b e c k y a l l e n

NOX

2012-01-31T14:09:00.001-08:00

BECKY ALLEN’S drawings respond to the different states of consciousness which are an essential part of our incongruous mind. In turn she creates paradoxical works. Her exploration of fact and the objective aim to expose the subjective and intangible. She aims to visualise what cannot be seen yet is experienced by everyone.
She concerns herself with the Sleep Paradox.
ALLEN'S recent work has been influenced by an understanding of the science of sleep and her research has led her to acquiring neurological data to aid her practice and reveal the dream state. With no objective way to measure, record or preserve dreams, the imagery she creates aims to represent the juxtaposition of her data findings with the ethereal and surreal narratives created by our brain whilst asleep.
Furthermore, ALLEN'S drawings have begun to acknowledge the role of religion within dreams as divine revelations; a universal way to reach the place that is spiritual to us. Further studies suggest our perception of the afterlife and question life after death. Our eternal dream.
ALLEN'S approaches these ideas with intricate line work and mark making techniques. This practice aims to display the delicate and precious nature of dreams and also reflect the many different ways in which they can be interpreted. Her work takes inspiration from the illustrations of neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal accompanied by an exploration of Mythology. In particular, she is fascinated by the personification of night, Nox, and The Gateways of Horn and Ivory that distinguish types of dream. These myths reveal mankind's constant endeavor in trying to explain the nightly ritual and what we see with our mind's eye; the essential idea behind this body of work.
ARTWORKSPACE

NEW WORK

2012-01-31T13:36:00.000-08:00

Some close ups of new works for my upcoming show in March. Many pieces have been inspired by my research into states of consciousness and data interpretation, and others have focused more on capturing the ethereal and transitional.

FACES

2012-01-02T09:50:00.003-08:00

WraithWraith II
Reading

The Faces brief gave us a list of words to draw either from life or imagination. With the daunting prospect of figurative drawing I chose to interpret the instructions differently. Instead of drawing the faces of people, I decided to draw the faces of the words as surfaces, as in the face of the earth, or a face of a cube. The two words I found most interesting were Wraith and Reading.

Both words were approached initially with ink and water. With Wraith I aimed to capture the transient nature of the word - neither alive nor dead, solid nor vapour. Trapped. Using ink experiments moving from water to pure ink, I then drew this transition to permanently solidify the word.

For Reading, again I approached it with ink, applying ink to my finger tips and navigating pages of blank paper leaving marks. I drew from the marks and arranged them in a sequence, likening the the movement of our hands and eyes to a a type of narrative.

Pencil, assortment of paper sizes

LANDSCAPE

2012-01-02T09:50:00.001-08:00

Found imagery was selected and supplied to the group to inspire us to create new landscapes. Once I completed my first drawing of the found image, I discarded both images completely and attempted to recreate in the scene on my own terms. The above image is a part of the final image. The original image was an old photograph of the aftermath of the Crimean war.

Black and White Ink, A2

WHEN YOU CUT INTO THE PRESENT THE FUTURE LEAKS OUT

2012-01-02T09:48:00.001-08:00

An experiment with the Cut-UP Technique, developed by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Words were cut out and ordered in word length and therefore categorized into particular types of words. The top image is incomplete.

Mixed media from The Guardian and Financial Times

FIGURES IN SPACE

2012-01-02T09:46:00.000-08:00

Film Stills from À Bout de Souffle, 1960 (known as Breathless)

Indian Ink, A5

MAP OF COLLABORATION IN SCIENCE BETWEEN RESEARCHERS

2011-10-31T13:45:00.001-07:00

Olivier H. Beauchesne created these amazing visualizations of scientific collaborations all around the world. These intense images enlighten us to how information is shared and the extent to which we need to communicate.

Beauchesne works for a bibliometric consulting firm, Science-Metrix - that engineers ways to measure the impact and growth of scientific discovery (and publications) in the world. To accomplish this, they license data from scientific journal aggregators:

‘From this data, I extracted and aggregated scientific collaboration between cities all over the world. For example, if a UCLA researcher published a paper with a colleague at the University of Tokyo, this would create an instance of collaboration between Los Angeles and Tokyo. The result of this process is a very long list of city pairs, like Los Angeles-Tokyo, and the number of instances of scientific collaboration between them. Following that, I used the geoname.org database to convert the cities’ names to geographical coordinates.

The next steps were then similar to those of the Facebook friendship map. I used a Mercator projection to project the geographical coordinates onto the map and used the Great Circle algorithm to trace the lines of collaboration between cities. The brightness of the lines is a function of the logarithm of the number of collaborations between a pair of cities and the logarithm of the distance between those same two cities.’

Olivier H. Beauchesne

JAMES TURREL

2011-10-26T01:05:00.000-07:00

'And I’ve used light to construct an architecture of space - in the sense that if you think of how we look at night and day, when daylight’s the atmosphere, we can’t see through it to see the stars that are there. So generally, we use light to illuminate or to reveal, but light also obscures. I look at light as a material. It is physical. It is photons. Yes, it exhibits wave behavior, but it is a thing. And I’ve always wanted to accord to light its thing-ness. That was very important to me to do.'

