MFA exhibition open 10am-5pm Monday - Saturday until 3rd September

I am invigilating throughout the duration of the Newcastle University MFA exhibition. Despite being a pretty simple task, invigilating can be challenging. When you have put your heart and soul into making the work and spent a lot of time and energy creating it, it can be very disheartening and disappointing when people don't try to engage with the work.

However, I am finding that the majority of viewers are taking their time and appreciating what they are seeing. I've had a few lengthy conversations with different people who obviously have had a response to my work. It is an amazing feeling when someone says that they have been moved by something I have created. Long may this continue.

There does seem to be some confusion about whether the gallery is open. I can confirm that although the Hatton Gallery is closed for refurbishment, the rest of the building is open as the Newcastle University MFA Exhibition 2016 is up and running and open for public viewing Monday - Saturday, 10am-5pm. The entrance to the exhibition is via the Atrium entrance, located opposite the Northern Stage. There are plenty of signs around to point you in the right direction. The last day of the exhibition is Saturday 3rd of September, so there is still plenty of time to come and enjoy the art. I hope to see you soon.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Unsensed opening at The Hatton Gallery

The Hatton Gallery is taken over by seven contemporary artists who reveal the unseen and unnoticed facets of our everyday environment.

Matthew Flintham

Matthew Flintham presents a new installation revealing the hidden, virtual geometries of military airspaces that are all around us.

Rachel Garfield screens the second film in her trilogy The Struggle, commissioned by Beaconsfield, acknowledging unspoken ideologies saturating society.

Aaron Guy draws attention to how the layers of our environment are being shaped by invisible forces, changing the way we interact with the urban landscape.

A series of prints by Autumn Richardson and Richard Skelton trace the origins of familiar words to unearth their forgotten roots in the British landscape.

Matthew Tickle’s What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for samples background radiation from the big bang which washes over and through our bodies.

Yelena Popova

Commissioned to accompany Unsensed, Yelena Popova uses the Hatton Gallery as a stage to present an installation of new ‘invisible’ paintings evoking the transience of visual images in the digital age

https://hattongallery.org.uk/whats-on/unsensed

Julie Robertson writes about her visit to Newcastle University MFA Summer Exhibition 2015

Thanks to Julie Robertson who has written a blog post about her visit to the Newcastle University MFA Summer Exhibition 2015.

Read the full blog post here: https://craftyfrayededges.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/helen-shaddock-at-hatton-gallery/

Some thoughts on drawing from Antony Gormley

To mark the opening of Antony Gormley's Space Stations exhibition at The Hatton Gallery, Antony Gormley gave a wonderful talk about drawing. His unscripted rambling about drawing was eloquent and thoughtful, and made for an insightful introduction to the exhibition.

"Space Stations is an exhibition of works on paper by Antony Gormley in which the artist seeks to reconcile the body with its habitat and architecture with anatomy, making drawings wherein the body is treated as a space within space."


Here are a few statements, questions and thoughts raised in the lecture

Drawing is the way we inhabit an imagined world

There is no hiding in drawing

Drawing is tuning in 

Drawing doesn't have to be about appearance

To draw up a plan...

To draw from...

Drawing is reflective

Drawing is a circuit

What is a drawing of? A thing? A place?

A trajectory of thoughts

A diagram of a state of mind

Reversing substance and appearance

Reversing space and body

Allowing the behaviour of materials

The surface of a piece of paper can become a landscape

Describing energy

Stop drawing when it gets too comfortable or too knowing

Drawing is a place of freedom

Drawing is a celebration of what is possible

Drawing enables an empathetic exchange with a viewer in a generous manner

"Gormley's Space Stations exhibition runs in parallel with Speculations: making thinking drawing, an exhibition in celebration of drawing. Speculations: making thinking drawing brings together archival material with the work of contemporary artists in order to explore the ingenious and imaginative ways in which ideas, materials, space and structure can be evoked and investigated on the flat plane of the paper’s surface. 

Speculations: making thinking drawing forms part of the inaugural exhibitions of ‘drawing?’ - a series of exhibitions, discussions, publications, lectures and events based around the theme of drawing, which will take place in various museums and galleries in the North East over the forthcoming year."

http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/hatton-gallery/whats-on/exhibitions

A Third Exhibit

It has been a really intense but exciting and fun day installing the collaborative installation 'A Third Exhibit' in the Hatton Gallery. All was resting on today - bringing the various elements together into the space and turning them into a cohesive whole.

As Sean dealt with all the programming operations of the sensors for the lights and sound, Corbin adapted the footage that we were recording in the space during the install into something unrecognisable and extremely atmospheric and mesmerising.

