Thursday 15 January 2015

Emergence – King’s Lynn Arts Centre 10-17 January 2015

This exhibition highlights the talent of young artists working locally as well as in the rest of the UK. A few of the artists have recently graduated with BAs or MAs in Visual Arts.

The twelve artists provided twenty pieces ranging from photography to contemporary installations using steel and wood.

From the handout it isn’t possible to determine which artists have a BA or MA and perhaps that doesn’t matter but my reaction to the exhibition as a whole was the range of talent from average to extraordinary and I was curious if the MA graduates were those (in my perception) who had made the better work.

As we are well aware the onus in a fine art exhibition (or any fine art work) is on the viewer to read the work and find our own narrative or gain some insight into the work from our perspective, the author having long gone.

The works that caught my eye during a short visit are mentioned below.

The first work by Jake Francis consisted of three items. A chair with a head on it (titled Stoopid #2), a painting (titled Artist)and a table with a plate, food and cutlery (titled Gloop). The content of each piece is bizarre and set out to be controversial. The picture is of an artist palette, but no paint, instead 3 lumps of animal (could be human) excrement. The head was from some fruit and the food on the plate looks like a dolls dress with a a brown fluid oozing from inside it, resembling an afterbirth with clothes on.

Jamie Kilcoin had produced 5 landscape photographs, mostly taken around the North Norfolk coast I would guess as I recognised some of the locations. Well produced work with lovely image quality and presentation. As a group they have a connection in genre but for me three in colour and two monochrome upset the rhythm of reading them as a set.

An interesting diptych from Ivan Chambers of a female in black leather bikini. In one she is in a church, in the other outside a Soho type theater. Various labels attached beneath the two images. All I get here is irony and a Charlie Hebdo type of cartoon effect. The message is not easy to read but has something to do with the fortune of sins. Not easy but well delivered.

Jasmine Ferrari produced an installation piece titled Madonna. Made from small section (25x25) softwood the piece is a masterful example of woodworking. It is intricate and has a balanced feeling with flat panels pained in colour. I know little about this type of work, my only thought being if it was designed for a particular site then here it maybe isn’t the right place.

The next item is also an installation. Five (maybe six) pieces of plywood laminated with glass suspended from part of the gallery structure gives us a love floating piece hanging in mid air. A light airy feel, again a work that is maybe designed for a specific location and would benefit from being against a wall of darker colour.

James Linder provided the second helping of photography by the presence of a lovely DeVere 10x8 camera as a floor installation. A gorgeous thing in its own right I assume it was the camera used to make the large portrait associated with it. Also present was a 5x4 wet plate collodion negative of the same image. There was no explanation but I assume a 5x4 back was used and what we have therefore is the narrative of the image from camera to print. The monochrome print is of a portrait of a man, front on and closely cropped and framed. Very Bailey was the first impression although the treatment of the image was high contrast with large black areas and that’s not quite Bailey. A combination piece of work that I came back to a number of times.

The next installation piece is by Amber Lawrence. Amber is the Visual Arts & Education Intern at the arts centre and I have met her a few times as she was the point of contact for last years Eastern Open. Ambers piece is constructed using square hollow section mild steel. She has made four frames, some 1500mm high that form a space for smaller white pieces of stonework. The frames act as support to hang the stone pieces and it is if the steelwork is sometimes the artwork and sometimes the support for the white pieces to be the artwork. Once again the work is being seen perhaps out of context and I was bothered by the tiled floor making another set of shapes that competed with the frames.

At the far end of the Red Barn there are 6 TV Monitors showing a continuous loop of a video work titled DRONE. Drone it would seem is a game with a voice telling us about the various levels of play. The pictures however show real life footage from aircraft on bombing raids on building in the Middle East. The combination of voice, music, graphics and footage was excellent and kept me engaged. The use of six screens gave one the feeling of being in a TV control room or the control room of the people engaged in the fighting. Well produced piece of video and installation by Henry Driver.