Interview with Michael Govan for Interview Magazine

Dhātu 2010 © James Turrel at the Gagosian

DREAM MACHINE

2011-10-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

"Had a transcendental storm of colour visions today in the bus going to Marseilles. We ran through a long avenue of trees and I closed my eyes against the setting sun. An overwhelming flood of intensely bright colors exploded behind my eyelids: a multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out of time. I was out in a world of infinite number. The vision stopped abruptly as we left the trees. Was that a vision? What happened to me?"

Extract from the diary of Brion Gysin, December 21, 1958

The Dream Machine was a device built by Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville while living in the Beat Hotel in Paris in 1960. They were attempting to stimulate the brains alpha patterns with a rythmic strobing light effect and produce a natural high. The machine is quite possibly the only work of art meant to be looked at with your eyes closed. This short video shows Columbia University’s Dream Machine being setup, turned on and functioning.

from byrongysin.com

THE ROYAL ROAD TO THE UNCONSCIOUS

2011-10-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

In January 2003, utilising Ed Ruscha’s book, Royal Road Test as a readymade set of instructions, Simon Morris and 78 of his students cut out every work from Sigmund Freud’s 736 page book The Interpretation of Dreams (including the index - 333,960 words).

'The Interpretation of Dreams explores the unconscious mind through a series of case studies. The unconscious mind is supposed to reverse the natural order of things. In dreams, objects can often appear the wrong size, words are disconnected from meaning and ideas can seem arbitrary and unrelated. Freud’s text explores these ideas but his writing adopts the opposite form. His words are highly considered, his sentences carefully structured and his arguments carefully crafted. What would happen if you subjected his entire random act of utter madness? Ed Ruscha’s project had provided me with a readymade set of instructions to map onto Sigmund Freud’s words. It was not my intention to repeat or copy a Ruscha project but rather to use his instructions in order to conduct an experiment on Freud’s writing. For some time now, my work has been concerned with the destruction of meaning followed by a reconstruction of an alternative meaning from the composite elements, and the art existing in the space of play between the two.'

All text & lower image © www.freud.org.uk

Top image © www.rearsound.net

MARK MAKING

2011-05-27T01:02:00.000-07:00

WORK IN PROGRESS

2011-05-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

A preview of one of three DREAMSCAPE pieces, Spandrel. End of third year, education and life as I know it this Friday.

DAWN I

2011-05-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

Ireland 2011 © Becky Allen

TOWER OF BABEL

2011-05-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

New work based on the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis, Old Testament)

11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And noting that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, ‘let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Hard ground etching onto steel.

COTTAGE COLLECTIVE

2011-05-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

In April 2011 Cottage Collective was born. Armed with cameras, pens, paints and canvas, 7 of us ventured out into amazing Ireland to find inspiration, new lands and maybe even ourselves...

All photographs © Becky Allen 2011

UNKNOWN LAND

2011-04-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

Soft Ground Etching of a brain stem

DESCENDING THE SLEEP STAIRCASE

2011-04-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

Ink on paper

PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY

2011-04-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

Colour negative

Black & White negative

Experiments with the pinhole camera I have made. The top image is a colour negative of a photograph taken at Camberwell College of Arts, and the bottom image is a view of the graphics studio there. Due to the long exposure time - around 1 and a half hours, it captures the movement of people moving their belongings around. The negative images have been scanned in and manipulated digitally to produce the positive images shown here.

All images © Becky Allen 2011

THE INNER EYE

2011-03-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

Art Beyond the Visible

‘Objects as appearances’, crucial yet oddly overlooked. are images of the inner world, of the unseen; these unseen phenomena, ranging from harpies and midnight hags to seraphs, paradise’s milken hills, and the sensations of anguish, bliss or ecstasy, have been visualised by artists and communicated so effectively that the conventions they use and adapt have themselves become invisible: nobody, except perhaps a child seeing a baroque angel for the first time, finds it strange that a naked boy could hurl himself sotto-in-su from heaven’s ceiling on swansdown wings.

LAURENT LE DENUFF

2011-03-30T13:06:00.001-07:00

Matelas 2009

Fantôme 2008

MINCHAYA CHAYOSUMRIT

2011-03-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

A visual sleep diary 2009

SHROUD RESEARCH

2011-03-30T12:50:00.001-07:00

Noemie Goudal

Sam Seager

Christo and Jean Claude

SUSAN HILLER

2011-03-09T03:48:00.001-08:00

An old man confronts us with some truths about language. The strangeness of his voice merges with the buzzing and humming artefacts of an archaic recording mechanism. A young girl repeats words she is trying to memorize in what sounds like French. Several men exuberantly chant fragments of a creation myth. An elderly woman tells a story of jealousy and murder to an appreciative listener…