Ed was busy attaching all the lights to the columns, inflating the balloons and positioning the speakers.

Once Mags had cut the aluminium rods and I had cut the fabric, we wrapped double sided carpet tape around the rods and then rolled the top of the fabric around the rod, creating the horizontal pole from which the fabric hung.

Rob and Jack made little sandbags which acted as weights to prevent the balloons from floating up to the ceiling. These were attached to the corners at the bottom of the lengths of fabric by eyelets that had been punched into the fabric.

The balloons were inflated with helium and between us we managed to create suspended planes from the fabric.

It all came together in the last hour when we collectively decided on the volume levels, the fine tuning of the lights and the positioning of the planes.

This entire process, and throughout the Late Night event, a webcam filmed what we were up to and live streamed to view online.

The exhibition will be open to the public between Monday - Friday, 10am - 5pm. The exhibition runs until Friday 22nd May 2015

A Third Exhibit - The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle - Saturday 16th May

A Third Exhibit

The Hatton Gallery

Saturday 16th May 2015

Exhibition runs until 21st May 2015

An experimental contingent-collaborative installation of light, planes, colour, depth and space by a group spanning the disciplines of Architecture, Fine Art and Music:

Ed Wainwright

Matthew Margetts

Sean Cotterill
Jack Lines

Rob Paton

Helen Shaddock 

Corbin Wood 

The particular focus of the exhibition is to rematerialise 'An Exhibit,' the immersive installation work made at the Hatton Gallery in 1957 by Victor Pasmore in collaboration with Richard Hamilton and Lawrence Alloway.

The installed iteration will be in constant flux – adapting to visitors, viewers, the artists, the gallery staff and curators.

The process of collaboration between people, materials, technology and space will be orchestrated in the Hatton Gallery over the course of Saturday 16th May, continuing until 11pm as part of The Late Shows

A Third Exhibit

Tonight I met with the group of architects and musician with whom I am collaborating for the exhibition 'A Third Exhibit' at The Hatton Gallery which opens this Saturday. As we inspected the various packages containing the equipment that we have purchased with the money from the commission, it seemed like Christmas had come early.

We systematically discussed all of the elements of the installation, flagging any potential problems and making sure we had sourced everything we need for Saturday.

We made a list of, and allocated the jobs that still need to be sorted, and agreed to meet at 10am on Saturday to start the exciting process of bringing the installation together. Visitors are welcome to the gallery during the day, so come and watch the installation in development.

The installation will be part of The Late Shows from 7-11pm on Saturday night (16th May), and the exhibition will run until 21st May.

Victor Pasmore: from Relief to Environment. A talk with Elena Crippa from Tate at the Hatton Gallery

Last night we gave a presentation at the Hatton Gallery about the commission that we have been awarded in response to an Exhibit.

Our presentation followed an excellent talk by Elena Crippa about the current exhibition at the Hatton Gallery, Victor Pasmore in Three Dimensions.

One thing particularly resonated with me: that Pasmore wanted An Exhibit to be:

Played
Viewed
Populated

The work that we are creating for the exhibition certainly embraces these elements, and will be constructed during the day on Saturday 16th May. The work will continue to be exhibited late into the evening as part of The Late Shows.

Victor Pasmore: In Three Dimensions, The Hatton Gallery

Following on from last year's Basic Design exhibition, one of the exhibitions currently at The Hatton Gallery is Victor Pasmore: In Three Dimensions

'Bringing together fifteen works from the Arts Council Collection, as well as three loans from the British Council Collection this exhibition features the work of one of the most important British artists of the post-war period.

Charting Victor Pasmore's career as it evolved from early figurative paintings to abstraction, this exhibition reveals the sensitivity to form, balance and shape that runs through his work.



Over the course his long career, Pasmore’s art changed direction several times, moving from atmospheric views of the Thames in the 1940s to wholly abstract works in the 1950s and 60s. Early on he was associated with the Euston Road School and its search for an objective recording of visual reality. After a dramatic conversion to abstraction in 1948, he produced some of the most radically uncompromising paintings and reliefs of the period - a move which renowned critic Herbert Read described as ‘the most revolutionary event in post-war British art’.

I am fascinated by the notion of painting in the expanded field, the move away from two-dimensions and into three-dimensions, giving the audience a more active role in the viewing experience.

http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/latest/news/victor-pasmore-in-three-dimensions.html

http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/hatton-gallery/whats-on/exhibitions/victor-pasmore-in-three-dimensions.html