Today’s insight into the fine artists’ work and skills was as interesting as any other visiting artist. If not more engaging. (I, for one, have a very short attention span.) So having 6 different artists available and accessible to present really helped me in this instance. There was a variety of techniques shown, and most described or showed how they had got to that given final piece or exhibition, which really gave me a closer look into exhibiting and curating (in particular your own work). Despite me being intrigued by each artist, I found it rather difficult to have any critical judgement, overall or individually. I suppose that’s not such a bad thing though, as each of them are still studying and still only just fining their feet in the world of contemporary art.
The first MA student really grabbed my attention; Matthew Merricks who lived and taught in Moscow for 3 years from 2015, only returning to England at the end of 2018 to find a specific interest in how the people and culture can change over time, and acknowledging the developed use of the simple word, “sorry”. This had us all laughing. It’s such a British thing to do. This had led him onto a more performance based style of work rather than the printing and painting he was used to, thus ‘He Opens His Mouth and the Vaccuum Sucks it Out’ came about. This was a video that had been playing in the background during the entirety of his presentation; which turned out to be him silently repeating the word “rhubarb” without anyone noticing until told so (I thought he was speaking a foreign language and had been dubbed over with the voice of an English man, but my mind was just playing tricks). Although Merrick was not present in the room during this 10 minute stint, I could almost say he was the most engaging as there was so much depth and various angles to his work, that went nearly unnoticed and certainly made me really enjoy his work.
The other MA artists were as follows:
- Charlotte Hill (prominent focus on painting)
- Ami Zanders
- Henry Chan (prominent focus on sculpting)
- Angelo Madonna (prominent focus on sound, vision and media)
- Sarah Stringer
I always find myself able to listen and reflect more on those who indulge in similar styles and techniques to my own artistic style, and so during this lecture I really pushed myself to concentrate a bit more on those who were a little abstract and unusual.
I really enjoyed Ami Zanders’ approach to her work, as she explained her comfort in weaving and paper making yet also explained how she felt this wasn’t enough for her anymore. She had woven together a beautiful (and almost comforting) blanket that she had been encouraged to adapt further into a performance piece. Like Zanders, performance is not my strong suit, so to see her adaptation was really interesting. She proceeded to hide under the blanket, rotating and almost tangling herself in it, whilst writing down the words or comments she heard around her, on the floor in this circular motion. She commented on how she often looks into the way of rituals and costume, and how this must have subconsciously influenced her final idea of rotational ritual performance.
I tried my best but I’ll admit that I found it hard to follow the presentation of Sarah Stringer. She opted for a non visual way of presenting, however she was such an accentric person and humorous character that I didn’t even mind that I had no real clue what work she produced. She tied off the presentations really well almost privately acknowledging the cold weather and early morning, with a cheery goodbye of…
Merry Christmas and Happy Wednesday
HXLLISON ART HISTORY 