The Last Silent Movie opens the unvisited, silent archives of extinct and endangered languages to create a composition of voices that are not silent. They are not silent because someone is listening. The work sets free some of the ghosts and spectres haunting the unacknowledged 'unheimlich' of sound recording that allows us to hear the words and voices of people mostly now dead. In The Last Silent Movie, some voices sing, some tell stories, some recite vocabulary lists and some, directly or indirectly, accuse us – the listeners – of injustice
- Matt's Gallery

The Last Silent Movie, 2007 (etching, plate 13)

The Last Silent Movie, 2007 (etching, plate 24)

The Last Silent Movie, 2007 (etching, plate 12)

ANTONIO CORRODINI

2011-03-09T03:21:00.000-08:00

Antonio Corradini Dama velata
Venezia, Ca' Rezzonico - Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Biblioteca

SHROUD ON FILM

2011-03-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

Photographs taken on slide film of figures draped in shrouds. The colours have been manipulated digitally to enhance a type of dreamscape. Thanks goes to Jess Barton and Debbie Leane for being my model spectres.

Images © Becky Allen

SUSPENDED

2011-03-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Sam Taylor Wood's Suspended Self Portrait series.

SHROUD

2011-03-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

A sneak preview of my SHROUD photoshoot.

WILLIAM HUNDLEY

2011-03-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

Beautiful photography by William Hundley. He depicts spectre-like creations floating in mid space. When accompanied with people, the shapes seems to embody an unspoken aspect. When alone in the image, the human body and a human presence is suggested, but the viewer still has to work to find it under the sheet. In particular this can be seen in his series Friends.

William Hundley Entoptic Phenomena

MONA HATOUM

2011-03-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

The bed is no longer somewhere for rest or privacy in this sculpture. Hatoum has precisely reproduced the form of a single bed so that the top surface swells along the edges like a soft mattress. But any suggestion of comfort is denied by the steel plate material she has chosen, more usually associated with industrial architecture or military defences. The textured metal would leave an imprint on the flesh of anyone lying on the divan. This relates to Hatoum’s earlier performance and video work exploring forms of physical and political oppression.

- Tate Collection

Mona Hatoum Divan Bed

RAMELL ROSS

2011-02-20T16:39:00.001-08:00

Beautiful photography depicting the body in very centered, symmetrical poses. Inspiration for future photography projects incorporating bodily positions and consideration of the environment around the subject.

- RaMell Ross Muse

2011-02-20T04:28:00.000-08:00

Photographing Photographs

Fashion Photography Obsession

Voyeuristic desire of staring at Beauty and Disaster

Isn't fashion just attractiveness existing one click and lasting forever?

Stealing images belonging to others, distorting the original angle

Using words of the others, through stills of others

Taking their vision by taking control

How else could one get physical with icons one love if not by shooting them again

Grabbing the beauty someone else found before

Blinded by the shiny glossy glamour

Reporting the moment of negligence or natural forces of the world and the mind

And by changing the perception of one vision over and over again

Revisiting,

Distorting,

Questioning

everything we see

aren't we steadily heading towards catastrophe?

BEAUTIFUL CATASTROPHE

- Lulu

from File Magazine Issue 4 Autumn/Winter 2010

TO BED

2011-02-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Kost Boudoir 2010 (left) Andy Warhol Sleep 1963 (right)

Maiko Takeda Cinematography Collection 2010

Nick Knight Sleep 2001

To Bed, an exhibition dedicated to the notion of sleep and its many representations in art and fashion.

Harmoniously related, the act of sleeping and the place where it happens have long been investigated by artists, designers and photographers seeking to exceed sleep’s humble boundaries and awaken the viewer to the extraordinary way in which we rest. - SHOWstudio

DAVID

2011-02-16T08:50:00.000-08:00

David, Sam Taylor-Wood

"I wanted to create a direct, closely observed study..... Filming while he was asleep produces a different view from the many familiar, public images." Sam Taylor-Wood

This 67 minute long film was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and gave viewers a chance to get close to David Beckham. An unusual and personal viewpoint allowed spectators to engage with the piece as if David himself was in fact sleeping in front of us.

DOMESTIC ARCHAEOLOGY

2011-02-15T14:05:00.000-08:00

'Domestic Archaeology was a cross-media art project created by The Light Surgeons that was exhibited at the Geffrye Museum in East London in 2006. The work on show was developed through a process of audio-visual journalism that explores the issues surrounding identity through the study of Londoners and their rich mixture of living spaces.

The project excavated personal stories, memories, objects and meanings that were re-assembled as multimedia installations, offering a reflection on the changing condition of domestic space as well as our more psychological boundaries associated with them.'

In particular the projections of dinner being eaten on the kitchen table and that of someone on a mattress I found most interesting. The short film of collapsing the bed into couch was also intriguing, looking at space in a contemporary context and one in which it is diminishing.

2011-02-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

Sublime images of ephemeral moments. Disastro Petrolchimico in Bottiglia by Albert Seveso.

