Liz West featured in FRAME

I was delighted to be able to meet up with artist Liz West while she was in Newcastle. Liz recently invited me to contribute to 'Our Colour Wheel', a new work in a three-person alumni exhibition at Leeds College of Art's Vernon Street Gallery, part of the College's 170's Birthday celebrations. The exhibition opens tomorrow night, Wednesday 14th December 2016 and runs until 27 January 2017. Liz was able to show me a sneak preview of the works that will be in the exhibition, and I will share some of these once the exhibition has opened.

Liz was also excited to show me the latest edition of FRAME magazine. "Frame is the go-to reference for designers and interior architects." Since its inception, the magazine has identified the world’s most innovative interiors, and the December 2016 publication features an article about Liz West and her installation Our Colour Perception.



"Liz West creates vivid environments that mix luminous colour and radiant light. Working across a variety of mediums, West aims to provoke a heightened sensory awareness in the viewer through her works. She is interested in exploring how sensory phenomena can invoke psychological and physical responses that tap into our own deeply entrenched relationships to colour.


West's investigation into the relationship between colour and light is often realised through an engagement between materiality and a given site. Within physical and architectural space, West uses light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers. She playfully refracts light through using translucent, transparent or reflective materials, directing the flow of artificial and natural light. Our understanding of colour can only be realised through the presence of light. By playing and adjusting colour, West brings out the intensity and composition of her spatial arrangements."

The Science of Colour - Delivered by The Colour Group

On Thursday night I attended an event at Science Central called The Science of Colour. It was delivered by Colour Group (Great Britain), an interdisciplinary society, drawing together people interested in all aspects of colour – its perception, measurement, reproduction and artistic expression.

Dr Carinna Parraman from the Centre for Fine Print Research, spoke about her work with 2.5D printing at the University of the West of England, Bristol. 2.5D printing connects emerging interests in the technical, creative and physical approaches to practice. The process explores capturing, modelling and the application of textured marks that emulate the textured appearance of materials.

Valerie Bonnardel asked the question 'are the associations between words and colour arbitrary, or is there structure?'

She discussed colour as a sign:

There are 3 types of referential associations:

1. ICON - relation of (physical) similarity e.g. yellow = sun

2. INDEX - relation of contiguity (a series of things in continuous connection)

- signal - appears before the event e.g. dark sky gives warning of thunderstorm

- clue - remains after the event e.g. a handprint

- symptom - happens at the same time as the event e.g. leaves change colour as the seasons change

3. SYMBOLIC - relation of conventionality e.g. colours in flags

Dr Gabriele Jordan from the Colour Neuroscience Department at Newcastle University discussed her research into the superpower 'Tetrachromatic Colour Vision', answering the question "Is the red I see the same as the red you see?" by exploring psychophysics, gender differences and colour blindness.

Danny Garside ended the event with his presentation about how we make judgements about lighting. Colour and light are intrinsically linked, and both play a crucial role in how we perceive and 'enjoy' the places and spaces around us. 

What do we mean by 'good light'?

We judge the quality of light in two ways:

1. Based on usefulness - which is scene dependent e.g. is the lighting in a library suitable for reading?

2. Based on aesthetics - which is subjective

Danny proposed different factors that we consider when thinking about the quality of light

- intensity

- direction

- distribution

- temporal (does the light flicker?)

- colour

Different colours of light have been found to be most suitable for different activities. For example,

Blue light is good for working

Orange light is good for relaxation

These findings can be put to good use, for instance using orange lighting in bedrooms to help people sleep.

Danny demonstrated how we have a tendency to be affected more by changes in certain light colours than others, and this depends on the type of image we are looking at.

It was a thought provoking and interesting evening, and I am keen to attend more of the events organised by The Colour Group.

For more information about The Colour Group visit

http://www.colour.org.uk/index.php

Newcastle University MFA Summer Exhibition 2015 - Yein Son

Over the next couple of weeks, as the Newcastle University MFA Summer Exhibition is running,  I will be blogging about each of the artists exhibiting (in no particular order). 

Today I would like to introduce the work of Yein Son.

Yein writes, "My work is the trace left by my responses, experimental yet respectful, to this space in this time in this place."

Chasing the Light is like a race for drawing the shapes and lines of the light coming through the windows into the space every moment in a day. I chase and trace the silver lining of sunlight.

