how to emerge? What has Sluice taught us - Be independent but work together!

By attending this year’s impressive Sluice Art Fair, and taking part in the Twitter/blog/pub conversations that immediately ensued, I believe many of us, including independents like Core Gallery, have become unoffical participators in an exciting, and as yet undefined, movement that heralds the beginning of a new era of generosity and collaboration between networks of like-minded artist-led spaces who are just beginning to understand the power of solidarity.

Sluice art fair is an example of how when times get hard: the sparkling rhetoric of the commercial galleries – as represented by Frieze - begins to recede, making way for the less glitzy, purer [and poorer!] artist-led concerns to present an alternative way forward. Hayley Harrison summed this up poignantly in her a-n Artist’s Talking blog: Something’s Happening*, when she suggested that we cease to talk about ‘the art world’ but rather begin to call ourselves ‘an art community’. Thanks to Ben Street & Karl England and their innovative spirit, I believe that ball is now firmly rolling. 

Indeed,  Core Gallery, is now looking forward to attending another gathering of the innovative artist-independent clans at the Conference for Emerging Art Organisers in Goldsmiths on Thursday 24 November.

The place to be!

* Hayley Harrison, Something’s Happening #25 [17 Oct 2011] www.an.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/1299464

What is Painting?

Detail: Rememberance of Plants Past. Ink on paper, 2011

[how to emerge ... from the cultural weight of painting]

I want to respond to David Trigg’s call for less categorization in the arts. Starting with the idea that a Jerwood Painting Fellowship could become a more contemporary and inclusive: ‘Jerwood Artist Fellowship.’

I couldn't agree more; why do we feel the need to continue to label the various art forms? Control? Tradition? Exclusivity? Money? That’s a big question.

However, occasionally, the emphasis on one type of art form can be useful. The  last decade has done wonders for drawing, in terms of raising its status, and causing it to be considered independently from painting. Drawing has always been appreciated by artists as something special, that old ‘window into the artists mind/soul’ etc. Rather a clichéd, sentimental approach. Equally, it has often been sidelined or dismissed as an appendage to painting, the sketch for the real thing etc. However, thanks to enlightened educators, once you could do an MA or BA [Wimbledon/Camberwell] in Drawing or enter a competition like The Jerwood Drawing Prize, gallerists and the public begun to take it seriously as the profound and flexible medium it is. This has been extremely important for not just reinterpreting the history of drawing but also, it’s future status.

Today, I am happy to say, drawing just is.

However, art schools, due to financial constraints, are turning back to less specialised courses, often simply entitled: Fine Art. Yet, this might not be a bad thing. Allowing different mediums to integrate, reassert themselves and lessen the obsession we have with painting, and the secretly-held-belief that 'real' artists only paint [and maybe sculpt!].

Ten years ago, people were asking: What is drawing? Recently, I suspect the question has become: What is painting? Especially in the wake of this first year of Jerwood Painting Fellowships and its thought-provoking legacy in the work of Mitten, Nahaul & Till. Work that shouts loudly for David Trigg's idea of a clear and simple: 'Jerwood Artist Fellowship'

And, can we have more of them, please ... three is not enough.

See: When is Painting Not a Painting? By David Trigg on The JVA Blog

http://blog.jerwoodvisualarts.org/?cat=10

Title: 'Rememberance of Plants Past (hand-drawn extracts from: The Encyclopaedia of Plant Portraits compiled by A. G. L. Hellyer, 1953)'. DETAIL. Ink on paper, 150x50cm, May 2011

'Only in the making can things happen.'

Wonderful quote from Michael Atavar's exquisite, earnest, philosophical and wry book: HOW TO BE AN ARTIST.

And each time I begin to draw, those words become a revelation on the page ....

