Jelly Exhibition at the Pie Factory Margate.

I visited a great imaginative, playful and evocative exhibition at the Pie Factory in Margate Old Town today, called Jelly.

Four artists, Elizabeth Burman, Karen Crosby, Claire Manning and Ruth Payne are showing a range of works including, drawings, interactive installations, jelly and sweets.

I enjoyed Ruth Payne's colourful drawings some with a bit of a playful strong language. The energy and life of the works drew me to them. Ruth's website and Facebook sites

Karen Crosby's chemigrams are evocative incorporating natural elements and abstract forms. Karen's website and Facebook

Claire Manning's swirly word drawings combine energy with the text and colours. Claire Manning's website and Facebook

Elizabeth Burman's  Daily Ink drawings collected on the wall of the gallery are intriguing and remind me of the effectiveness on a continuity of practice. Elizabeth's Facebook page

The exhibition is on till November 21st. The Pie Factory gallery
Open 11am till 5pm.

Kashif Nadim Choudry comission by the Studio Group at Turner Contemporary.

The Studio Group at Turner Contemporary commissioned Kashif Nadim Choudry to make work for the Sunley Gallery. The exhibition is on till the 23rd April.

The installation called The Three Graces was made with the support and work of the Studio Group members and local artists and craftspeople.

I had a very tiny part cutting out some fabric for some of the flowers in one of our Blank Canvas sessions

"Kashif Nadim Chaudry (born 1976, Nottingham) uses elaborate textiles techniques to create sculptures and installations that explore themes of identity, religion and cultural heritage. The Three Graces is a large-scale installation of three richly decorative monumental figures inspired by triptychs in eastern and western culture." (from The Gallery website)

The installation wraps itself around the space with vine like plant forms, and other spherical forms, and horse skulls are brightly decorated with beads, threads and layers of fabric.

Folkestone Triennial

The Folkestone Triennial is running till the 2nd of November  website here  and I've had one visit there and hope to go again before it ends.

There are a range of public installations and sculptures around the town and harbour including Alex Hartley's Lookout where a vigil is taking place on the top of the Grand Burstin Hotel.  Alex Hartley's work is a temporary structure echoing the Peace and Occupy camps or those of refugees and looks out over the harbour.  Alex Hartley's website here

There's a daily blog from Lookout  here  A number of different people have been staying in Lookout and also writing journals and taking photographs  I have been reading Em Peasgood's journal which was honest and moving. Em is orchestrating an arrangement for steel orchestra and choir being premiered at Turner Contemporary. Her journal entries here  and website here

Andy Goldsworthy has also created a work with a team,using clay from Folkestone beaches. His works usually involves using materials from the environment and in His Clay Window and Clay Steps,Andy Goldsworthy uses an empty shop, where the windows and walls have been covered in this clay.

Walking in you are in darkness with the smell of damp clay around you. Slowly you become aware of the cracks in the clay on the window as the clay dries out. Info here      Some lovely photos of Andy Goldsworty's sculptural works on Melt here

When I went to Folkestone the Art Car Boot Fair was on in the harbour car park. I have always enjoyed going to them in London and was pleased to see it happening in Folkestone. website  here 

http://www.artcarbootfair.com/

On the harbour beach people were still hunting for the gold bars that had been buried by artist
 Michael Sailstorfers  info here      The tide was coming in so there wasn't much sand left, people were digging to the last though.

New Installation at Turner Contemporary Gallery Margate

Outside the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate. artist Krijn de Koning has made a site specific installation. I really like the work which is called Dwelling (Margate/Folkestone)  and consists of a series of walls in different colours making room like spaces.

The second installtion is in Folkestone as part of the Folkestone Triennial, which I haven't seen yet. Folkestone Triennial website here

I like the changing views as you walk around the space, all the colours and the shadows changing the colours too. The cut outs in the walls frame views around the gallery too and a glimpse of the sea.

The work is described on the Turner Contemporary website. link here

 "Dwelling (Margate / Folkestone) has a strong sense of place, having been conceived for two different locations in Kent. Both sites have a strong connection through their coastal locations and history as popular destinations for leisure and tourism during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

What both sites have in common is an attempt at providing some sort of protection or shelter: the fake Victorian caves or grottoes on the one hand, versus the hard-edged contemporary architecture of Turner Contemporary on the other. Both sites lend themselves to this notion of a ‘dwelling’, which in turn plays with the traditional idea of seaside pavilions and beach huts, a common feature of the UK coast. "

Sliding House installation by Alex Chinneck in Margate

I went up to Cliftonville today to look at artist Alex Cinneck's new art work," From the knees of my nose to the belly of my toes" Which is a four storey house in Godwin road where the facade appears to be sliding down to the ground.

The artist was there being interviewed and photographed by his house. It is a striking piece, and people were stopping in their cars to look. Alex Chinneck has said he likes to use materials in un expected ways, like using the solid material of brick in a seemingly fluid way.

The house was compulsorary purchased by the council after being empty and derelict for 11years.
After the installation has been on show for a year the house will be converted back to a home to live in.