Nocturne 3.12: Every night after work, the nocturnal air inspires. In this city of wind and clouds, the sky is creating different textures and changing quickly each time. With this, I am expanding the energy of the nature of painting through my improvising gestures by using ink marks and experiments within painting.

 My painting is also closely connected to my investigation into the possibilities of what I call the multiple picture planes where what is seen occurs simultaneously on the surface, in the surface and the reverse of the surface."

Apple Store Window Display

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

NERVOUS SKIES - A collaborative work by Amelia Bande, Deborah Bower, Mat Fleming & Annette Knol at NewBridge Project Space

As a self-confessed lover of colour, NERVOUS SKIES - A collaborative work by Amelia Bande, Deborah Bower, Mat Fleming & Annette Knol at NewBridge Project Space is a delight to my eyes.

"It’s the latest addition to their Gel Film series, an installation of 16mm film, slides and text. Text and colour collide in a light show, which is as vibrationally intimate as it is technically spectacular. Multiple projections dance a thin line between oscillation and stillness. The piece seeks to bring about emotional resonances, by precisely cut intense colour rhythms and chance symbiotic relationships in the mind, the eye and the heart.

Nervous Skies was written collectively using automatic writing experiments. The four artists contributed with short texts produced fast and non-stop which were activated by prompt start phrases. The material was collected and edited into a single story by Amelia Bande."

The enjoyment of colour, texture and movement within Nervous Skies reminds me of some of Norman McLaren's animations. 

NewBridge Project Space, 16 Newbridge Street West, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 8AW, UK. 
Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12-6pm

VPT in the Project Space

At the moment I am collaborating with fellow Newcastle University MFA student, Jodie Dunnill, working towards an exhibition at the Literature and Philosophy Library in May.

We have booked out the Project Space and a projector for a couple of days and today we have been experimenting with projection mapping.

"Projection Mapping uses everyday video projectors, but instead of projecting on a flat screen (e.g. to display a PowerPoint), light is mapped onto any surface, turning common objects of any 3D shape into interactive displays. More formally, projection mapping is “the display of an image on an arbitrarily complex surface”.

Projection mapping has many alternate names including the original academic term “spatial augmented reality” and 'video mapping.'"

We had never used the software before, and were both very new to the concept of 'video mapping', so we began by watching a tutorial providing us with instructions about how to work with the software. We also watched a couple of examples of 'projection mapping' in action - the results are incredible.

We began by creating a layer as a solid block of projected colour to fit onto a triangular form we had in the space.

We then added another triangular form of a different colour.

Our next challenge was to project an image rather than a block of colour onto a surface. 

And then combined this with the other shapes.

We then progressed to using a video source as the imagery for the projected shape.

It's been a productive and fun day with a lot of learning and problem solving taking place. I'm looking forward to a further day of experimenting tomorrow.

Daniel Buren - Catch as catch can : works in situ at BALTIC

Approaching the BALTIC from the front, one can see the coloured diamonds on the windows of the facade, but when inside the building one experiences the wonderful effect that the coloured light has on the interior. 

Walls become bathed in various tones of different intensities depending on the weather and time of the day. It really changes with each encounter, prompting the visitor to return multiple times.

Likewise, the artwork on level 4 is very much determined by the time of day and weather conditions. 

At the time I visited, there was a warm, pinkish glow to the space, and with few people, there was a calm and peaceful atmosphere which made me think of being in a cathedral. The lights in the ceiling even made me feel that I was in a church due to their cross shape.

However, it may be completely different if the space was crowded with people and there was a lot of noise. This may be likened more to a busy city centre with the bright lights from advertising boards.

There is a noise, a rhythm, and an energy to the work, created by the patterned lights.

The wooden structures that are positioned around the gallery blend in well with the  wooden floor and  the mirrors make these structures part of their surroundings.

I enjoyed finding surprising areas where rainbows are found and subtle light patterns are created, such as in the image above.

I admire how the large gallery space has been used. Although there are a number of free standing structures around the floorspace, and there is a lot going on with the bright coloured reflections from the windows, it does not feel cluttered, nor bare. 

Downstairs, Buren exhibits a number of works exploring form, space, light and colour. 

I found the simplest three-dimensional paintings most interesting as they were not appearing to be fancy or overworked. There is an element of surprise when viewing the work as ones eyes try to make sense of what they are seeing when walking around the work.

Having never seen luminous fibre optic works before, this way of working and the material itself interested me, but I found myself trying to work out how the material works more than appreciating the actual work itself.