The alchemy and vision of Joseph Beuys is alive and kicking in my show. 18 hours and counting of being lucky enough to talk to all sorts of people about my work, and some themes are emerging. It’s a bit like one giant tutorial, but the confidence I have in the work is a relief actually, after the frenetic energy of the build which sometimes made me feel a bit confused. My choice of what I am showing is confirmed too, as the general thinking around commodity, exchange and communicating comes across. But for some, the foundations Beuys laid for me are insurmountable. Funny how keen they are to tell me this, but all feedback is appreciated- it just goes to help my thinking to clarify about where I have taken my practice to.
As the work is discussed, and in the case of the bronzes handled, it sits quietly, absorbing it all, taking on new marks. It was these marks which concerned one visitor so much he got out his hanky, breathed on one of the bronzes and started to polish it for me. All part of how they are treated, it was certainly a unique response!
I am looking forward to the next four days, thought they will be loooooong. Need to remember to take breaks, or I’ll be no use to anyone who comes by as I garble my words due to lack of food or caffeine or both.
The volume of visitors really is impressive, and I feel really proud to be able to spend so much time with work I am falling more in love with (if I may be so bold about my own creations). I’ll actually be sorry to see some of it go. Which can only be a good thing I know. But the emotions of the experience are intense, bittersweet. It makes me excited to get back to making the next works, and finding the next place to show and the next chance to engage with how it communicates with other people.
Category: unit 2
coming together
My ‘work and future vision’
As presented in the recent symposium, my practice over the last 2 years and ambitions for the future look like this:
-in at the deep end.
-ridiculous, lamentable atropy
-series of happy accidents which come about whilst I am playing around with general stuff
-select stuff on basis of availability, practicality (will it fit in studio?! like Silke Detmers said about logs and cars), hate waste, this could be endless, so limiting it to one or 2 materials has helped practically as well as conceptually.
-ideas of physicality of communication
-exchange exhibition, distance, lack of presence
-technology to organise, post to execute
-value of copper, stolen, marks of handling by people and machines
-to be included in Chelsea Library collection
-set up ongoing modal of working within a group, not necessarily collaborating but supporting and exchanging
-excited that is integrated into creative thinking and practice here.
-scientists and artists together addressing issues
-mark fisher talk on capitalist consumerism
Berlin, show and publication in autumn
-selected for Cape Farewell London expedition.
-waterways, canals, tidal barrier and submerged rivers.
-role of river in transport, sanitation, commerce and sustenance
-effects of man, volumes of humanity.
-overwhelmed by scale experienced on expedition, brought it back to one person
-specific amount of water contained.
-hidden infrastructure exposed
Feb 2012, Triangle space
One Human 40l
-commodification of drinking water, follows on from commodity value of copper
-Grey area, leftovers and basic provisions
-re-use water, use cables found in cupboard
-reflection of wires and pipes visible
-tidying brought up issues of value of artifact as well as materials
-pipes bent to allow them to contain water freestanding
-futility, humour, integrity
Had no tools at Joya residency in Spain.
-rain happy accident, as was colour of foliage
landscape specific, water only became important when there having no showers. started out liking form,
-really thinking about how and where work installed and shown
U6 Residency at WYE Berlin. Reading Jean Fisher metaphysics of shit following from Dokumenta,
-environmental art by Song Dong Doing Nothing Garden
-no tools. drawings/ wires were there/everywhere
-Sharing a working space, normally separate
-alone together
drawings and representations of things which aren’t really things
first thinking about multiples
-self supporting
-perceived obstacle, anthropomorphic,
-detracts from individual status as artifact good/bad?
-influence by Graham Hudsons Works in Progress
-jaws journal. tactile encounter with the material
-salvage value vs commercial value, labour and machining
-continuing to think about setting for my work
-reduced to object of conductivity
-unintentional relic
-oblique reference, abstract of object
-cast better, more detail highlights flaws.
-too crafted? less touch better?
trying to cover up
-slower piece. colour, form, physicality
-step away from didactic making. trusting roots of thinking
-raw, exposing thinking
-eva rothschild, mike nelson
-chance to make something big, turned into lots of normal sized things
-investigation into space, materials and textures
‘The input received and the relationships forged over the last 2 years will sustain me for the foreseeable future. I am looking forward to taking time now to really sit with my work and get to know it again. I have not made enough time to just be with my work this year, so the space left by no longer attending college weekly will be happily filled with that.
I know I will have a long and productive career as an artist, and if I can support myself through that with a combination of selling my work and teaching I will be extremely happy.’
creating/curating
Breathe/ no breathe
I don’t think I have ever had this many pieces of my own work in one space before. It is larger than my studio, but crammed with works all clammering for my attention. It feels like a cross between chairing a rowdy meeting, and supervising a birthday party. Everyone is valid and valued and interesting, but some just don’t get on. Some form gangs against each other, and some just cannot resist having the last word.