2011-02-13T03:33:00.000-08:00

Love this image; have been thinking about ways to print onto fabric myself. I want to depict the body as if it is in motion creating a type of permanent image of our sleeping movement.

PILLOW SCREEN-PRINT

2011-02-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

A pillow case screen-printed with one of my impressions drawings. The image was printed in gold to show the preciousness of sleep.

2011-02-09T05:42:00.001-08:00

An example of some of the pages of The Other Side process book. This book is an A4 square piece that features colour printed pages and lino cut prints directly into the book. The prints were carried out before the book was bound, illustrating some of the imagery described in the story Going Through Mirrors that was written especially for the exhibition.

2011-02-09T05:37:00.000-08:00

Some spreads from my process book Impressions. This book explored my theme of bed and contains my mark making experiments and photography.

HUMAN PRESENCE RESEARCH BOOK

2011-02-09T05:28:00.000-08:00

My research book entitled Human Presence. This publication documents my journey from my original ideas on personal identity and a human trace, to works I have created and new areas of investigation. I enjoyed every moment of creating this book; looking back through my research helped me to solidify ideas and the editing process further refined my work. The overall presentation was a great chance to incoporate elements of graphic design into my work, with the use of certain rules from chapter to chapter.

2011-02-09T05:03:00.000-08:00

Some of the final images from The Other Side exhibition. From top to bottom: Monica Naranjo Uribe, Becky Allen, Florence Shaw, Matt Dale and Yuki Nishimura.

THE MAKING OF

2011-02-09T04:53:00.000-08:00

The making of The Other Side exhibition. All the artists worked in situ throughout a two week period, often during the day whilst the café was open and sometimes all through the night til the early hours of the morning. Passers by were extremely curious of what we were doing and many people looked in whilst we were working. Everyone who took part worked so hard and helped to create such a successful show so I thank them very much.

2011-02-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

Half tone images of creases. The translation of image into black and white shapes, i.e circles, suggests tone and the basis of an image, however simultaneously confuses the eye making you stand back to understand it. I intend to hand render these images, taking what was once a three dimensional entity and changing it into a two dimensional image.

2011-01-25T09:21:00.000-08:00

Dark room experiments - not much came out unfortunately, however attempts were made to bring out the slightest hint of what I was trying to achieve. The photos were supposed to contain images using projections of my drawings and how they are affected when shone onto the body. The only photos that came out were those that I took to complete the film.

2011-01-18T13:54:00.000-08:00

Testing out projections for future filming/photographing of the body, incorporated in my imagery. The original drawings used lines to change direction from each mark made by the body. Using the same technique, I aim for the drawn lines to change direction when hitting the different contours of the body. The distortion of this pattern further accentuates the delicate nature of sleep, and imprint of our bodies on our domestic landscape.

2011-01-18T07:54:00.001-08:00

Further drawings from my impressions series. The top image is drawn from the creases made on bed sheets, and the bottom from the folds from sitting on a couch. Both images are A1 line drawings in white ink and black pen.

2011-01-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

'The works attempted to challenge accepted notions of size, scale, process and methods of reproduction of typographic printed outcomes and hint at future room for development of letterpress in the College and beyond. The show was curated by David Coventon (BA Graphic Design Course Director), James Edgar (who runs the Letterpress workshop at Camberwell), Benoit Ollive and Frederick Williams.'

The letterpressed edition of postcards from The Other Side was featured in typeSCALE. The edition was printed in transparent white, which is an old fashioned technique used for proofing text.

Photographs © Archie McLeish and David Coventon

2011-01-03T09:14:00.000-08:00

A work in progress. A pillow set in plaster is imprinted with an impression of a head. The process of sanding down the bumps of plaster and preserving the impression is underway. An ephemeral moment of sleep aims to be captured by this solidifying of temporary indentation.

2010-12-29T08:13:00.000-08:00

Louise Bourgeois' sculptures are such an inspiration. Her pieces are fuelled with suggestive meaning and personal insight into her thoughts. In particular the life size piece, Arch of Hysteria (1993) is a beautiful bronze depiction of a suspended hermaphroditic figure.

'Arch of Hysteria (1993) alludes not only to a state of mind but to gender as well: The term hysteria was coined in the 19th century to refer to the emotionality of women, but Bourgeois made this figure male because men are hysterical too'

'Throughout her 70-year career, Bourgeois has drawn upon personal memories to develop complex meditations on such universal themes as personal identity, family relationships and the power of art to express deeply felt emotions. Her materials range from traditional plaster, bronze, marble and wood to resin, latex, glass, rubber and electric lights, along with found objects such as toy dolls and old furniture and clothes. Bourgeois has an idiosyncratic aesthetic and has adapted and interpreted diverse ideas and styles from Europe and America, notably Surrealism, primitivism, psychoanalysis, conceptualism and feminism. ' - Hirshhorn

The Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Tate in 2008 is something I wish I could go back and see. Unfortunately time travel is not possible and so I am extremely grateful for the Tate Modern's retrospective archive of exhibitions.

