The work is on the wall and awaiting to be viewed, i postponed the original opening date of the 11th of May due to a large amount of exhibition openings in one night. I decided not to risk it, i changed the date to the next friday the 18th. May is going to be a big month for exhibitions in Swansea, a mini 'biennale' in the city.
As well as the third year photography, fine art and surface pattern degree shows, there are shows from other faculties such as graphic design and advertising.POLARVOID will be showing in the middle week for the 'biennale' There is a second year end of year show on the llth, hence the change of date of my show. That will open the mini arts festival in Swansea.
A fellow Swansea photographer Nicholas William Hughes has a show on up the road from Red Door 44 at another artist hub, Supersaurus Swansea. The show is on the same date as mine and will be the first stop of the days exhibitions.
And so with a few little finishing touches, the countdown begins for my debut solo show. its a scary thought and i have worries of lack of attendance. I'm thinking of speaking at the show, you know say a few thank you's and explain what i have been doing this past year since graduating.
News just in, it has come to my attention, that iam having my first solo show. Yes folks, you heard it here first. My new work, 'POLARVOID', is due to be exhibited in the one and only RED DOOR 44. Ok so i do help run RD44, and so it was quite easy to be allowed to show my work in the gallery, but nonetheless i am still to be going it alone for the first time ever. In a recent post i mentioned that i had the start of a new project, 'POLARVOID'. This isn't a new direction for me, i am still investigating the destruction of image, but working in a new format brings new thoughts to the table and allows the viewer a little more insight into what it is they are actually looking at.
The show is due to open in May, i think its a couple of weeks before the S.M.U degree show. May will be the month of exhibitions. Hopefully family and friends will attend the opening, to see my work, but all so to join me in saying goodbye to Swansea. I am to leave Swansea, the place at which i call home and move back to Reading. It will be a tearful goodbye, as i have made so many good friends over the past four years and learn't such a lot in life as well as education. I wish to invite old tutors along and show them what i have been up to this past year post graduated. I also want ever nearing graduates to the show, so they can see what they may get up to within the year after finishing university.
This solo show is to be a joyous BON VOYAGE to SWANSEA
a litte tease(insight) of what is to be expected.
Today was a good day. I got to loan out a Hasselblad, from a really good friend of mine. I have started my POLARVOID project, i'm using 20ish year old polaroid my father kindly donated to me. Its near enough useless as the film is more or less dried out. This is fine for me as my practice is based on the destructive side of photography. I had 4 Polariod left in the film back, that had laid dorment for a very long time. Some friends of mine kindly posed for me and so my venture has started and will continue until the end of April when i hope to have a solo show in RED DOOR 44.
More notes will be made on my progress with this dried out has been Hasselblad Polaroid soon, watch this space.
It has been 7 months since i fired a roll off a film with some enthusiasm, during that time i have been a tad lazy with progressing my practice. (booooo hisssssss!)During this photographers block, i have taken opportunities that don't often arise. A friend of mine revealed she was pregnant 3 months into the pregnancy. this was wonderful news, i was so delighted for her.
A few weeks went by and i bashfully asked her if i could take a few pictures of her bump. She kindly said yes and asked me when i would like to photograph her, to her amazement i wanted to photograph her bump within days of her to be due to give birth. I wanted to photograph this bump just before it became a baby. It may sound strange, but i want that child to grow up and look back at photographs and see what they looked like moments before the imminent event.
I had never documented the beginnings of a new life before, not just the new life of the baby, but the new life of a parent. In my future it is certainly something that i wish to document with great discipline.I photographed a cocooned young female, blossoming into a wonderful mother. This was what i was to capture in my imagery. I did not construct or stage my time with her, i simply let the day pass on by as if any normal day. soon i hope to give this small piece of work to the new family, with hope that they have an amazing adventure ahead of them.
With the release of the new Digital Polaroid camera, that people are wetting themselves about. I have done some experimenting with my own makeshift digital Polaroid camera. There may not be the usual buzzing sound from the Polaroid camera ejecting the film but never the less i still reckon i have produced a digital Polaroid file.
In a nut shell, i just place the viewfinder of the Super Colour - 635CL, over the lens of my Digital Harinezumi 2 +++ (1-10) camera. i then began to compose and frame my subject matter accordingly.
I composed and framed my images using a Polaroid camera, but used a digital format to capture the subject matter does that not make them Polaroid pictures? I am continuing with this interesting query, this may result in me using many forms of photo capturing devices, only to photograph the view from inside them.
Anyway its something new and may well help me with my current Polarvoid Project 'coming soon to a gallery near you'!
The last exhibition i was in was in October, since then i shamefully haven't made any new work, mainly due to work issues and financial difficulties, but fear not i am settled and bring in a regular pay cheque everything should resume to normality soon enough. Before all that some time in November i had been discussing the idea of curating a show on Red Door 44, this would not include my work or any work from within the collective.
This show was going to be the first example of What Red Door 44 wants to cater for, Outsider Art. Red Door want's to give the opportunity to artists or anybody who would like to have an exhibition but has never had one or been able to have one. Since the opening of the studio nearing the end of October Red Door had remained dormant. nothing was happening in the space that we opened especially to be used creatively.
So i took the initiative and told a great friend of mine, Mathew Belcher that Red Door 44 will host an exhibition of his work. This was something that hadn't crossed his mind at all. Mat had created an album of work on a social network site entitled 'Happy things Happy'. Mat would photograph objects and shapes that resembled a smiley face. This album had some many responses to it that Mat created a separate page purely for this new hype of 'Happy Things Happy'. I saw the Album in the early months of 2011, telling him to print and exhibit his photographs. Mat wasn't an artist at the time, just someone capturing happy things, half a year goes by, and now i have the opportunity to give him a show of his work.
Mat Helped me through a tough period struggling for work, by allowing me to Volunteer in his shop. As a thank you to him i wanted this show to happen for him. I have never been on the other side of the fence before, i have always shown work, it was nice to have a change of occupation for a temporary period of time. i thoroughly enjoyed the process and now can apply that experience to my C.V. and hope it helps with possible jobs opportunities in the future.
Please excuse the bizarre spelling in the title of this post, its an in joke between me and my good friend David Long. In a nut shell, Munmumumumumum is actually a place near Swansea called Mumbles. Hopefully some of you reading this will understand what we were joking around with. Anyway a few of my fellow course mates after the degree show in London wanted to put on a show somewhere in the Swansea area for those who couldn't make it to either the University degree show or the London show. The show was to be called 'A First Chance For A Second Look'. This will have been my second joint exhibition outside of university, but my first since graduating.
I was concerned that i hadn't made new work since the degree show and was worried that putting up old work would appear lazy and boring to people. The thing was i hadn't realized that Swansea hadn't seen my light boxes that i put up in the London Free Range Show, and so that work was new to people in Swansea. This made the organization of the show much easier and faster for me and also the other artists showing. The Work was shown in a little Gallery in called 'Oriel Bach', this is a welsh name, translated to English it means 'Little Gallery'.
The opening night was nice, with an appearance from two of my old tutors from S.M.U. Hamish Gane, my Photography Tutor kindly opened the show with a little speech. It was nice to see the work in a different space and curate the show ourselves for the first time, Tutors always took that responsibility in University. The work went up surprisingly fast for the four of us, i guess we were on the same wave length with where everyones work should go.
