June has apparently swaggered its way on to my calendar and presumably everyone else’s, accompanied by a searing ball of flame in the sky.
Praised be the glory of God and his infinite ways to piss me off.
On a lighter, less immolating note, I had the pleasure of attended the Nottingham Trent University Degree Show last night and boy was it an interesting exercise in people blending.
Last night’s event was an invitation only affair. This meant that the attendees were members of 3 distinct groups; the artists, the parents and friends of the artists, and members of various scouting organisations and galleries. Or, to refine it further: those who cared and those who didn’t.
The air was soaked in cynicism and replete with faces bearing a kind of mock-accommodating smile. It was like the boyfriends were dismissing their better half’s accomplishments as a silly waste of time before ‘real life’ starts and the mothers wanted to stick it all on the damn fridge.
Irrespective of this however, the work itself was suitably engaging. As with student work in general it seems, the onus was upon the artists to show exploration of practice rather than that of raw technique. As a consequence, some of the pieces presented seemed a little unrefined albeit still bewitching at times.
There are a few pieces that I would like to highlight here purely as an exercise in organising my thoughts (although I will exclude the piece I was personally involved in for the sake of decency).
Kathryn Pospieszalska presented an elaborate contribution in the form of furniture from some forgotten corner of antiquity modified with a series of pins. These were arranged into ornate patterns which protruded from the surface causing a subtle parallax between the deep red and the glimmering silver as one paced around it..
The silver pin-heads contrasted beautifully with the opulently crimson fabric whilst simultaneously making the furniture entirely useless. This disparity between form and function resonated with me as a reminder that art will always be connected to our consciousness but never integral to our lives.
The patterns themselves were flamboyant to the point of absurdity but this only screamed as a testament to the number of hours spent creating it and those hours are as fundamental to the piece as the rows upon rows of pin-heads which I so desperately wanted to touch.
Carrie Jackson’s offering was far more understated. Understated to the point of sterility in fact. She presented two, inter-related posters displayed back to back in an advertising light box. The box was lit with the characteristically cold fluorescent tubes we are all so used to seeing and mounted upon some cheap, fake, plastic turf which mirrors my thoughts quite nicely. Jackson’s work is deliberately fake.
Advertisers try to tap in to humanity’s ever increasing desire for absolute purpose in order to present us with some transient alternative in exchange for our thirty pieces of silver. Jackson seems to recognize this unwritten agreement and offers us this ‘advert’ with her subversive and menacing tongue firmly pressed into her cheek.
In terms of presentation Jackson’s work could be described as positively modest. Sleek lines and clean colours belied the complexity of the ideas being discussed whilst perfectly imitating that which she wished to undermine. Clever and hauntingly insidious.
If Jackson’s work can be considered understated then Kyle Hands’ work must be considered practically invisible. Even using the word ‘painting’ seems extravagantly verbose (yes I appreciate the irony in light of the rest of the post).
His practice involves manipulating semi-dried ‘skins’ of household gloss paint to create a series of geometric recesses and plateaus. The works presented at the exhibition were entirely white set upon a white wall which invoked a similar sense of sterility and simplicity to that suggested by Jackson’s work, although employed in a different manner.
Due to the stark nature of Hands’ work it’s difficult to discern any kind of underlying focus here besides a pure exploration of the tactile nature of the material. Perhaps here we should consider ‘purity’ to be the key.
I can only hope that these artists put off ‘real life’ for another lifetime or so and continue to make me think because I do very much appreciate it.
Katheryn Pospieszalska – http://www.kathrynp.com
Carrie Jackson – http://www.loveillustration.co.uk
Kyle Hands – http://www.kylehands.co.uk
