The year that was 2011

It is nearly the end of the year and hasn't it just been a shit! The Millenium has taken its first dump of the Century. It has not just been tough for me but it seems many others I know have had quite a rough time of it too. Perhaps you share these sentiments. This said, it has not been without its good points and in the interests of trying to remain positive I thought it might be good to trawl through what I got up to over the last twelve months and highlight some of the more successful moments below.

SHAME: Collectable Lingerie by Artists

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked…

SHAME SHAME BABY
THE SHAME SHAME
WE LIVE FOR THE SHAME
SHAME BABY THE SHAME
ISN’T IT A SHAME SHAME
BABY? A SHAME SHAME
IN IT FOR THE SHAME SHAME
BABY THE SHAME
SHAME

COLLECTABLE LINGERIE BY ARTISTS
Curated by Ingrid Z & Kiki Claxton

RHOSLYN BUTLER / ALEXANDER HEATON / CHRISTINA MITRENTSE / DANIELLE DRAINEY / INGRID Z / JAMES DAW / JONAS RANSON /LAURA MAY LEWIS / MARK SCOTT-WOOD / ROBERT HAWKINS

What a start to the year, naughty knickers at The Residence Gallery. For this show I created a series of 3 vests with ominous gold stains. Alongside these I included a series of T-shirts I had hand drawn on a while back. The wonderful Ingrid Z also requested some of my 'Jewels' for the show and I was delighted that the infamous necklace got its first public airing. 

 Click here for a Valentine article featuring the show

 

 Jewel - semen, setting agent, glitter, chain, display stand

T-shirt - detail by hand with laundry pen (edition of 5)

Vest - vest, gold acrylic paint, laundry pen (edition of 3)

Sisyphus the Absurd Hero: Part 2 

 at Hatch Space

Part I : NICK Bailey / Alexander Bates / Jim Bond / Rodney Dee / JooHee Hwang / Matthew James Kay / Rachel Price
 

Part II : Hannah Biggs / Patrick Goddard / Sibylla McGrigor / Candida Powell-Williams / Mark Scott-Wood

From the press release -

Independent curator and artist Rachel Price draws together the work of 7 exciting UK artists presenting new sculpture and video responding to the Greek Myth of Sisyphus. The exhibiting artists all explore notions of the absurd, futility and circularity in their practice whilst simultaneously displaying an immersion in the process, be it material or conceptual.
 

In Greek mythology Sisyphus was the king who for his crimes was subjected to the ceaseless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain only to watch it fall down the other side, and to repeat this for all eternity. However, it is Sisyphus whose approach to his hopeless fate that rouses interest and why the myth is so frequently revisited in literary and artistic interpretations. The French Absurdist, Albert Camus, refers to Sisyphus as The Absurd Hero concluding that:
 

“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”.
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942).

For this I had originally intended to display a work consisting of 60 alarm clocks but due to the restrictions of the space I could only show ten. I just have to say the guys at Hatch Space were, and I'm sure they still are, bloody amazing. Big thanks to Alastair, Rachel and Shelby for having me in the show and for all their awesome help setting up the work.

 Click here for more images on their Flickr site

Untitled (60 alarms clocks each one a second slower than the one to the left of it)

 The Art Party at Mol’s Place

 

 

 BEDWYR WILLIAMS / PAUL SAKOILSKY / KATE HAWKINS / ELOISE FORNIELES / RICHARD PARRY / MARK SCOTT-WOOD / SIMON TYSZKO / OLIVER ASHTON / THE RODNICK BAND

The Art Party invited me to take part in their inaugural event. I was absolutely delighted. The evening took place at Mol's Place, the home of art collector Jan Mol and having known Jan for a while it was also an extra joy to have been asked to take part. 

The event brief was to create something along the lines of one of my previous performances that took place at the National Portrait Gallery at the end of 2010 A performance falling somewhere along the lines of a protest

The idea of the protest or parade for the party I wanted to work as a follow up to the spell I had cast at the Rhizomatic exhibition with The Departure Gallery in October of the previous year. I looked for inspiration by watching The Wicker Man (1973) and looking for ideas of pagan festivals but mostly because of its amazingly dark twisted ending. After some weeks of pondering I decided the way forward was to look beyond the spell having been a success and bringing me luck in my career and looking at possible outcomes of Witch (a spell cast to bring the artist success in his career) if it had gone wrong. What if the magic backfired and had brought my art to life? With this in mind I created four witches. Each one of these four witches had characteristics that each reflected a different element of my studio practice. Alongside this there was a soundtrack to cue the performers as they entered and made their way around the venue, the soundtrack can be found as a playlits on Spotify. Also, just before the witches entered, a percentage of the audience were given animal masks to wear during the precession as a homage to the procession scene from The Wicker Man. Watch a clip of it here.

