Tag Archives: artist

Look Up!

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So, sometimes it’s impossible to shake off an idea. An idea for a piece of work just stays in your head, often goes through various changes as time and thoughts progress, but the concept remains the same and stays with you.

Well, I’ve had a yellow disc dangling from the ceiling in three different studios now, a blue sheet draped in the air, and a kaleidoscope tacked to a window. They relate to a series of three sculptural works all inspired by the perspective offered by time spent in the great outdoors.

The Sun Never Stops Shining is a bright yellow transparent disc that towers overhead offering shelter, and a space for reflection. Through the grey days, life’s difficulties, and hard times some things remain constant, wether one’s aware of them or not – the sun never stops shining. Get out, soak up some essential vitamin d, feel the breeze on your face!

Similarly, Look Up! offersa place to shelter, to gather, to chew the fat, and contemplate. A place to look up from one’s smart phone, to interact with real people, real environments, in real time.

The kaleidoscope idea (working title, Chasing Rainbows) is far from being fully resolved, but it won’t go away. I just know that I want to create a piece of sculptural work that uses prisms to catch and reflect light. A piece that can be approached from any angle, and reveals the “magic” of daylight – the beauty that exists in the simplest things – the beauty that exists in nature!

Mirror Paintings

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As a continuation of current explorations in mapping I’ve been looking at the ‘Communications’ keys on Ordnance Survey maps; considering again the nature of decision making in life, and how one picks one’s own route through life choosing either to follow specific paths, or go ‘off piste’. Similar to The Natural Course of Things, I’m attempting to highlight the ability, on inability to follow paths according to an ability to read those ‘markers’ that guide the way. In this body of work, however, I’ve chosen to paint imaginary routes, dictated by imaginary landscapes (or voids) that are filled with the viewer’s reflection, by nature of the fact that I am painting on to mirror glass, fractured mirror glass asserting an imperfection or lack of complete control in each piece of work / reflection / route.

I’ve been selected to participate in North Yorkshire Open Studios 2017, and this body of work will be shown for the first time as part of the Open Studios exhibition at my home on South Parade, Northallerton, 2/3/4 and 10/11 June 2017 (look out for the posters in the window!).

For a free NYOS 2017 catalogue, contact the NYOS team on info@nyos.org.uk  /  01756 748529 – I look forward to welcoming you in June!

Get Ye(ast) to AirSpace Gallery!

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An old friend of mine, Sam Treadaway, is a British artist, currently living and working in Bristol. His multidisciplinary practice includes: sculpture, book-arts, scent works, and occasional live events. Making use of existing frictions between aesthetic form and utilitarian function, he edits and re-aligns found objects, structures, and systems thus generating new outcomes. The interplay between the arts and other fields of knowledge, such as philosophy and science, often inform these processes – www.samtreadaway.com

For the past few weeks Sam has been resident artist at AirSpace gallery in Stoke-on-Trent and his work can be found there until 23 June.

Sam - Airspace residency

“During my residency project titled, Rise,I have temporarily converted the gallery into a micro-brewery and artisan bakery, to explore the profoundly social role that food plays within society, as a primary source of sharing and as a manifestation of altruism. With a focus on relational activities of exchange and collaboration, and working with locally sourced produce, ten gallons of Mead (honey wine) and over 100 loaves of bread (connected by their key alchemic ingredient of yeast) have been produced at the gallery. Fresh bread has been gifted to gallery visitors each a.m. and the project has included a free participatory bread making workshop (with a mobile wood-fired bread oven) in collaboration with B-Arts (www.b-arts.org.uk).

As my practice as an artist often includes works with scent and the sense of smell, during this project I have been particularly interested to test how the everyday aromas of the raw materials (honey, flour, yeast, and water) and the processes of fermentation and bakery, circulate and are experienced within AirSpace. Parallel to this I have experimented with other methods of diffusing these scents (such as  the smell of honey) within the gallery to further my enquiry into the unique ability of smell to simultaneously fill and empty a given space and transcend fixed boundaries.”

Sam - Rise

Rise will conclude with a ‘Mead-In’ gathering, at AirSpace gallery, on Thursday 23rd of June 2016, from 7–9 pm. This celebratory event will include a Mead tasting and works in progress developed during the residency project.

Rise has received support ‘in kind’ from: AirSpace Gallery; Young’s Home Brew; B-Arts; Shipton Mill, Hillbrook Apiaries; The Co-operative; Stable Cottage Apiaries.