Cardboard Realities

Just a quick post of one of my favourite Photographer's Thomas Demand talking about his carefully constructed realities. I wish I had so many assistants to be able to build an installation so quickly as his set of the White House Office!

Artists Practice Day, Camden Arts Centre, 8th January 2011

Page 28, The Sketchbook Project, 2011





On Saturday, I gave a presentation at the Camden Arts Centre Artists Practice Day, about recent drawings and installations I have created in the last few months.  I was amongst three other artists presenting their work; Si Sapsford, Sayako Sugawara and Duncan Marquiss, in the peer critique/ review opportunity - with other invited artists in the audience offering feedback and critique.

Despite being a little nervous, I very much enjoyed the experience - and comments from the other artists were very helpful and positive in considering elements of my practice to reflect on more deeply, or routes for developing ideas.  The opportunity to speak about my practice in a semi-formal manner in front of artists, was excellent practice in dealing with questions about unexpected or unconsidered aspects of my practice, of which there are always numerous.  Since graduating from Goldsmiths - which offered a plethora of extremely rigorous critique opportunities - I have only presented work to artist peers whom I have known for some time.  The experience has inspired me to set up more regular group discussion to support practices.

One element of my own practice I have been thinking about since in particular, has been my use of materials in drawings and installations, and the inexact manner in which I execute the drawings, often with blurred edges and uneven lines. I have always been interested in recreating or referencing these digitally 'perfect' images through handmade processes re- instating discrepancies and idiosyncrasies within my work, but it there a stage when this is too much and appears careless? We discussed the immediate nature of drawing - a basic tool to quickly replicate any visual or thought, and I am interested in the varying perception of drawing in this sense, as opposed to a process associated with consideration and longevity.

Otherwise this week, I have been busy sending off work to the Embassy Gallery Members Exhibition  in Edinburgh, which runs from the 21st January until 6th February 2011, and my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project Tour, which begins at the Brooklyn Art Library, NY on February 19th 2011.  I am still editing photographs of my drawings, but these will be uploaded onto my website soon.

Many thanks to Anna and Nisha at the Camden Arts Centre for organising and holding the Artists Practice Day.

The Legacy of Tron

Amongst the many Christmas delights, was a much awaited trip to the cinema to see Tron: Legacy.  Although visually stunning, with all three dimensional forms outlined in either orange or blue neon bars, accompanied by a powerful electronic soundtrack by DaftPunk - the weak storyline and characters failed to provide depth to a narrative that did little more than acting as a treat for our eyes and ears.  A nostalgia for the original movie, that first explored in movie terms a physical exploration of digital space through awkward CGI graphics - sat uncomfortably within the sequel that references such visuals through highly developed CGI; where even Jeff Bridge's youthful face is digitally remastered.  A lightly touched upon moral outcome, is Jeff Bridge's adult character's realisation, that his endeavours to create this digital, 'other' world was in vain - and that this creation only ended in creating a kind of hell.  Indeed, his final acceptance that perfection was both simultaneously unattainable and already within his grasp within his existing family.  You can't help but enjoy DaftPunk's 'Derezzed', however, press play to watch below...