Its good to be back

3 weeks in manchester and off again. Spent rather a lot of time chilling out and doing not a lot since I've been back, but feel I have accomplished quite a lot never the less! Making myself at home in our beautiful penthouse flat, a weeks work at uni for the conformation line, sorting portfolio/work ect and A LOT of essay research. It took me a while to decide on a subject at the beginning of summer but i'm glad I took my time and waited for inspiration to strinke me because now I've got into it I can't wait to delve deeper. I'm confident I can write something really interesting, modern and relevent now- especially after everything I unearthed in London!

Going to Newcastle tomorrow for a few days to visit my god daughter and best friend and then to Wales for visiting the Grandparents. Two of my fave places in all the world so it's going to be an exciting week! Hoping to get to the Tate and soak up the amazing countryside =)

x

Last week in London

I started writing this post last week and just as I posted it the computer crashed and it didn't post and i nearly cried. It toll me about three hours to write too. So this is attempt number two (now that I've almost got over losing everything)...

So last week my time in London came to an end. Its been a long 5 weeks I must admitt but I have learned so much. The people I've met and the advice and talks i've heard i know will have a big effect on my work next year. I feel i've got some inside knowledge and experience that other people may not have got till leaving uni and hopefully I can put it all into practice to make sure this year is the best yet!

So here is what i discovered in my last week.... theres quite a lot!!

Cork street

Mac directed me to this little street and it was certainly worth it, loads of little galleries which exhibits work to sell and so most of the stuff is by new artists not so commercial.

Fujio Akai- this work wasn't actually on display but I found it in a catalogue of coming work and I absolutely love it. Maybe one day i'll be able to afford a piece of this work- the colours are so intense and I could look into it for hours.

Julian Opie- There was original Opie for sale in one gallery. The first time I saw his work was in Amsterdam about 5 years ago and then I was really into this kind of style then! One of the pieces for sale was a digital moving woman- not sure where you would put it up but it did capture the woman walking perfectly!
The very last gallery I went into was dedicated to Patrick caulfield. Since he died they've been collecting as much of his work as they can. There was a lot of more detailed intricate patterns than I had seen in his work before. I do love it when you finally see peoples work for real after seeing it in books and online so much- its always either so much better of a big let down and Caulfield was definately much better!


Iris Thorsteinsdottir- This photographer really caught my eye. She plays with inside and outside spaces- would have been really good artist to look at for the contextual studies last year!
Ffiona Lewis- a big collection of paintings and although they were all very similar I did like the style of painting. Feels very much like a dull rainy day feels!
David Spiller- This wasn't the work that I saw on display but I couldn't find that online. I came across some more of his work which is really interesting!

Jason Gathorne Hardy- Sketchs of birds. I like drawings that have a lot of energy in them and feel alive and these definately have that.

James Judge- his paintings are just beautiful. I'm a sucker for anything with beautiful colours!

Paul Wunderlich- Odaliske. Very peculiar image that just caught my eye, there's somethign very haunting about it.
Paul Feiler- mmm I adore symmetry
Terry Frost
Beverly Rouwen- Through the wood

The Victoria and Albert Museum

I went to the V&A to see the telling tales exhibition about design and fairy tales/fantasy and I would reccomend it if you're in london. Unfortunately you can't take photos and none of the stuff is online but the website is really cool and shows of the exhibition very well http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/telling-tales/

I found some other cool stuff on my way to the telling tales exhibition- this is someone's collection of paintings of a saint that they collected from everywhere, carboot sales, markets, shops. They filled two big rooms top to bottom and were all the same. Interestingly mass produced image yet each one is hand painted and slightly different from others.

The Jameel prize- V&A have collected Islamic work from the 1850's, believing the idea of structuring patterns and matching decoration to shape and function could improve British design. This is the biennial award for contemporary Islamic artists.

Reza Abedini: Use of calligraphy as humans represents them as bearers of thought.

Hamras Abbas- Please do not step

This poem was transfered onto the floor in really delicate patterned type. It was in the doorway so you had to ignore the instructions in the title in order to get into the room. It was inspired by the artists feelings of displacement risen from Anti- Islamic sentiment.



Hassan Hajjaj- le salon

A real living room made totally out of brands western and islamic!

The Museum of Childhood

Original Roahld Dahl and Quinten Blake =) Love them Love them Love them childhood heros
Like I said before I love drawings with energy about them and these bring the characters and stories to life perfectly. The two artists just totally compliment and make each other!

