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Exhibition invite - David Foggo and Helen Shaddock - new work - White Space, Carliol House - 6-8pm, Thursday 15th August 2019

6-8pm
Thursday 15th August 2019
White Space, The NewBridge Project, Carliol House



David Foggo and I have installed an exhibition in the White Space in Carliol House to coincide with the closing party of Once Upon A Space in the GOLDTAPPED gallery.

Join us to see the results of an experimental process of hanging our independent works in the same space, forming connections between works and making collaborative installation decisions.

In the GOLDTAPPED Gallery, artists Katrin Auld, Helen Edling and Sarah Tulloch have been working together as part of artists’ collective Once upon a Space for a 10 day residency. They will be presenting the results of their residency.

Collage punch will be served...

Location: NewBridge Studios, Carliol House, New Market Street

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Group Show

Group Show is an art podcast series by Caitlin Merrett King covering topics like work, collaboration and criticism. 

Series Two was produced at The NewBridge Project, Newcastle during her Practice Makes Practice residency in March 2019. It features music, sound pieces and interviews from studio and associate NBP members. 

The latest episode (episode 8) features Ilana, Hannah, Helen, Lorna, Marwa and Katy discussing the ‘Great and Tiny War’ project by artist Bobby Baker and produced by Wunderbar. We all met one evening to mull over our experience of being involved (in various capacities) in Bobby's highly moving installation within a house on Sidney Grove from September - December 2018.

The experience of working together was extremely positive and unique. We all felt that it was something special, not like any other work experience that we had experienced before. In the conversation we reflect on what made this particular experience so unique and rewarding. 

Please note that not all the hosts were available at the time of recording and so some key voices are missing.

All episodes are available to download on iTunes or Spotify. 

For more information about Caitlin visit https://caitlinmerrettking.co.uk/

Open Exhibition Preview - Gallagher & Turner - Thursday 22nd August 2019 - 6pm-8pm

I'd like to invite you to an exhibition that will feature one of my recent works.

Opening soon...
OPEN EXHIBITION 2019

23rd August - 5th October | Preview: Thursday 22nd August, 6-8pm

Artists Exhibiting:

ALAN RICHMOND | ALLAN WHITE | ANDREW CHEETHAM | ANDREW WATCHORN | ANNA GOULDING | BETH J ROSS | CHARLOTTE POWELL | CHRIS POLUNIN | CRISPIAN HEATH | DIANA HALBERT | EMINE THOMPSON | EMMA BENNETT | FELIKS CULPA | GARY CARTER | HARRY BELL | HELEN SHADDOCK | HOLLY SCOTT | JACQUELINE QUINN | JAMIE TAYLOR | JOANNE HOWELL | JOHN GREY | JOHN KIM | JOHNNYX | KEVIN BLAIR | LAURA LAWSON | LOUISE PALLISTER | MARIA LAFFEY | MARIA SEARS | MARK BLETCHER | MARTIN GOLLAN | PADDY KILLER | ROBERT SODEN | RORY CANNON | SABINE WEISSBACH | SAM WOOD | STUART JONES | THERESA EASTON | THERESA POULTON

Newcastle and the surrounding areas are widely regarded as having some of the strongest and most diverse creative communities in the UK, with groups of artists thriving and producing fantastic work both in the cities and more rural areas.

Gallagher & Turner are delighted to announce our first ever Open Exhibition, which showcases this abundance of cultural talent, featuring artworks submitted by artists from across the North East, many of whom are new to our gallery. The exhibition brings together the diverse range of practices of over thirty artists, from landscapes to abstract paintings; etchings to screen prints; stonemasonry to jewellery; celebrating the wealth of creativity in our region.

Highlights include the vibrant, Pop-art stylings of local printmaker Johnnyx, whose colourful and subversive works bring a unique sense of sparkle, as well as the delightfully eerie and intricate drawings of Charlotte Powell, which feature compositions of antique dolls and elaborate flowers.