Louise Bourgeois, 10 October 2007 – 20 JANUARY 2008

2010-12-28T06:37:00.000-08:00

'Klein sought to capture the marks of fleeting "states-moments of flesh."'

Klein's Anthropometries show the body fixed in motion. A strange and beautiful juxtaposition. Although seemingly abstract images, parts of the body are recognizable and the images are organic and fluid, suggesting a human presence. This technique has been documented beautifully with photography, showing the process he used of painting with the human body. The paintings all use blue to represent the body, due to Klein's fascination with the colour. He later went on to patent this shade as International Klein Blue (IKB).

'A complex body language, staged by Klein himself, brought the figures to life in a sort of strange ballet, in which the actresses rolled and dragged their hands on the ground, before the audience’s eyes'

All quotes and images taken from the Yves Klein Archives.

2010-12-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

Albert Szukalski created these amazing sculptures for his piece, 'The Last Supper,' set in the Nevada desert. Sheets soaked in plaster were draped onto live models who were then situated as the subjects in the painting, 'The Last Supper' by Michelangelo. The models were able to slip out of the casts and the sculptures were coated in fiberglass to ensure protection from the elements. His setting in the upper Mojave desert on the road leading to Death Valley is key to his message where he attempts to unify old perspectives on religion with new. Szukalski's sculptures can be found in the Goldwell Open Air Museum, California.

Photo by Kerensa Purvis

2010-12-22T02:02:00.000-08:00

Lines drawn from the creases made in bed sheets after sleep all point to or suggest a black hole in our memory. The space where we think up strange events and escape into a world of parallel reality. The image aims to engulf the viewer and take them to that unknown place. The place where we travel from actuality. Where we dream. Line drawing in pen and white ink on black paper.

2010-12-22T02:00:00.000-08:00

A similar experiment to the sofa impressions, however this time looking at sleep impressions rather than sitting impressions.

2010-12-22T01:50:00.000-08:00

Photographs taken on 35mm film of impressions made on a sofa. This was an experiment and so the lighting was a little uncontrolled, however the effect is quite spooky and dreamlike which is something I wanted to achieve.

2010-12-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

Drawing in progress directly onto a bed sheet. The marks were adapted from previous drawings of impressions left on a bed. This was an initial stage of the process, testing out how best to carry out the drawing.

2010-12-20T03:41:00.000-08:00

Mark making experiments directly on to fabric - trial runs for drawing directly on bed linen. This effect was created using a white posca pen on black cotton.

2010-12-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

Limited edition postcards for the OTHER SIDE EXHIBITION. The postcards form a collection of 8 different letter-pressed snippets from the story, Going Through Mirrors, written by Xenobe Purvis. Each postcard represents all the artists' individual parts of the narrative. The postcard series was printed in black, red and transparent white.

www.theothersidestory.com

2010-12-16T11:56:00.000-08:00

An edition of 40 lino printed Christmas cards in various colours. The cards were produced to be sold at the Barbican Bazaar this Christmas.

2010-12-16T07:18:00.000-08:00

Some preliminary drawings and mark making exercises, looking at the impressions our bodies leave during sleep. The exaggeration of the marks aims to delve into the surreal world we experience whilst dreaming, and attempts to capture the ephemeral act of sleeping.

Hybrid

2010-12-16T07:09:00.000-08:00

An A0 screen-printed edition of London's empty space. This print started its life as an A0 line drawing depicting a hybrid of London's empty buildings. These buildings are not derelict but unused.

2010-11-14T04:37:00.000-08:00

Initial drawing for the posters and identity of the exhibition, THE OTHER SIDE.

Briefs

2010-11-14T04:36:00.000-08:00

These are the personalized briefs that I have designed for the artists taking part in 'The Other Side'. Each brief contains the individual sections of the narrative and was created with a lino cut on one side and photocopied on the other.

THE OTHER SIDE

2010-11-14T04:02:00.000-08:00

A collaborative exhibition featuring the work of London Artists and Designers, who have responded individually to separate parts of a narrative. This exhibition celebrates their response and reveals personal interpretations of the story along the walls of the space.

The exhibition will be a work in progress over one week, with artists working directly in the space and producing work straight onto the walls. The Private View aims to show all the wonderful outcomes alongside each other.

The narrative is a specially written piece for the show from the lovely Xenobe Purvis.

Featuring work from:
Jess Barton
Katie Brookes
Matthew Dale
Debbie Leane
Alice Lindsay
Monica Naranjo Uribe
Yuki Nishimura
Florence Shaw

EXHIBITION: 23.11.2010 - 4.12.2010

PRIVATE VIEW: 2.12.2010

Tina, We Salute You,

47 King Henry's Walk,

London,

N1 4NH

Kate MccGuire

2010-11-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

'I gather, collate, re-use, layer, peel, burn, reveal, locate, question, duplicate, play and photograph'

When attempting to describe Kate MccGuire's beautiful work, I realised that there was no one better to talk about it than the artist herself. The following comes from her Artist Statement that can be found on her website.