I used to feel flustered and underprepared in both of the above scenarios when they went badly, but that moment where you make a great business proposal, or suggest a really great game, the crowd is on your side.
This is called curating.
When there are too many things it is confusing. They all talk at once, no one gets heard. Too few, and they risk becoming a bit lonely. Everyone likes someone to chat to, but who is secretly in who’s gang. The only way to find out is to clear them all out, and introduce them one by one. Sometimes one sits somewhere that really suits it, so they stay there, and others have to fit around them. Sometimes it goes really well until a row breaks out and you have to clear the space again.
It is a surprisingly physical experience- it makes you feel bad, squashed, confused and choked when it’s wrong. When it’s right it’s like you can breathe again, it’s exciting, and you feel great. Who knew curating was so visceral?
I have always proposed that the curator is a maker too- they can make shows out of the artwork the artists make. It is a skill.
A couple of minor observations:
Gasp. I’m choking..
Ahh.. that’s better.
The photo’s say Oi! Look over here!! The rest says meh.
OK
It’s a riot!! clear the area…
etc..
Colours. But mostly blue as it turns out.
They’re everywhere
One day this ongoing collection may morph into something useable, but until then I just keep taking the pics. There are wires everywhere, cavalierly laid, strewn and dangling. Considering the value of all that passes through them- lives, loves, work and fun, I am fascinated by how many are just there. Draped around, open to the world.
In other parts of the world they wouldn’t last a day like this. Indeed, theft is up here too, so how long before these are ‘relocated’. What calamaties might befall folks whilst service is interrupted?
They say a lot to me, these wires.
My CV
Education
2013 MA Fine Art, Camberwell College of Art
2011 FdA Fine Art with distinction, University of Brighton
2010 Art Foundation with distinction, City College Brighton and Hove
1999 Certificate of Web Design, San Jose State University, California
1995 BA(hons) European Studies (French and Spanish), City University of Birmingham
Exhibitions/Work
2013 Saatchi Gallery New Sensations (longlisted)
2013 Creekside Open 2013, London
2013 Ides of March, Space Station 65, London (March 2013)
2012 Meanwhile, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton
2012 Bend Over Shirley, Beaconsfield Arts, London
2012 A Machine for Living In, Hannah Barry, London
2012 Under the Influence, Kensington, London (co-curator and exhibitor)
2012 (o)ccupant #7 Grey Area Gallery, Brighton (solo)
2012 Without Boats Dreams Dry Up, in collaboration with Cape Farewell, Triangle Space, London
2011 Peckham Open, London
2011 Daily – weekly, Brisbane, Australia
2011 Minor Revisions, Tenderpixel, London
2010 Jerwood Drawing Prize, London and various
2010 Light Thickens, Vyner St Gallery, London
2009 The Pepperpot, Brighton
2008 Achievers Awards Ceremony, City College Brighton and Hove
2006 – present Studio Assistant, Sam Toft, Brighton
2000 Web Producer, Victoria Real, Brighton
1998 Without Borders, San Jose, California
Awards and Commissions
2011 One Tree, site-specific outside installation with Joanna Brown, White Night Brighton and Hove
2010 Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2nd prize winner
Publications
2012 Expedition, p122, CCW London
2013 JAWS UAL first edition
Residencies
2012 U6, WYE, Berlin
2012 (o)ccupant #7 (solo) Grey Area Gallery, Brighton
2012 Group residency at Joya arte:+ecologica, Spain
2011 FdA Brighton, Dungeness
My artist statement
My work explores the materiality of how we communicate today. It suggests the impermanence of the elements we machine at ever greater speed. I propose a juxtaposition between developments in the virtual, instant access we have to each other, and the pausing of time proposed by engaging with an artwork.
My concern with the physicality of communication between people, materials and objects has particular focus on the hidden infrastructure, events and implications of how we interact.
I manipulates salvaged copper in temporal interventions.
2yrs’ worth of shows
I think it’s worth collating the shows I have participated in over the last 2 yrs of this MA. Many were accompanied by excellent publications produced by James Edgar and the excellent work-form team.
Here goes, in chronological order, with install shots:

Macro wires
Unusally I have spent a good chunk of time getting the macro shots of my wires right to produce to photographic work. This follows on from the Boxpark show we produced, where our images were blown up to posterboard size. I liked the confrontational experience, and that people struggled to see what they were looking at at first.
These images are A1 size, so not as big as the posterboards. They are aluminium mounted which maintains my metallic theme, and are really striking. The clarity and composition hopefully overcomes the problems with earlier versions.
Previously it was noted that they were more like portraits which wanted the viewer to see the real thing. Hopefully here I have given them status to be seen in their own right.
I even liked the test prints, so mounted them on offcut strips of aluminium.
Despite having these 2 choices of size, it seems unlikely that they will make it into the show at this point, but I still like them enough to show them again in the future.