Jerwood: Attended the Jerwood Painting Fellowships last week. Is it a coincidence but the artists - three women - seem to be reinventing painting. Painting as painting by Cara Nahaul, painting as collage by Clare Mitten and and painting as photography by Corinna Till. An imaginative show - that stretches the idea of what painting is, and can be, and not with a loud, yah, boo, sucks attitude or in a macho let's counter: painting is dead fashion but in a quiet, thoughtful, sincere way, that an investment of time - 6 months - and money - £10,000 - from the new Jerwood Painting Fellowships has enabled. On until 26 June at Jerwood Space, 171 Union Street, London Se1. And then touring.

Proust: I am reading Proust - Rememberance of Things Past. À la recherche du temps perdu, (In Search of Lost Time). A novel in 7 volumes, and first published in France between 1913-27. Have tried before but never got past first 100 pages - so doing six times better now - and enjoying it. Friends have variously commented: 'Why?' & 'Wow!'.

Top tips to self: Don't try too hard!

It is a time-consuming occupation, give yourself time - a year or two.

Endeavouring to keep the sense of a long sentence in one's mind, from beginning to end, is often impossible and frustrating. 

Let the words and images enter your mind like music or poetry 

Strive for essence rather than meaning

But the great news is .... after  a few hundred words you realise there is meaty, twisting, turning plot, afterall!

Funny, no-one mentions that ... but they often mention the infamous madeleine-scene, which happen right at the beginning.

Also, at hand, I have Eric Karpeles's volume 'Paintings in Proust'. What a culture-vulture that Marcel was, so many words, so many artists, so many works of art described in words - from Botticelli to Turner, Da Vinci, and Gozzoli to Whistler - which gives you a hunger for seeing the real thing. Art history as natural curiosity!

Drawing: Engaged in new large scale drawing derived from a 1950's Encyclopaedia of Plant Portraits. Fascinated by the composite small b/w photographs that range from 2 inch flowers to 300ft trees. Scale and variety, mesmerising. Working on large roll of 300gm Fabriano (Grosso). Surely the Rolls Royce of paper. [See image above]

Show & Tell: I am currently organising a series of talks entitled: Show & Tell at Core Gallery, Deptford, where we ask artists to tell us through words and images how they got where they are today. Jenny Wiener was our first speaker. I think the audience enjoyed it so much, because JW was generous and honest in the telling of her story, the highs and lows, the joy and disappointments of being an artist today. We all learned something.

Next up (May 31) will be painter, Graham Crowley - chaired by Rosalind Davis. And in July (5) I will be chairing the talk by another massively talented and original painter, recently with work in the British Art Show, Phoebe Unwin. Can't wait!


I sold two drawings this month - hurrah - best feeling in the world!

Had lunch with the artist, Susan Collis, yesterday and found myself saying:

'I am still emerging ... and probably will be until I'm ninety!'

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

Follow me on twitter@annabeltilley

http://coregallery.co.uk/show-and-tell

http://www.jerwoodvisualarts.org/page/3097/Jerwood...

Art is Difficult

Death as a motif (No 10, Hybrid Series), 2011.
Ink and coloured pencil on oiled fabriano paper,  28x38cm.

Many of us struggle everyday with the difficulty of making work and the pertinent questions that often emerge afterwards like: But is it art? [and is it any good?]

“Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art. All this can be hard work. Sometimes in recent years I’ve felt that the parameters have changed. It seems too often a luxury product, a weekend hobby. The only question asked is ‘what’s the price?’ When I was studying the stakes seemed higher. Art was challenging, like Kant or Hegel or Derrida. It was something really worth thinking about. A part of it should always include having to scratch your head.” 

The simplicity of this statement from a world-renouned artist like, Anselm Kieffer, puts the daily struggle [and joy] of being an artist in perspective. If Kieffer finds art difficult, then there is hope for the rest of us.

Kieffer's words speak to this artist as she has just struggled through an uneasy six month period of making new work. Letting go of the old and, frankly, not knowing where to turn.

Total freefall.

how to emerge?

Back to books, history, textiles, nature and seeing old things in new ways.

