Archs Satine paper. Marden created the work using a long stick and standing at a distance from the paper to create strong yet thin lines across the whole of the paper. In 2006 New Yorker Magazine said of Marden's work "Sombre color seems at once to engulf you, with a sort of oceanic tenderness," I agree that the colour of the work instantly affects you more than any other aspect. I think that the piece has a calligraphic quality, reminding me of the marks used in traditional chinese calligraphy where often people would attach the caligraphy tools to a long stick to achieve a rhythmic flow to their work which i can see reflected in Marden's piece (see below).

Contemporary Embroidery by Erin Endicott

Erin Endicott is a contemporary Embroiderer from America. What first drew me into her work, particular her 'wound' collection, was her use of surface decoration and texture. Erin takes used/found fabrics then uses walnut ink to stain the fabric to create a beautiful organic look. She then stitches back into the fabric using threads to create very delicate embroidery so that she is drawing with the thread. The symbolism of the marks represents 'the vein/roots, the cellular/seed shapes, the metaphor of the dress as the skin.' Erin's considered use of layering techniques and attention to minute details, including beading embroidery and staining fabrics, creates exuisitely fragile work that captures the eye. Below is an image of a piece of Erin's work from her wound collection. She has taken an old white dress and stained it brown using the walnut yes. She has then stitched into it using red thread to create organic round shapes.

Nature inspired Clay by Tomoko Abi (Ceramics art and perception issue 92)

In Ceramics art and perception journal there was an article about Tomoko Abi's clay art pieces and there influence from nature. It particularly talked about work from a recent exhibition called Weathering Scape which consisted of various wall instilations. One of the pieces that i particularly liked was called Erosion (see below) and made out of porcelain. The porcalein was left in an outside where it was weathered by the environment to give rain marks, cracks from sun exposure etc. It's these marks that create an organic appearance within the piece and you can see how the work was originally a recatangular shape which has been worn down to give a more rugged edge. The marks are non uniform and create varying levels within the piece. Parts have been worn down to create circular lower levels, and then raised textures also appear on the surface of the piece which give it amazing deoth and detail. The colours of the piece are very neautral, with only black, white and grey showing. The formal elements that make up this piece give an overall look of something decaying, but becoming more and more beautiful and interesting as it's further destroyed.

Pop Art Still Life (Art News-October 2012)

In Art Review journal there was a recent article abaout an exhibition show called 'The Still Life Tradition in Pop Art'. In the article was a piece of work by Tom Wesslemann called still life #34,1963 acryllic and collage on panel (see image below). The painting is in the style of a traditional still life, however it uses iconic 1960's consumer items instead. These items include, "a strawberry icecream soda, a bottle of Coca-Cola, a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, two walnuts, an uncomfortably positioned yellow pear and a blue vase with brigh red colours". The coloursin the painting are highly saturated in a way that makes the painting quite uncomfortable to look at as it appears so artificial. The subject image shows how Americans in the era of pop art (and modern day culture) indulge themselves to the point where they are being told what to buy to make the happy and are controlled through advertising. The painting is almost ridiculing the shallow consumer worship that has ensued from advertising.