Photos by Katie Poole 

 2Wet at Stew

This exhibition at Stew was a follow up to WET which saw the first incarnation of the sculpture VT2866.

 

VT2866 - parcel tape, cardboard boxes, potatoes, mushrooms

Following on from this idea and, having had a recent pep talk down the pub with Maria Stenfors, I planned to create an installation that would be reminiscent of the Rhizomatic spell casting but, for the first time, introducing the idea that the spell had gone wrong  Untitled 2011 (In October 2010 the artist Mark Scott-Wood cast a spell to bring him success in his career. Something went wrong). I was very pleased with the results although I did attempt to cover a second-hand suit in brown parcel tape to wear on the opening night but failed miserably when taping around the crotch.

 

Attack the Block Party at Latitude

The summer saw a return to Latitude for a follow up of the Alien Art Hunt from 2010. For the Attack The Block Party I was invited by Noise of Art to create a series of characters for an evening in The Film and Music Arena. The evening included dances from The People Pile and live music from Lighthouses. The aliens are a bit of a deviation from my usual work but it does relate suitably well to certain themes that run through what I do. I am hoping that next year will see these loose ends all tied up or at least starting to knot together. To see a complete album of the event click here.

 The Bad Art Salon for The Vintage Festival

at The Royal Festival Hall

  

I also had the dubious honour of having work selected for the Bad Art Salon at the Vintage Festival which this year took place at the Royal Festival Hall. I made a couple of pieces for it but unfortunately one of them was deemed too good to make it through to the final selection. The event is a tongue-in-cheek look at what some people may deem to be bad art. Those taking part range from keen hobbyists to students and professional artists. It is a great opportunity to indulge in some kitch versus high art debating. My particular favourite was Cliff Richard Art that I would happily argue pretty much comes as close to pure genius as you can get.

 Witch Vs Alien (work in progress)

Deer Witch Head Trophy Daemon

 The Art Party a Farewell to Mol’s Place

 

Goodbye Leopold / Aimée Neat / Bryn Philips and The Big Society / 

Christina Mitrense & Jonas Ranssøn / Luke Pomphrey / Myles Donaldson / Mark Scott Wood

Later in the year the Art Party invited me back for the farewell to Mol's Place. A big thank to Katy, Melissa and Aimée. I used this opportunity to pull out all the stops and wanted to attempt to bring together some of the main elements that had been running through my work throughout the year. I also wanted to focus on the Witch Man Tree Daemon who had made his introduction at the first art party as one of the original witches. This seemed more than appropriate.

 

The installation involved a few elements of past work and these were all brought together to create the piece Witch Man Tree Daemon (after a forest disturbance). The idea was based on recent rioting and looting that had taken place in London and around the country a few weeks before. The installation involved a life model that acted as a living sculpture that would on occasion interact with the audience. This interaction took an interesting twist after the free bar took effect on the poor Witch Man Tree Daemon and he proceeded to wander around the party completely billy bollocks naked.

There have also been quite a few other events that have taken place in between these ones but I thought I would just highlight the ones that have been particularly successful, a pleasure to do and have some relevance to work I would like to focus on in the coming New Year. One the main aspect of this year that I see having great potential is the development of the Witch Man Tree Daemons. It is been absolutely amazing to see this character evoling before my eyes. The Witch Man Tree Daemon also had a rather pleasant evening as guest of honour at the launch evening of Kate Malone's open days at her home and studio. Click here for an album of his guest appearance. There is also an interesting series of collages developing alongside his story. Click here for a look at these. I think that must be about it for one year. The final thing that springs to mind that I would like to mention was my commission to make some more banners for GAGGLE  and their performance of The Brilliant and The Dark at The Royal Albert Hall. There's an article about it in Notion 055 pages 82 - 85. I'm looking forward to potentially collaborating some more with Deborah and her girls.

Work in Progress on the GAGGLE banners.

So, that was the glitter I rolled on the turd that I call 2011. Next year will see me trying to hone down some of these ideas with more focus and intention on the final results. There are already some exciting plans and shows in the pipeline that I cannot wait to get stuck into. Watch this space for more details and have a Happy New Year!