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

Anselm Kieffer Interview Review section, The Guardian, Saturday 19 March 2011. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/mar/21...

A Nelson's Column for Women - Martin Creed - Hauser & Wirth

Sketching at Hauser & Wirth - 5-6pm, Thursday 11th February 2011

A most enjoyable hour. Contemplating Martin Creed's work and the audience. The equivalent of Nelson's Column but for women.

how to emerge? Drawing

Spent three hours, yesterday afternoon, between London's National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square drawing and looking, and all for free!

Aren't we lucky. YES WE ARE!

I know we are in the midst of savage cuts. Cuts, cuts, cuts but, still .... there's something amazing about being able to spend a warm afternoon, out of the rain, looking at Tudor kings and queens. Seeing the real thing. And a whole history of modernism, up close and personal, Monet, Degas, Pissaro, Matisse. And for nothing ... not a penny [except TAX, of course, but it's so worth it] 

Then, squinting up at Nelson, I walk straight on up to Picadilly Circus and Regents Street -dodging Japanese tourists - to Saville Row and Hauser and Wirth to see the new Martin Creed show.

Fantastic, in parts. Still thinking about the colourful abstract paintings in the first gallery, and the Dog photos. They did made me laugh, and think of Crufts, dog-lovers, cheap birthday cards, and what a sentimental dog-adoring nation [not me!] Britain is, all in one. Presume irony reigns?

Then on to Gallery two, two doors down - a vast white space with a single revolving sculpture [or strong simple message]. And spent a wonderful hour contemplating Creed's monumental neon sign: MOTHERS ... and loved it. The word revolves slowly, then faster, up to 7 revolutions a minute, so you feel a light rush of air on your face. What simple joys, sketching and watching. The audience, students and the well-dressed, alike, drifting in off the street, intrigued. 

Finally, a Nelson's Column for Women.

ends

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

www.hauserwirth.com

www.martincreed.com

Update: New Year’s Resolutions & January 2011

Giving up sugar

It is now 39 days since I last ate any sugar – chocolate, cakes, sweets, biscuits, sugar itself, etc. And far from feeling deprived, I actually feel liberated!

Perhaps, unconsciously, I am giving up things beginning with ‘S’ as I stopped using shampoo to wash my hair in September, instead using plain or rosemary infused water, and occasionally a pinch of baking powder.

In studio by 9am

Yes, most of the time, and it feels great!

Writing more reviews

I have written several which can be viewed at the link below, and really enjoyed the experience. It has caused me to think on a deeper level about artists making work today, printing and painting in particular, and how these new concerns and trends might relate to my own drawing practice.

“What I see in all the work is a sort of anti-painting; often colourful, sometimes grim, featuring out-of-context motifs, small windows of intense drawing, elements of wall-paper type decoration, out-of-focus objects and figures; and, occasionally, paint [usually gloss] thrown smartly across the surface of the canvas; a definite blurring between reality – the object, the figure – decoration, and a sort of grimey, plasticine-coloured abstraction.”

Extract from my February review on Phoebe Unwin –

www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/preview/1086603

More drawing

Yes, yes, yes and being fed by seeing more shows. Thinking and writing about them.

Walking & Talking

I do this three or four times a week with artist and writer friends. It is a great opportunity to discuss books we are reading and shows we have seen etc, as well as escaping out into the open away from being desk and computer-bound.

New Projects

Towner: I will be showing a new drawing installation entitled: Silhouette in the East Sussex Open at the Towner art gallery in April. [Left: image detail from Silhouette]

Jerwood: I am currently creating a new series drawings for The Jerwood Project Space which will be shown in July/August 2011. The idea is based on the traditional still life with a modern twist.