'Kate MccGwire's work asks questions about the very nature of beauty. She's intrigued by the possibility of envisaging beauty as something more complex than merely what delights the senses: beauty can be about a problem; it can be something that repels you or makes you question the status quo.

She will take an everyday thing or idea that is intrinsically discomfiting and, by re-framing it, entice the viewer into re-examining their preconceptions and prejudices - cultural, historical, personal - about the everyday. The viewer's response is visceral, the impact immediate, the ideas triggered resonating in their mind somewhere beyond rational interpretation.

Organic patterns, forms and materials have an instinctive draw; work may look determinedly abstract to the naked eye, but by using a spiral or circle, or a familiar material, the viewer's gaze is lured inward, as if into a 'field of attraction', only to be repulsed or even menaced by the associations that unfold once 'inside'. At the same time the scale and delicacy of the work reinforce the potential for awe and beauty in the unconventional.'

Vanitas: The Transience Of Earthly Pleasures

2010-11-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

'The Latin word vanitas has two different applications as does its English cognate ‘vanity’. The original Latin adjective vanus means both ‘empty’ and ‘frivolous’. In the Vanitas tradition of the 17th century, Vanitas paintings were considered by their owners to be both beautiful objects and works of spiritual contemplation concerned with the impermanence of man and his earthly pleasures in the face of the unavoidable and definitive nature of death. The most immediate and universal symbol of mortality in the Vanitas tradition is the human skull but other objects also held special significance as references to the passing of time and fragility of human existence.'

When arriving at no.33 Portland Place, you could tell that this was no ordinary exhibition and everything from the grand facade of an eighteenth century townhouse down to the chipping wall paper and grand staircase did not disappoint. Feeling like a character from a Lewis Carroll story, and pushing the grand front door aside, one was welcomed into a truly exceptional exhibition of work. From the Chapman Brothers to Tim Noble and Sue Webster, the range of exciting works along the theme of Vanitas was to be explored amongst the grand floors of the house. The curation, stimulated by such interesting pieces and an amazing setting, led to a fantastic experience. In particular, Kate MccGuire's feathery outburst found itself weaving in and out of the floorboards of the setting in a subtle and beautiful way - and it was this attention to detail that made for such a successful display of art work.

The exhibition was conceived and curated by All Visual Arts Director, Joe La Placa and Associate Director, Mark Sanders.

RACHEL WHITEREAD

2010-10-16T04:03:00.002-07:00

Rachel Whiteread's drawings show a more personal insight into her work and reveal her creative process. Her drawings range from very accurately and to scale drawings on graph paper, to those that concern perspective and distortion. Featuring mainly in her preliminary drawings are household elements such as floors, the mattress and the bath.

FIONA BANNER

2010-10-16T04:03:00.001-07:00

Fiona Banner's fascination with the emblem of the fighter plane has led to an ever increasing body of work asssociated with the resonance of war and the subsequent installation of Harrier and Jaguar in the Tate Britain. These huge aircraft have a powerful presence in the entrance hall to the gallery. Her work encompasses not only the pornography of war but also of language, often using her handwriting to recall a personal experience and display it at a large scale. Her recent installation in the South London Gallery, 'Nothing Is Forever' features Black Hawk Down, a handwritten piece containing a moment by moment description of the war movie, Black Hawk Down.

EXPOSED

2010-07-12T06:49:00.003-07:00

Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera

Atlanta, Harry Callahan,

This summer the Tate Modern has brought us EXPOSED, an exhibition crammed with a multitude of respected photographers and their work; and when I say crammed I mean it in every sense of the word. Not overly impressed with the curation of the show, the beautiful images felt squashed in too small a place for them to be appreciated properly. This coupled with the large summer crowds made rather uncomfortable viewing in what was potentially a great exhibition. All that said, a wide variety of stunning images was on show, with particular focus on the voyeur, whether it be the photographer, the subject or even the viewer; as was the case with Oliver Lutz' 'Lynching of Leo Frank', who's infrared image could only been seen when the viewer looked at themselves through a television screen, thus making them seem a spectator at the gruesome event.

Surreal House

2010-07-12T06:49:00.001-07:00

'Welcome to Surreal House, a dwelling like no other; a renegade house of

mysterious chambers, dream like cinematic vistas, strangely animated furniture, convulsive forms and phantom guests'

Surreal House at the Barbican is most definitely one of the best exhibitions London has had to offer this year. Beautifully designed in conjunction with the art works, the individual parts of the show felt perfectly orchestrated to convey the mood of each different theme; the dark and forbidding 'House of Freud' and the expectant, lofty room that housed 'Theatre of the Domestic' are just two examples of the rooms the exhibition had to offer. In particular, 'La subversion des Images', by Paul Nouge, and Francesca Woodman's black and white photographic series I found most inspiring. Both artists simultaneously produced beautiful and mysterious images as well as suggesting a narrative. As well as photography, the editions of 'Minotaure', a surrealist-oriented publication from the 30's, was fascinating. They consisted of front covers designed by many artists including Diego Rivera, Henri Matisse and Salvador Dali.

To My Darling Mother

2010-05-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

An ongoing project about my family history.

Nostalgia, forgotten memories and everything else that progresses from one generation to another

DUNGENESS

2010-05-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

Beyond the back end of beyond,

The only arid part of the UK, Dungeness, is home to the longest pebble beach in the world as well as weird and wonderful seaside retreats. The nautical discharge from multiple seafaring vessels litters the landscape amongst the backdrop of endless sea and nuclear powerstation, Dungeness A. Interesting thought it may sound, what I found most intriguing about the area was the remains of 3 concrete sound mirrors from the war. The structures were designed to detect enemy aircraft, but with the development of radar and technology of aircraft speed, the planes were eventually seen before they were heard, rendering the mirrors useless. My journey towards the mirrors took me across a vast stony landscape, wooded and marshy, separated by a manufactured lake. With my photography of the area, I wanted to convey the feeling of absence. Dungeness seems so peripheral; it all feels temporary and vacant with the lack of people and unusual settlements.

For more photos, click here

For Every Minute You Are Angry

2010-05-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

You Lose Sixty Seconds Of Happiness

A chance meeting that led to a beautiful series of photographs. This book pulls at your heart strings with the very essence of nostalgia, loss and solitude.

Julian Germain

DRAW

2010-05-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

What is DRAW?

'

DRAW was launched in March 2008 - a dialogue between practitioners, ex-students and current students, and a place for personal drawing projects to be seen alongside those of an invited artist. It aims to extend the uses of drawing and create crossovers between graphic design, moving image and illustration in Communication Art and Design'

The Royal College really pushed my buttons here. Not only did it allow an insight into the minds of many amazing artists through random scrawls on a variety of platforms, but also provided discussions that you as the viewer could contemplate. The preliminary work displayed, mostly in the form of moleskin sketchbooks (of course) and also on rather unorthodox mediums such as envelopes and napkins, was highly interesting - giving a real sense of progression from idea to visual. The importance of drawing across many of the communication disciplines was strongly impressed, namely addressing its significance in laying the foundations for ideas and projects. I feel this very strongly myself, feeling it much more natural to put pen to paper than to launch into an elaborate idea.

'A celebration of drawing as both process and outcome'

Featured Artists and Tutors at the college included Andrzej Klimowski and Anne Howeson.

...And His Black And White Cat

2010-05-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

Jess

Less Than One

2010-04-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

Alexander Gronsky's work explores the sparse regions of Russia's Hinterland

- an area where the population is less than one person per kilometer. His beautiful images capture the isolation and vastness of the area, whilst subtly showing the nature of the people that live there; a single woman on the beach ready for a swim in what can only be freezing water; two people standing on a hill side surrounded by cardboard boxes; a car supported by stilts.His discovery of the area is communicated effortlessly through his composition, timing and his vast array of locations and subjects.

Hand of God

2010-04-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

chalk drawing of hand

Berlin

2010-04-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

Photos I forgot.

Stealing Souls

2010-04-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

market. mosque. mountain

2010-04-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

Morocco

2010-04-23T08:39:00.001-07:00

Camels, deserts and gorges. gorgeous.

Not going to lie..

2010-04-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

Long time no see.

JOHAN BJÖRKEGREN

2010-02-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

Absolutely love Johan Bjorkegrens illustrations.

SOUND OF SILENCE

2010-01-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

FILM

With our film, we wanted the viewer to be led by their curiosity, using their imagination to work out what the film is showing. With the ambiguous imagery to start with, our film could be about anything - with no sound, the viewers have only the image to direct them to what the content is.

We set off paper lanterns that, (providing there are no holes in them) once lighted and fill up with hot air, fly off towards the sky. We looked at how they've been used by others - in particular the chinese who use them in celebration and have a particular festival celebrating paper lanterns. The main purpose of the lanterns is to fly upwards; so we looked at playing with peoples expectations' of what they do.

This is the final film:

For a higher quality version visit: http://www.vimeo.com/8992317

EXPERIMENTS

Below are some filming experiments that didn't go to plan but I think fit in well with our theme - the attempted lighting of the lanterns with light flickering on and off and just the aesthetic of the 3 lanterns all lit up together.

Edward Gorey

2010-01-23T14:25:00.000-08:00

Really really like his drawings. Better than tim burton.

I find his images both dark and beautiful at the same time, without using language or the blinking obvious to make it so.

I totally relate to his laborious mark making style and monochrome outcomes -using fine detail to either harden or soften the image as well as creating subtle tone in the background.

Must buy some of his books

HOKUSAI

2010-01-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

Recently obtained 'Mountains and water, Flowers and Birds" - Hokusai

Actually can't believe most of the images in the book are woodcuts. Some of them are unbelievable. His use of colour i find really interesting too - in particular in the bottom image (Mount Fuji in Clear Weather) I love the contrast of the red and blue together. The simplicity of the overall image combined with the tiny detail on the base of the mountain and clouds in the sky work so well. Being a fan of minute detail/monochrome, its so useful to see how areas of pure colour can add to an image.

I also love the image of the cranes below. Not just because I have a weird affiliation with birds but i like the elongated shape of the image and stark white branch/tree standing out from the dull background. The white almost overpowers the birds which makes their appearance more subtle.

Two Cranes on a Snowy Pine

Mount Fuji in Clear Weather (Gaifu kaisei)

The Royal Observatory

2010-01-10T13:53:00.001-08:00

For Magical Museum Project I cycled down the road to Greenwich and its Royal Observatory. The grounds and building itself were so beautiful in the frosty weather and even though my hands were numb with the cold, I managed to take a few photos.

The view was incredible from the top, and as I nearly passed out with exhaustion by the time I reached there, it was a bloody good thing it was too.

Sky Lanterning..

2010-01-10T12:47:00.000-08:00

up.

up..

and away...

Chilled. Monkey. Brain

2010-01-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

Made me laugh.

Horniman Museum. 30.12.09

2009-12-30T12:36:00.001-08:00

SPROUTS

2009-12-29T14:07:00.001-08:00

woahhh

Sound Of Silence Film Project Fail

2009-12-29T13:55:00.000-08:00

As a group we screwed up this film project majorly. However, a lot of time and hard work was spent on our original idea and it seems a waste to ignore all the information we gathered. I made a stop motion film therefore, of the photos taken during filming.

Error..

2009-12-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

Ripped the film in my camera so now am starting again with a new, complete film. Will start taking a photo everyday again from the new year. I have yet to see if there were any photos left on the rest of the film..

Ireland on Slide Film

2009-12-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

Ireland on Film

2009-12-29T08:43:00.000-08:00

Barbican Bazaar

2009-12-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

The collective talents of Clayton Road, plus one came together in the grotto that is Foundation Screen Print, and like happy xmas elves worked the whole day through.

On the 17th of December this year, the Barbican is holding an event that allows students to sell the fruits of their labour for no more than a mere £3 each. Our collection of prints includes, canvas bags, xmas cards, t-shirts, pillow cases, bibs, baby-grows, pants, vests... and the list goes on.

Plucking Pheasant

2009-12-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

Fucking UNpleasant more like. Not to self, never pluck a pheasant thats been living in bin bag on your window sill for week and a half. Amongst the blood and holding my nose, actually managed to find some obscure beauty in the process. The skin was becoming really disgusting, but that aside the surface had turned shades of teal and purple and the feathers I plucked were beautiful.

SNARE

2009-12-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

Some beautiful photographs from the creative group SNARE. Have taken a lot of inspiration from their photographs, and just looking at them makes me want to go out and take loads more photos.

'Captured in Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.

This collection of film photographs was created to document travels to various destinations, while focusing on visual abstraction and strong color depth. Light plays an important part in this series. It is a point of abstraction but also forms much of the dominant focus of the frames. All of the photos are taken spontaneously, many are double exposed.'

Beyond The Boundaries

2009-11-27T05:49:00.001-08:00

For the 'Beyond The Boundaries" brief, i decided to look at non physical boundaries that at the same time are prominent and cause a divide in everyday life. In particular I started looking at the boundaries within the city, of social divide. I came across the book 'Spaces of Identity' that communicates what I was looking at:

'The boundaries that separate one nation from another are no more real than the equator. They are merely convient demarcation of ethnic, linguistic and cultural entitites'
(IBM 1990)

I continued with the idea of intangible boundaries, however, moved on to look at travel, commuting and people's awareness. I spent a day sitting on the Southern Rail network, from which vast landscape can be seen on many of its networks. Within the passing landscapes, boundaries can be seen between residential and green areas, as well as industrial and sometimes social. So often i find that with the stress of daily lives, this wealth of scenery is so often glazed over not just by our awarness of it, but by the physical boundaries caused by the shape of the train and altering our line of vision.

I took advice from Baldessari and used his technique of not looking through the viewfinder when taking photos, so that what was taken in or out of focus was completely by chance.

I'm Not the Pheasant Plucker

2009-11-22T10:19:00.000-08:00

Draw from life I was told, but draw from life I could not. Instead I drew from death, in the form of two plump dead pheasants. And very nice house guests they were too, apart from the blood of course.

Developments

2009-11-15T14:26:00.001-08:00

Just got back a really old film that i used from the end of first year until the beginning of second year. Theres a lot of photos from different occasions, namely our end of year Exhibition 'Sentence', weekend in Edinburgh, new house and Peckham. This film has turned out a lot better than previous ones, which is down to (I'm guessing) practice and the fact that colour film seems to work better in my camera than B&W - although it might have been the place I went to for previous films was just really bad.