The Portrait Gallery

Whenever I go to the portrait gallery I am always blown away. I actually can't prepare myself enough for how incredible the paintings will be!! Especially the BP awards. Some of them its difficult to tell apart from photographs!
Allessandro Raho- Judi Dench
Marc Crank- Alaister Adams
Jason Brooks- Sir Paul Nurse
Matt Holyoak- Harry Potter (Photo)
Agnes by Natalie Holland
Jose Luis- Corella
Georgie by Mary Jane
Maggie by Sue Rubira

On Assi Ghat by Edward Sutcliffe
Tom by Micheal Gaskell

When your a boy- the photographers gallery

an exhibition of Simon Foxton, a stylist, and various photographers he'd worked with.



Above fashion photos by Nick Knight I found after seeing some of his work with Foxton. I really like his style
With Jason Evans- I.D spread 'hey there fancy pants- they have done a lot of work for I-D and Face- might go and dig out some old issues from the library!

Punk- The Face feb 1886

With Nick Knight- Ongoing series of projects reinventing icons of British culture from punks to skinheads to 18th century master paintings. Riot of colour, customised workwear, household objects and cheeky references to gay subculture.

Well there you have it. I tried to narrow down eveything I put on here to the things that really made an impact on me, but so much did I still have the longest blog post possibly ever!

and more of the weekend....

It is extremely annoying that as you add to your post it adds it to the top and not the bottom... I can't see any sense in this and its ruining the order!! And I like things to be in order. I have so much to post up while i'm in London its hard to keep up with everything....

So heres a few more things that have happened in the last few days...

Office summer party! Free margahritas my favourite and had a really great time chatting to everyone. Had to leave early unfortunately, but everyone got very drunk and we got bacon sanwhiches for breki in the morning. Good times!

I went to see Harry Potter at last! Well what can I say, I reckon they missed about 3/4s of the story out, what they did keep in half they made up and half was changed. I know they can't fit it all in but i felt it was a poor effort! Obviously they've already cut down half the last book content now by missing out some key storylines now so who knows what the last film will be like!!
I guess if you havn't read the book then it was probably pretty good, the special effects were amazing I must admit, just a shame about everything else.
Bellatrix is still my favourite =)
And everyone should read the books, they can't even compare to the films.

Yesterday was the Crit with Dave Trott for the G-Wizz brief he set us last week. Spent ages this week on coming up with ideas. And he didn't even look at people's work. Two were late and so he went off on one and basically shouted at us for an hour and then left! Not much help really. especially seen as what he shouted about was just a repeat of last week. Welcome to the real world I guess!
However, I did take a few things from him, he gave us a great tip of going through the newspaper, picking out bad ads and re-doing them. That way, you get totally new work that no one else has done, and your not trying to compete with people over the same briefs. It says straight away ''look whats being published, I can do it better''.

Then we had a presentation about writing for radio- very useful hints and tips, the main one being, STOP FOLLOWING RULES. This can stifle your creativity. If it works it works and it doesn't matter how you got there. So the new brief is to write a script for Kiss radio station based on the idea that ''Music Is Life''. It's for Kiss so they own the air time and it could be made if it's good enough.

Meanwhile, at work, Starting on a new brief today for a press campaign for a very expensive sports car make....

The Tate Modern

Also at the weekend I went to the Tate Modern . I didn't finish looking round everything but these are a few of my highlights... (Dance- painted with food)

Ed Ruscha- Don't know why I havn't come across this work before but I loved it and it was my favourite of the exhibition. There was a whole room on him- off to do some more research into him and his work!

States of Flux- Red star exhibition. Russian Revolution/Soviet Union posters.
Most of these weren't attributed to artists and very difficult to find the ones I liked online (not allowed to take photographs) but the times of handmade posters always inspires me. I love the mixture of painted/drawn imagery, typograhy and advertising!

Robert Therrain- Table and four chairs. Very surreal, but I guess thats the point. Shapes are so perfectly mimicked for the scale! I wonder how it was made.

Miroslaw Balka- Soap. Very bizarre and no explanation so i'm not sure what her thoughts were behind this piece but I found myself very drawn to it. Displayed at the Tate they were just a long line of used soaps hanging from ceiling to floor... but very beautiful.

Michelangelo Pistoletto- Venus of the rags. This was one of my favourites- the statue was based on a kitsch reproduction found in a garden centre and the ''complex juxta position of modern and historical images''

Merideth Frampton- portrait of Marguerite Kelsey. I don't know who that is but the face was like a photograph. I love paintings which look like photographs they amaze me.

Max Ernst- The entire City. enchanted by the markings that make up this painting and the composition.

Edward Burra- for some reason I can't stop thinking about Edward Hoppers Night Hawks when I see this. I have no idea why, it doesn't really resemble it but I imagine this as the close up of the man and woman at the bar... very strange.

Dahli- The forgotten Horizon. This is so detailed and delicately soft it feels like a memory, when you look closer the 3 girls appear to be plonked right there as though they are a hallucination of your mind.