An experience looking at unfamiliar art and thinking about the "thinking" that the students had gone through to get the work completed and on display. It is difficult to say how any piece is likely to influence my own practice but it is good to see work at the level I aspire to.

The Arts Centre Website is here.



Monday 12 January 2015

Probing some new Ideas.

The three images below are the start of a new idea using shallow depth of field to connote the short sightedness of society, especially in the rural environment and economy. It is difficult to know where this is likely to end, it may have ended already.

The remains of a hedge.



National speed limit - really !.



Once a forest.


Sunday 11 January 2015

Assignment 4 - Adjustment to scope.

The research reading is going well, but has made me consider another possible change in the context of the essay. It will still be based entirely on Post-modernism and the critical theory associated with this fascinating and at the same time difficult subject. I feel though a need to refer to more photography and photographers rather than use all the words on the French philosophers and the academic thinking of the late 20th century. The subject clearly spans across literature, religion and other humanities based subjects but in order for me to connect with this I must bias my research towards photography. In doing so I will attempt to analyse how the works of Sherman, Wall etc may influence my own practice.
An issue that is puzzling me at the moment is how I came to be the owner of a Kindle version of Postmodern Art-Photography: A Mediatheoretical Approach by Andreas Lohmann. It isnt advertised as a Kindle book and I have no recollection of how it came to be on my iPad. The paper version sells for over £150. Senior moment perhaps but thank you to the techno gods for my present.

Thursday 8 January 2015

Assignment 4 Critical Review - Title fixing and research

For some time (4weeks) I have been working on an idea for the essay, in conjunction with my tutor. Good practice suggests that you choose a subject that you are interested in, but in this instance I have chosen a subject that I am curious about rather than intrinsically interested in. Postmodernism or PoMo as it seems to be refereed to in some quarters (although you will be a long way into a Google search before it comes up) is a term often used but I guess seldom fully understood, simply because it defies understanding in a way we like to understand things. My lack of in depth knowledge came to light in the exercise on the Liz Wells essay when asked the question "To what extent does the writer rely upon Postmodernist doctrine?". Doctrine seemed a strange word to use and perhaps as I have had pointed out to me is just semantics and could equally be taken as belief, concept or tradition. With this in mind I have researched Modernisn and Postmodernism enough (?) to suggest to myself a few titles. The title may seem less than important but in fact that is untrue. Once the argument has been established and fixed in the introduction, it is then my responsibility to argue or defend than statement. 



  1. Postmodernism - Doctrine or Theory ?
  2. Postmodernism is a Theory not a Doctrine.
  3. Is Postmodernism a Doctrine or a Theory ?
  4. Postmodernism - Doctrine v Theory
  5. Within contemporary photography is Postmodernism a Theory or a Doctrine ?
  6. Is Postmodernism only a Theory ?
  7. Postmodernism is not a Theory



They are all similar but I am cautious about having to prove it is not a Doctrine because I am sure there are those who think it is and if my research doesn't cover them I will be marked down. In addition there is a limit of 2000 words and to cover more than one aspect of the subject this will not be enough. It is more likely that I can provide enough cogent argument to argue that it is a theory with considerable weight and suggest it may have a doctrinal following, but not within the main stream.

I will pick one during the next few days.

My reading list to date for the essay includes or the whole or parts of the following.

Butler, C., 2002. Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction.(Kindle Edition) Oxford University Press.

Belsey, C.,2002. Poststructuralism: A very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Wells, L., 2003. The Photography Reader. Routledge.

Bate, D., 2009. Photography - The Key Concepts. Bloomsbury.

Clarke, C,. 1997. The Photograph. Oxford University Press.

plus various You Tube videos and reference to Wikipedia for secondary sources.

To illustrate the essay (2000 words without something to look at on a subject which is abstract could be boring) I will use some images that will act as visual statements.
In particular I am thinking of Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall.