Tuesday 29 June 2010

Exhibition Profile: Lines

What: Lines
Who: Ella Edwards and Sarah Featherstone
Where: Glas (The Blue Shop)
When: 29 June - 9 July
 
A collaboration between artist Ella Edwards and writer Sarah Featherstone to explore the question: Where does drawing begin and writing end?

Newport’s Empty Shops Project offers Sarah and Ella an opportunity to explore their own practices as writer and artist and how the two disciplines overlap and interact. There are many similarities between the activities of writing and drawing (motor and intellectual), which can be termed ‘mark making’.

We hope to challenge the oft-heard phrase: ‘I can’t draw’, from adults who have lost their childhood confidence in their own creativity. This was one of the reasons for naming the project simply ‘Lines’, as the very word ‘draw’ can be enough to inhibit people. But doodles done while on the phone for example are proof of what anyone can achieve when the conscious mind is diverted and creativity is allowed to flow!

So come in and have a go and see what we can create together.

Who knows where the lines will take us…

ARTISTS:

Ella has recently completed her Fine Art degree at Newport School of Art and Design and is defining her practice as a painter within a broadly figurative theme. Ella has a passion for colour and is interested in the materiality of paint as a substance and in drawing as a means of expressing the subconscious.

Sarah has an MA in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University College. She has recently completed one of the Newport Superdragons - Awen (poetic inspiration), and is currently working on a poetry pamphlet and her first novel for teenagers.

Thursday 24 June 2010

Performance: Stephen Hammett

On Friday 25 June, at 7pm, local poet and artist Stephen "Stevo" Hammett will be performing a Performance Installation, called Angel Dust: In Dust We Trust, at Oren (The Orange Shop, Upper Dock Street).

See you there!

Tuesday 22 June 2010

Who: John Sherwood
Where: Glas (The Blue Shop)
When: 14 - 25 June

Since reading a book about Van Gogh in the school library I have wanted to be an Artist. I did badly at school except in Art class, making some pocket money doing other kids Art homework in the process.

­After school, I did a foundation course at Worcester Tech where I met the best Art teacher I ever had, Lionel Mills, an eccentric but inspiring teacher, whose ideas and approaches to painting I still employ now. I later went on to Art College in Cheltenham and was offered a place at the Royal College of Art but could not afford to go, so I returned to Worcester.

I work from memory and imagination which I believe reveals another underlying reality behind the material surface of things. Personally, it does not matter what the paintings depict or mean, it is the act of painting itself that makes me return to my paints and bushes every day. Art should be shared by all, everybody can have a go!

Monday 21 June 2010

Exhibition Profile: AdorNation

What: AdorNation
Who: Amy Hooper - Illustrator/Painter/Jewellery Designer 
Where: Porffor (The Purple Shop)
When: 14 - 25 June

Drawing inspiration from the natural world and my passion for travel and culture, most of my creations exhibit a very organic and ethnic feel. My jewellery uniquely integrates gemstones, shells and antique coins from India, with a form of South American macramé intricate spirals woven and knotted using waxed cord.

My illustrations of faeries and other mythical creatures, adorned in jewellery and clothes reminiscent of my designs, range from earthy tones of pen and ink, and oil paint to much more monochrome pen drawings, depicting the organic flow of life and the unseen connections that link us to each other and the world around us.

Every creation, every pen stroke, every knot  is made with care and consideration and much love, in the hope you will experience them with as much joy as I have had in creating them.

Friday 11 June 2010

Andrew Bolton: Video Installation

Occupying (what we have called) Green and Blacks, Andrew Bolton's Goes Around exhibition, has been evolving for a few weeks, with some wonderful window scrapings. 

Andrew has now added a video installation, which you can see below:




For more information on the exhibition, please click here.

Wednesday 9 June 2010

Private Viewing:

You are cordially invited, on Wednesday 9 June, between 5pm and 8pm, to the Private Viewing of Anna Bush Crew's exhibition.


..TRASHED..
Photographic artworks by Anna Bush Crews
Newport art Arts shop
30 Upper Dock Street, Newport, NP20 1HG
Open daily 11am - 4.30pm, June 1 - June 12


For more information on the exhibition click here.


Tuesday 8 June 2010

Exhibition Profile: Anna Bush Crews

What: …trashed…
Who: Anna Bush Crews
Where: Newport Art Arts
When: 2 - 12 June

Below, Anna describes the different elements of her exhibition:

…HAUNTED HOUSE…(1999-2010)
Photographs grouped into five formation pieces of four, six or nine colour prints are placed together, slightly floating; the stillness of individual images hides the reality of the actions that time and time again led to the shrouded evidence of aggressive destruction. Movement within the five formation pieces creates a visual complexity that point to the repetitive acts of desperation and depression, over a period of time, in what was once a grand domestic space perched on the cliff in Bristol.  Movement within a stillness, the remains of the domestic, chilled. This piece is dedicated to my father, Judson Crews, June 30, 1917 –May 17,2010.  Judson was a poet, and social worker, among other things.

…FRIENDS…(2008-10)
Marks of intention and marks by accident, strength applied with force, breaks and shatters the target, depending on the aim and impact…the teen spirit comes through; the happy face replaced by a sad face. Teens gather, to form their groups, away from home, in abandoned places and territories.  To grow up.…to escape the domestic…  “Home is the place you leave”…Some never come back. This piece is dedicated to my niece, Iris McLoughlin, Oct.8, 1989-Jan 25,2010.  The digital photos that make up…FRIENDS… were shot in Taos, New Mexico, USA.

The drugs corporations will not be happy until Americans are all on hundreds of dollars of prescription drugs each month for various complaints, some brought on by the addictive junk food diet, tobacco, alcohol.  Other culprits of addiction keep us sitting instead of active.  All are short term fixes for the stresses and conflicts brought on by the culture of persuasion to be part of the great consumer greed.  Is it any wonder the young react to the hypocrisy?


THANK YOU MR. HASELGROVE (2010)
This acts as a link within the shop/gallery, and in the materiality of the photograph, abstracted and 3 dimensional, takes us back to another time, recognizable though revealed only partially.  Of an evening, after a day of work, supper served by Mrs., Mr. would devote himself to his hobby, photography.  Over the years he captured the family life, travels, the school, all the interests he had.  With curiosity and a good eye, he used various cameras, papers.  These full plate fiber-based prints are curled up—an outdated technology— and offer only slivers of those unknown times and places. 

Another work, Around 3, (2003) related, includes photos collected from various sources, intentionally combined in a random way, created not as a story, but becoming a novel of atmosphere we project onto the time—the surface hints at the underlying.

The past is not a smooth surface
The surface of time is not smooth
The time of suffering is not a surface
Anne Carson

Also in the exhibition:
Homage to Louise Bourgeoise, (2010), a 3-D collaboration with Sohrab Crews, objets trouves, balloons, disco ball.

USK EDDY, video work running for 59 minutes. The ebb tide flow produces the current that is pushing debris around; the surface carries logs, branches, some with distinctive marks— yellow leaves like flags, twigs, trees, tires, rubbish bags, plastic bottles floating, and who knows what all caught up in the encircling movement of the eddy. The river level goes down, as the tide pulls the water out to sea. The accompaniment is traffic roar and birdsong. Linear time, demanded by train schedules, has impacted the whole culture, anxious about time; life itself has evolved a linear way of living, tied to the job, the demands, the cocktail hour, the news. 

Gallery reading from:
The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness,  Erich Fromm


Wednesday 2 June 2010

Exhibition Profile: East Side Art Club

Who: East Side Art Club
Where: The old Coral Bookmakers
When: 31 May - 11 June

Established in July 2008, East Side Art Club, meets on a Tuesday evening at the Eveswell Community Centre, Newport.
Hailing from very varied backgrounds, the 17 members of the club have diverse stlyes and interests. Subjects painted range from abstracts to portraits, flowers to landscapes (both urban and rural). Pencil, pastel, watercolour, acrylic and oil are among the media used.

The East Side Art Club will be exhibiting their work until Friday 11 June. You can find more pictures of the exhibition here.