Traditional landscape paintings, full of light and detail, feature scenes of the North East, such as the Tyne Bridge of the coast at South Shields, as well as further afield. These sit alongside more contemporary takes on abstraction with their vibrant energy, such as Beth Ross’s geometric pieces, or Alan Richmond’s Gerhard Richter-esque abstracted landscapes. But it’s not just two-dimensional work on show: figurative sculptures exquisitely carved from natural stone by mason Rory Cannon, delicate jewellery by silversmith Emine Thompson, and striking cast glass work by Crispian Heath will feature in this varied exhibition.

Some of the artists involved have never shown their work publicly before, and so provide a fresh outlook on creativity in our region with the opportunity to exhibit their pieces in a professional gallery. We look forward to welcoming these new faces to the gallery alongside more established artists, and to giving a new platform to the breadth of creative talent that we live amongst.

All work will be for sale

For more information please visit https://gallagherandturner.co.uk/open-exhibition-2019

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Sounds Like Her - Gender, Sound Art and Sonic Cultures at York Art Gallery

'Curated by Christine Eyene, known for her enquiry into feminist art and her research on sound art from an African perspective – Sounds Like Her sets out to broaden existing approaches to sound art and challenge the Eurocentric and patriarchal frameworks that have informed the discourse on sound art practice and continue to dominate the mainstream today.

The project brings together six women artists, each exploring sound as a medium or subject matter: Ain Bailey, Sonia Boyce OBE RA, Linda O’Keeffe, Christine Sun Kim, Madeleine Mbida and Magda Stawarska-Beavan.

Collectively the selected works represent sound in the broadest sense, exploring voice, noise, organic and synthetic sounds, rhythmic patterns, sonic structures and visual materialisation of sound. The result is a varied exhibition of mixed media bringing together audio, immersive installation, painting, print, drawing and video.'

Having read about Ain Bailey's The Pitch Sisters, I was disappointed not to experience the work within the exhibition. The work, in part, 'responds to the line: "The preferred pitch of a woman's voice is A flat below middle C" from the 1985 film, Peggy and Fred in Hell: The Prologue. The work seeks to present what a female sonic universe would sound like if women's voices indeed vocally hung around an A flat below middle C. The installation is a circular layout of speakers playing the voices of 46 women performing the note.' I managed to find a link to a stereo recording of the work on the British Music Collection website. 

https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/composer/ain-bailey

I must admit that the element of the exhibition that I was most attracted to was the way in which the walls had been painted and the design of the catalogue. The colour choice could be said to be rather feminine, and given the title of the exhibition, GENDER, Sound Art & Sonic Cultures, I was reminded of one aspect of my Undergraduate dissertation which commented on how the context affects the reading of the work. In this context, the work is displayed in a gallery with delicate pastel shades - is this trying to emphasise the femininity of the work? 

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Displaying ceramic buttons

I appreciated the way that the ceramic buttons were displayed at Centre for Ceramic Art (CoCA) in York Art Gallery. 

Sara Moorhouse in Centre for Ceramic Art (CoCA) at York Art Gallery

The first work I encountered in the Centre for Ceramic Art (CoCA) at York Art Gallery was Arable Landscape: the assemblage by Sara Moorhouse. I was immediately drawn to the collection by Sara's choices of colour and the layered design.



"The wall sculpture refers to a wide open arable landscape, where colours connect across the dominant hues of red, green and blue to represent different shapes and spaces.

The pieces are hand thrown and turned, the movement of the wheel often reflected in the slight asymmetry of the form. The lines are applied by returning the bisque fired bowl to the wheel and painted with ceramic colour by hand. A matt glaze is then applied to stabilize and enhance the coloured surface."

http://saramoorhouse.com/

David Batchelor - My Own Private Bauhaus at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh

There are a selection of artists who produce work that always manages to delight me and fill me with joy. David Batchelor is one of them. No matter how bad a day I have been having, seeing his work makes me smile, cheers me up and makes me feel more positive. Simplicity is underrated. An enjoyment of colour, form, shape and surface is what I get from looking at the work. I cannot help but feel an urge to go to the studio and make work. Thank you David Batchelor - you are a star! May my own work move people and bring happiness to others in the way that your work does for me.

