Fieldtrip Mushrooms

This is a video exploring a light sculpture I made recently. I then edited it to Boxcutter’s tune ‘Fieldtrip’.

Light Painting

Light painting

Here’s a still from the light paintings I’ve been working on recently. The results are to be viewed in film format as I manipulate light to create colours, shape and movement. This form of ‘painting’ is influenced by Brian Eno’s ‘Video Paintings‘, where he filmed images and presented them as slow moving paintings to be watched vertically as well as horizontally so as to detract from the typical TV viewing experience and expectations, and to be viewed as an art piece.

You can watch one of my monochrome Light Paintings here:

 

Luminous Man Film

A while ago I posted about my luminous man which I showed as part of my final exhibition last year. I was going to work on music for the currently silent film over the summer, but a large project took up most of my time so I didn’t get to do this. I am not a musician so it’s unlikely I’ll make something completely appropriate for his creepy morphing dance; so if you make music and feel you’d like to submit some for the film then I’d love to hear it! My personal tastes tend to lean towards electronic music of the Venetian Snares/Four Tet/Aphex Twin variety, however I’m open to different styles as you never know what will fit best in the end. So please do get in touch, post links to YouTube/Soundcloud pages etc.

 

The Secret Life Exhibition at the Link Gallery – Curator’s statement

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A ball hangs in the corner of a room in Magritte’s painting ‘The Secret Life’ (1928) recently shown at the Tate Liverpool exhibition. The spherical ‘thing’ appears to be in a state of being/existing in the space, whether we are there to view it or not. Although it was hung in a room full of people, I felt as if it was very much alone and I had intruded on its quiet existence, like coming across a ghost. This was the starting point and inspiration for this exhibition. The work on show is varied to say the least, but within each piece there are intriguing characters within dreamlike or surreal situations.

Starting with my own work ‘Phantom’, the sculpture is the conduit for the light phantom, giving the ephemeral being a place to exist and become whole as the light passes through the layers of fabric. Roger Bygott uses light trails in his film ‘The Photographer’; he came across the anonymous photographer while walking in North Wales and filmed the man absorbed in his own world, conjured up as if part of a dream. James Ackerley’s ‘A Brief Memento of an Intangible Dreamscape’ could almost have come from the place Roger filmed his photographer and is presented as a surreal souvenir.

The middle hexagon holds the eerie photos of Anna Heaton’s twins, blankly staring out of the picture. Matthew Barber’s photos, ‘Stranger Danger’ are based on the fear of walking home at night and how the mind plays tricks on you. The photos are similar and their repetition and placement is to make the viewer look twice at each to see the differences, to pick out where the man in the picture has moved to next. These photos frame Karol Kochanowski’s ‘Self Portrait with Elephant’, an absurd situation in a beautiful landscape to symbolize the burden of everyday life, and his ‘Breadcycle’ a piece exhibited two years ago as part of his Foundation course, which has changed with him over the years.

John Brindley’s ‘Echoes’ and Caroline Whitemore’s surreal paintings use doors and pathways as symbols in their work, which I have placed together as quite literally the doorways to the next section of the exhibition within the Foyer.

Amy Lawrence’s piece ‘Mushroom’ shows a woman pregnant with thought and imagination. Helen Wheeler’s etchings create an intangible dreamscape. Both artists invite the viewer to make their own interpretation of their work, however I feel that they are both reflective of the artists themselves, Amy’s imagination literally growing from the image, and Helen’s layered with depth of meaning.

The show reel of films from Liam Healy (‘Pray’), Fabian Beickhorasani (‘Signon’) and Exposure’s nominee Michael Scott (‘Alice in Space’ and ‘Tastes Better’) are set on two projectors to continue the ‘look again’ theme of doubles running through the exhibition and to wonder why the images are not quite the same.

Finally, there are two very different boxes which can be entered into, one is Roger Bygott’s ‘Shaman’, an ambiguous character who is difficult to decipher, keep an eye out for him as he may be in and available to give divinations, or his spirit could be left guarding his home. The other box is Robert Grundstrom’s ