Following submission of the Surfaces and Strategies module, activity goes on during the Assessment Period prior hopefully to starting the Final Major Project. During this time my solo exhibition ran on and gathered a high quality of feedback.

Three activities conducted during this period aid learning and maintain “fuel in the tank” while the solo exhibition proved a great learning opportunity.

Only as a mention here, I’ve signed up again for competition photography although I prioritise this behind the MA Photography course. I have met with success in this by publishing work in my own inimitable humorous or quirky style but have cut right back on entries only putting in work if I’ve managed to keep up with the studies. There is one area where I’m getting a bit of bother because I’ve not been able to give it enough attention. I won the odd competition I entered but I’ve not done enough for overall success. It is a pain to manage. It will still have to wait though. Maybe during the Assessment Period I can find some time to make bulk entries. It’s not the same though.

Landings 2019 Solo Exhibition – Glow

Here is the Exhibition and Portfolio summary

Inspired by something I saw in a Gallery, I made a Your Comment board with feedback from the solo exhibition.

Gallery and Exhibition Visits

Two visits queued at the moment are in Amsterdam and Bristol

Unseen Amsterdam

Bristol – Martin Parr Foundation and RPS Paintworks

Meanwhile, a number gallery trips have been made. During the Assessment Period I wished to catch up on exhibitions of choice that were due to close in the short term, so I didn’t miss them. Some short term planning resolved this and plans are going in place for the medium and longer term.

For example there’s a Professional Development workshop on exhibition curation I should find useful, either as a means of refining my own work or if my interest remains, in curating other’s work.

The Photographers Gallery

Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Platinum and Gelatin Silver Prints.

The National Portrait Gallery – Cindy Sherman

The Tate Modern – Painter Natalia Goncharova

Here we have a painter working with additive processes as opposed to the photographic subtractive one. However, there is a visual language and there are signs and so an overlap in the visual.

Modernism is present as a theme yet for painting this is different to photography. Van Gogh was seen to be the master of modernism in painting where in photography it was about an honesty in recognising limitations in concentrating on the frame, exaggerating the limitations in colour that painters try to mask, and a defiance of perspective that painters so cleverly introduce to fool the eye into seeing depth in a surface.

It was fascinating to see the hanging plan for groups of work. Compared to my recent triptychs there were width variations (outer paintings uniformly narrower). I had a height variation from my archive image reuse between exhibition catalogue (black) and mounted print.

I identified through my experiences related to the subject matter. I enjoyed the simplicity of the multiportraits. I also, related to the theme of war and it’s dark portrayal as Lithoprints and content of war and religion almost forced together into a tight frame. I noted the uniformity of these images and the signs used and the implied action or movement.

I enjoyed the mixed media for example wall prints, cabinet displayed books and a reading in Russian the latter giving a chance to sense the expression of the voice as the sound of Russian speakers particularly in reflective mood has almost never been heard. I don’t know if that is part of our propaganda like at one time with Irish broadcasts where narration was heard dubbed over the original voice. Russian speakers simply are not presented in a way to empathise with perhaps as an enemy of the state.

<add example photographs from the exhibition as allowed for personal non commercial use including education>

The Tate Modern – Sculptor Takis

Reading

Takis’ exhibition book. Not said in the book, that was produced ahead of time, Takis cooperated with the Tate Modern over the presentation of his work in London. Sadly he died in August before seeing the opening.