Core Gallery: Excited to be co-curating an exhibition called: Home at Core Gallery, Deptford with Rosalind Davis. I had the idea back in November, suggested it to RD, and off we cantered, with no backward glance. It has been a valuable time of new ideas and collaboration, an incredibly stimulating and enjoyable experience – particularly, the give and take, and slow build of ideas when you are learning to work with someone new.  What has also been highly gratifying is that all the artists we wanted to work with, have come back and agreed to take part. Susan Collis, Delaine Le Bas, Rose Wylie, Lucy Austin, Peter Davies, Rich White, Kate Murdoch, Emily Speed, Freddie Robbins, Graham Crowley

Best Shows: Painting – Phoebe Unwin – Wilkinson, Vyner Street  - until 6 March

Also really enjoyed The Salon Photo Prize at Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner St, until 26^th February.

Reading: Fiction: Just starting We had it so good by Linda Grant. Non-fiction: At Home by Bill Bryson

Listening: When I am drawing Radio 4 and also, Radio 7 [soon to be renamed Radio 4 plus]. At the moment I am enjoying brilliant readings and adaptations of Middlemarch by George Eliot and The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky

Looking forward to: High-abstract – an exhibition by abstract critical, a new organisation supporting abstract art.

This means I am going to have to think about, read about, and probably write about abstract art – something new for me. Already, I have reached for Alan Bowness’s compact tome Modern European Art* for a short refresher course on the birth of abstract art. The press release says: An exhibition of high-ambition, high-complexity abstract painting and sculpture 1960–2010.The exhibition will feature key works by artists Alan Davie, John Hoyland, Fred Pollock, Alan Gouk, Anne Smart and Robin Greenwood. A catalogue will be available with essays by Mel Gooding, Robin Greenwood and Sam Cornish.

High-abstract: Poussin Gallery, London – 11 Feb – 12 March

ends

.* Modern European Art by Alan Bowness [London: Thames & Hudson, 1972]

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com

Interface reviews: www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/single/16286

www.mattroberts.org.uk

www.poussin-gallery.com

www.wilkinsongallery.com

How to write?

Just received my February a-n Magazine and I see that on p.16 an extract from my New Year’s Resolutions (a-n magazine, Blog 15) has been quoted:

‘See more shows and write more reviews. Thinking about what we have seen, and writing about it is good for us.’

What I mean by this is that the time, thought and analysis that goes into writing a review usually means that the writer has had to think about the work they have seen on a deeper level, and I believe this feeds into our own practice.

I am currently writing about difficult things because I want to understand them.

I don’t find the process easy. I don’t mean the writing itself, but working out ones ideas, what one wants to say, and how best to say it.

Writing is a craft where less is always more. One easily writes 1500 words, and then has to hone it down to 750. And it is this process of self-editing that is so liberating. As you do this you find the essence of your idea, the real thought behind your words suddenly becomes clear.

The easiest reviews can be where you feel something extreme, you love it or hate it, so that the passion carries you through. The hardest are when you feel nothing, the work is so mediocre [in one’s own humble opinion]. And one thinks: ‘What’s the point?’ For this work. And for looking, thinking and writing about work in general.

Mediocrity is a passion-killer, in all aspects of life.

Then, occasionally, you see something. Something that appears to come from nowhere, that catches you off guard, and momentarily, your visual thirst, and sense for seeing something new and good is quenched. It is that inspirational.

‘That’s how I felt last night about seeing the work of painter, Phoebe Unwin, for the first time. Put crudely, there is a David Hockney – on largactil* – about them, more faded, and of course more abstract, but still that wonderful awkwardness, the pause, the hesitation, the small steps, you feel in the painters mind as the brush moves across the canvas to capture the idea of an image, something just out of reach.’

ends

*Largactil is an antipsychotic drug. Psychiatric patients taking it often suffer from restless limbs and the desire to keep walking on and on, using small shuffling steps, despite the lack of anywhere to go.  This is commonly referred to as the ‘largactil shuffle’.

Part of the latter pargraph includes an extract from my review: 

‘Phoebe Unwin: Between Memory and Observation’. 

You can read this review and others at Interface.

www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/single/16286

www.annabeltilley.moonfruit.com