Success

Nope this isn’t a post about some amazing achievement or that I have somehow have a bank account in the black.  Its more of a reflection on what success is for me, and specifically in my art practice.  Whilst teaching here in Saas Fee (means to fund my art practice) I get asked a lot by my guests whether my artwork/practice is successful.  The two means for validation lie mainly on me telling them whether I sell my work regularly or am I famous.  I guess in this day and age you know one unless you are on some list of success even if you are Z list Celeb…

I am honest with my guests, I am not known however like most emerging artists we are labeled so for that very reason.  As for selling, it has not been a focus within my practice to make specifically objects.  Commodifying an art practice is something we all contemplate throughout our years.  However at present I rely on my snowboard coaching as a source of income whilst I develop my voice and direction in my practice.

Success for me is nothing to do with money or notoriety and its something I feel is harder to gain.  It is purely one thing for me and the works I make which is conversation or discussion (discourse if you want art-speak 2.0).  This very basic element within the art world and beyond is not that easy to gain.  Yes in the era of social media it is easy to put work out there for more to see but to hear back is not so simple.  There is very little echo from the majority of not just my work but my peers.  The little that does come back is more of support from fellow creatives who spur you on.  However for me I seek success in the form of something more in the conversation that good art creates.  Don’t get me wrong this is not purely about adulation or people describing works as life changing its the chat surrounding how it engages and interacts on different levels and people.  This discussion is not always sought from those that like or get the work but rather negative and constructive response is just as valid.  I come from a belief that good work is so when you have a response to it this can be in the form or negative: repulsion, hate or anger.  Whilst also the positive: resonates, refreshes perspective or challenges existence.  Work that sits in the middle is what just fades.

Following on from my previous post about being adrift, the reason to currently make work whilst not be located within a place or group.  I see this isolation as a hard time to know where to exhibit or present work when I barely exist.  For me the motivation of making work when I deep down know that the rational for the work being successful is this conversation adds to stalling of making.  The works are still there in my head and whilst I navigate the next few years I will create. However finding a means to connect with networks or environments where I can gage the validity of the work is part of the process and for me right now is the biggest challenge.

Auxiliary Progress…

Since arriving here in Stockton my time has been spent exploring not just the local landscape but also my current limits of my practice. I came here looking to examine how I install current workings of sonic works and how I can develop or bridge the gap that I find between what I am making and what I am trying to offer.

The first few weeks were spent contemplating speaker architecture and how installing speaker drivers within a form that dissolved or collapsed whilst it functioned worked.  Drawing on the inspiration of the local area and its regeneration hopes/plans.  I have been thinking heavily about addition and reduction as methods of creation both in sound and process works.  Glitch process that I have been known to use is a perfect example of how regeneration seems to operate, existing ideology is rehashed the result is urban planning that though clearly considered it is not until it is implemented you realise the functional errors of such planning.

The focus on heritage and community, the life and death of generations that have called a place home.  The time that passes by and the marks those leave on a place last longer than structures in many cases.  Replacing old is not something that should be done without consideration and awareness for those that live within it.  The Auxiliary residency is based within a community that is exposed to many different social factors.  It is an opportunity to live within a place that is struggling to come to terms with how it should function.  The oddity is that with all the trials and time that it takes to rejuvenate a place it somehow still continues, functions without much thought.  Time will change the nature of a community however daily this is not something that is really brought to your attention as each day was like the last.

Mid way through this residency my father has a stroke which alongside my research here at the Auxiliary has given me a new perspective.  Seeing a parent go through a life changing moment in their existence brings reality home.  I have recently been back and forth between the residency and my parents to see how my father has progressed with his recovery.  Even though I have not been making as much as I would of hoped it has provided much needed reflection, thinking more about the sound works that have been started yet not finished.  The last few weeks here in Stockton I hope to realise some new works with little or no focus on completion yet more or presenting something that is mobile/fluid and evolving.  

 

 

DIP YOUR TOE – Govanhill Baths, Glasgow

DIP YOUR TOE

Govanhill Baths Community Trust

99 Calder Street, G42 7RA Glasgow, United Kingdom

Preview: Thursday 16th June 6:00 – 9:00pm
Open: 17th – 25th June (Thurs – Sat each week)
Weekdays: 12:00noon – 6:00pm
Saturday: 10:00 – 1:00pm

This exhibition, which is part of Print Festival Scotland, showcases 5 artists who share a contemporary and diverse approach to printmaking. For this show the artists have taken over the Slipper Baths within The Govanhill Baths, adorning each cubicle with a selection of work that reacts to the space through an array of styles, techniques and materials.

Nicola Massie (b. Aberdeen) currently lives and works in Glasgow specialising in printmaking and sculpture. Since graduating from Painting and Printmaking at The Glasgow School of Art, she has received the Glasgow Print Studio Prize, RGI New Graduate Award and was nominated for the Saatchi New Sensations Prize.

Andreas Behn-Eschenburg (b. Zürich) graduated from Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art (2014), and continues to live and work in Glasgow. Andreas investigates the artist’s agency and deconstructs the traditions of painting into elements that are then reassembled in other media as installations within a space.