I like the homour in the work and the way it leads to questions about housing and homes and about areas like Cliftonville where there are a lot of lovely period properties slowly becoming derelict.

Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Tate Modern

I went to see the exhibition of Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern,exhibition info here drawn by her use of colours and the installation Infinity Room. I remembered her polka dot works and the sculptural pieces from some years ago, but hadn't seen the installations or much of her work at Tate Modern.

The first thing that hits you are the large red and white balls out side of the exhibition its self. I watched quite a few people interacting with them, adults and children alike. I enjoyed taking a few street photos there too.

Inside the exhibition I was struck by how interesting sticky dots and paper rings can be on mass on paper. A lot has been written about the obsessiveness in Yayoi Kusama's work, something she talks about too and there are many examples of multiple layers and patterns to see.In one of the installations, you walk into a room just lit by UV light, where furniture walls and ceiling are covered in coloured dots.

Yayoi has used polka dots since a child and in her happenings in the 1960's she covered people in polka dots.In one of her films in the exhibition you see Yayoi even covering a cat in polka dots and filming it too.

Quite a number of her sculptural works were on show including the facinating pieces of furniture, ladders and shoes covered in phallic shapes. They look like extrusions of clay arising from the objects themselves and do seem to convey a certain sense of unease as well as facination.

In the Infinity room an installation set up for this exhibition, Yayoi uses coloured light , mirrors and water to create a wonderful space. Inside the darkened room the lights change and looking all around you see what appears to be infinite reflections stretching into the distance. I stayed there quite a long time, entranced by the vision.


Yayoi has been voluntarily staying in a psychiatric hospital in Japan since 1977 and working continually in a studio nearby. She says her art has saved her life.
Yayoi Kusama's website is here

Ai Weiwei Circle of Animals.

I got to see Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals Zodiac Heads, his new sculptural installation at Somerset House, last week.
It is an installation of 12 bronze sculptures of animal heads, the animals being the traditional animals of the Chinese Zodiac including, dragon, horse, monkey and rabbit. Ai Weiwei based his sculptures on traditional Chinese designs and they are quite striking in the courtyard of Somerset House.


It is a political shame that Ai Weiwei has been arrested and is in custody in China now, for apparent tax evasion. He has been an outspoken critic of China's regime for many years, it is testimony to the power of the arts I suppose that artists like Ai Weiwei are targeted by their country in an attempt to silence their views.
I hope international pressure is brought to bear more and more strongly on the Chinese for the release of Ai Weiwei.



The regular fountains are on again for the summer, with their sequence of rising and falling jets, I couldn't quite make up my mind whether they enhanced or detracted from the installation. I did enjoy taking a few photos of them through the water though.

John Stezaker and Exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery

I headed down to the Whitechapel Gallery this week to see John Stezaker's exhibition of photographic collage work. I have started to make some small collages myself as cards and have been interested in this way of working for a long time.

John Stezaker had some interesting work, most of the work was based around portraits, a lot of Film stars from the past and mostly in black and white. ( Interestingly and coincidentally I had just found a series of old cinema stars portraits that I had cut out for collage work)
The the subtle changes of the eyes ( an extra piece of an eye infilled in the face) in the old Hollywood portraits Love series, were enough to be slightly disturbing and made me think about the power of the eyes between people who are in love.
Other portraits had the faces obscured by vintage postcards, in the Mask series, some were more effective or clever than others in echoing the face in some way, by the features in the landscapes, bushes becoming hair, landscape features becoming noses for instance.


I liked the portraits where the whole silhouette was filled with another subject like Shadow Third Person series where in one image blue sea became sky and a mountain landscape filled the figure.

The exhibition did give more impetuous to carry on exploring my own collage work and to include more of my photographs in the work.

Other exhibitions in the gallery included Richard Wentworth's Three Guesses pieces of red thread were hung from nails all around the walls and an old fashioned cabinet of threads stood to one side.Upstairs in the main gallery artist Bethan Huws conceptual installation had raised a large part of the gallery floor, to change the space. The new floor matched the old floor (except for it being newer in colour) and looked like a platform had been put in for a performance perhaps, most people walked in and out not seeming to take much notice.
I'm not sure how much it worked to change our experience of the space, though it was meant to alter it subtly apparently.
In the smaller space there were wall texts describing some of Duchamps work and Bethan Huws interpretation of them.

Keeping it Real by Mona Hatoum was a large installation made of wire cages filled with light bulbs that went off and on, the sound of the electric currents being amplified and played in the room. A disturbing piece in some ways, with echos of prison, confinement and threat.

The Bloomberg Commission, Claire Barclay's Shadow Spans, was another installation/ sculptures that filled gallery 2 downstairs. Door and window frames were draped with fabric printed with bricks, abandoned, plant pots, hats, gloves and other seemingly abandoned objects were strewn around and fixed to the frames. It was a bit like seeing into a dream like vision of a disaster area without the really bad stuff. Apparently Claire Barclay's work" suggests the transition point between interior and exterior spaces, as well as hinting at lives behind closed doors".