'My Own Private Bauhaus’ is an exhibition that marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus by Walter Gropius in 1919.  It is, in Batchelor’s words ‘a phrase that has been hanging around the studio for a few years’ and pays tribute to the movement through Batchelor’s personal appreciation of the square, circle and triangle.

Since he began working with colour, over 25 years ago, Batchelor’s installations, sculptures, paintings, drawings and photographs have been characterised by simple shapes and regular forms. But, unlike the pure geometry of the Bauhaus, Batchelor’s forms are, he says ‘often damaged, bent or broken; and the colours, while vivid, are neither pure nor primary.’ Batchelor’s work pays tribute to the geometric abstraction of the 1920s, but is also characterised by improvisation, informality, humour and what Batchelor describes as ‘a distrust of formal ordering systems and regulated theories of colour’.

My Own Private Bauhaus is the artist’s collective title for a wide variety of small sculptures, paintings and drawings that sit together on long, shallow, wall-mounted aluminium shelves. Made from plastic offcuts, shards of glass, found objects, metal mesh, tin tops, timber, concrete, gloss paint, spray paint and adhesive tape – individual works are arranged in irregular rows. Together they represent the diverse output of Batchelor’s practise and the interconnected nature of his colour-based work, whether it is two- or three-dimensional. 

The exhibition also includes a number of large paintings made using poured commercial paint on aluminium panels. These Colour Chart paintings become virtual sculptures with precariously colourful, off-circular forms balanced atop schematic, plinth-like bases. In turn; several smaller sculptures in the exhibition, made from the discarded tops of the tin cans from which the paint was poured, refer back to the paintings.'

https://www.inglebygallery.com/exhibitions/7132-david-batchelor-my-own-private-bauhaus/overview/

Patterns and places of inspiration

On my walk back to the train station yesterday I came across a number of little shops that I could not resist popping into. I can get lots of inspiration from looking at patterns, designs, colours, forms, surfaces, fabrics and objects, and I also learn lots from shops in terms of ideas for ways to display things.

Here are a few photos of things and names of places that caught my eye

lifestory

https://www.lifestoryshop.com/

Concrete Wardrobe

Curiouser and Curiouser

https://curiouserandcuriouser.com/

A useful reminder

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Conference for the Birds by Marcus Coates at Out of place at the Hatton Gallery

'In the summer of 2018 the research project Mapping Contemporary Art in the Heritage Experience commissioned five new contemporary artworks for heritage sites in North East England. Out of Place re-presents these artworks within the context of the Hatton Gallery, prompting a questioning of how art changes when it is relocated from its original site. Out of Place features commissioned sound-works, installation, painting and sculpture by Susan Philipsz, Matt Stokes, Fiona Curran, Andrew Burton, Marcus Coates and Mark Fairnington.'

I was enthralled by Conference for the Birds by Marcus Coates. 




The main installation takes place at Cherryburn, the birthplace of Thomas Bewick. It responds specifically to Thomas Bewick’s publication the History of British Birds (1797) which bought his detailed wood engravings and information about the bird’s lives to a mass audience for the first time. Visitors to Cherryburn can experience seven of Bewick’s engravings depicted as life-size birds gathered round the fireplace discussing their lives, knowledge and culture.

Taking inspiration from the birds Bewick immortalised in his engravings and recorded in his ground breaking book 'A History of British Birds', Conference for the Birds brings to life Bewick’s work for visitors in a new and contemporary way; shining a spotlight on the historical significance of Cherryburn and challenges facing wildlife and nature today.


The work is presented in a slightly different fashion in the Hatton Gallery. Several seats are positioned around a large table, on which are placards with the names of a number of bird species. Visitors are invited to take a seat among the birds for a unique insight into a bird’s perspective of the world. The birds, each researched and played by wildlife experts, discuss topics from migration to predation, with each species recounting their day to day experiences.

By exploring the lives of the birds that Bewick studied and recorded, Conference of the Birds reveals how many of the experiences and challenges faced by wildlife relate to our own, and how relevant they are today as when the Bewick’s book was first published over 200 years ago.

Marcus comments “I think there is value in this attempted shift in outlook as it creates unexpected lines of questioning and enquiry. This 'play' can also reveal just as much about us to ourselves than it does about the birds.”

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