Fionnuala McGowan (b. Belfast) is another Glasgow based artist, who explores the boundaries of printmaking through creating sculptural prints. She was a recipient of the Glasgow Print Studio prize (2014), was featured in the summer 2015 edition of Printmaking Today and completed a residency in Frans Masereel Centrum, (Belgium, 2014).

Dickie Webb (b. Oxford) migrates between North and Southern Hemispheres, operating from a nomadic studio and artist residencies – SNEHTA, ACSL, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshops and Chisenhale Art Place. Recent exhibitions include Early Warning – & Model, PNEM, Netherlands, Things Are Different Now – Art Athina and Beyond Tinted – MAMY, Armenia.

David Farrar (b. Oxford) is a Glasgow based artist whose work focuses on the relationship between form and function. He has exhibited internationally, most recently in The National Original Print Exhibition (London) and has attended residencies at Frans Masereel Centrum (Belgium), The Artist House in St. Mary’s College (USA) and VCCA (USA).

 

The Thoughtfulness Of Nonverbal Space – Shin Noguchi

SHIN NOGUCHI

Published on June 5, 2015 on Aint Bad Magazine.

Shin Noguchi is an award winning street photographer based in Kamakura and Tokyo, Japan. He describes his street photography as an attempt to capture extraordinary moments of excitement, beauty and humanism, among the flow of everyday life and has a discreet, poetic and enigmatic approach that is sensitive to the subtleties and complexities of Japanese culture without using posed/staged and no-finder/hip shot. “Street photography always projects the “truth”. The “truth” that I talk about isn’t necessarily that I can see, but they also exist in society, in street, in people’s life. and I always try to capture this reality beyond my own values and viewpoint/perspective.” Today we take a look at Shin’s series titled Nonverbal Space.

“Nonverbal Space”, it is unstable, distorted, and contradicts what we have created. And [Ma], exists in there.

The characteristic of the Japanese [Ma] is very beautiful, also delicate, and if you are not always aware of the very small amount of undulation of [Ma], it loses balance immediately.

I tried to listen to a lump of invisible voice (or the voice that was confined) of [Ma] existing in nonverbal/unstable spaces of our daily lives, and I aimed to visualize the two invisible elements, [Ma] and human [Gou] (karma/conduct) that underlies in [Ma].

Also, in this project, I dared to express the human being as the existence (visualization of [Gou]), not as an individual but by making the whole nonverbal space the subject without including people in the frame. this way, i am managing the awareness of the relationship between individuals, society and the surrounding environment for the viewers.

Danshi Tatekawa said that “Rakugo is an affirmation of human [Gou] (karma/conduct), that is, inconsistency”, and Alexander Pope also said that “To err is human, to forgive divine”.
As they talked towards “people”, could their words really be said in front of the “Nonverbal Space” which is more closer to the “society”? and could that “forgiveness” recreate another type of hope or a new possibility in this land where everything had changed to something that looks irreversible?

I shoot the “Nonverbal Space” (it is unstable, distorted, and something contradicts what we have created) while being aware of their words which were created by human beings as well.

Finally, by expressing the subjective viewpoint of the photographer, this project is, so to speak, an antithesis against the new topographic photographs.

To view more of Shin’s work please visit his website.

Passing Weeks..

These last few weeks have been spent exploring all parts of Yerevan some intentionally and others purely by accident.  One day this week even was comparably to my days on my snowboard.  Using the bus like a chairlift to take me to a point in the city with a line back to house which I walked capturing many elements that I had over the weeks hope to experience.

These random wanderings and planned excursions have allowed me to interact with architecture and accidental sculptural objects.  They have created conversations within my practice that I am now exploring and will continue post residency here.  I spend time photography and field recording the sounds I encounter not always for later work but to use the process of recording as a way to explore the moments that I have experienced.  Some of these elements naturally appear in the work but sometimes it is me focusing on something that i see a metaphor amongst or pausing just so the brain absorbs and allows the senses to filter completely.  Though the sounds and visual elements are important it is all senses that inform my thoughts.  If only to have a machine to record the smells both pleasant and not so.  The aromas here are strong and really striking.

Certain themes are constant within my travels such as looking through but seeing behind in reflective moments or the attraction to controlled and protected spaces.  Here especially where traffic cones are not so common the ways in which people mark space is intriguing.  One thought that is common with my travels here though is to do with vacancy as a positive.  The building of vacancy, i.e. in the sense of building glass and marble buildings that seems to be for something that only they know about.  With these buildings not necessarily fitting into the landscape rather standing alone amongst the tower blocks of Soviet era.  I see these new buildings a positive in one sense and nod to a new era or at least optimism.  This in comparison in other cities that I have lived recently where new construction has stopped.

As for work I am currently working on a new digital work, a step on from the Athens Arrival work I made in Greece last year and also some new photo and sculptural works.  These are all due to be exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art here in a couple of weeks.  So for now the walks and excursions are more precise and studio time has increased.  I will update from the studio in a few days prior to the show.