Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
By: Jake Spicer
Walk around Chanctonbury Ring on the South Downs seven times on a moonless night and the Devil will appear to offer you a bowl of soup. We can all end up spiraling around our own personal Rings in the hope of a little sustenance at the end; whoever the chef may be.
Right now I live in Brighton having just moved out of two studios I'd been holding down in London and Devon. I earn my bread and butter painting portraits, show my prints, paintings and sketches all around the South and make a nuisance of myself clogging the walls of the Calico Gallery in Brighton. Having studied at Farnham, Surrey I found more productive tuituion under portrait painter Jane Alison and printmaker John t. Freeman.My work is about people, and experiences; theirs and mine.
# 2 [20 May 2008]
We all work in different ways, derive our inspiration from different sources, for me it often seems to begin with...
...The idea... a thought, something read, a conversation had, an image seen...
...I perpetually have lots of these little seeds clattering around my brain and sketchbook, partly cultivated or scattered to the winds until I find...
...The model...I meet someone who can express in their physicality, aesthetics and persona something of one of those ideas...
...I have some regular models, but then I have some ideas that I’ve never quite worked through to completion. To work with a new model though I need...
...The setting...I come across somewhere that feels right for the work, the model, the idea...
...often these places have personal significance, sometimes I find them by chance before meeting the model, sometimes with the model; whichever way i need...
..The experience, something to happen there, something that is more than the sum of model ,idea and setting, I go to the site with the model and just let things happen. I document with camera and sketchbook, I think, I talk about the idea with the model; we experience...
...this isn’t always preconceived sometimes it just happens, often the model isn’t chosen a 'model' but will model for me retrospectively. All of this make up..
...The Project. In the past the projects have culminated in a body of paintings and drawings and are exhibited together to give some sense of the narrative of the idea expressed through the combination of model and setting...
I have recently moved (for reasons that make a good story in itself and are the subjects of two past projects: The House With No Door and ..And You Are Part Of It ), and in the tumult have found myself launched into a new project:
Idea...Sussex folklore regarding communion with the Devil
Model...Megan, an acquaintance with an interest in J.T.Waterhouse and an elegance that belies her fiery independence
Setting...Chanctonbury Ring, Sussex, the site mentioned in the folklore ...so the project begins...
Login to post a comment »
# 1 [20 May 2008]
First off, hi. I’m new to this blogging lark so these first few posts may sound a little disjointed whilst I work out quite how to write (diary entry? decontexturalised musings? an attempt at Socratic dialogue? the possibilities are endless...[or slightly more numerous at least]). What I write is going to be a whole other kettle of fish.
Keep your eyes peeled, and comment! Even if it’s just a few words, all criticisms are welcome.
js
Login to post a comment »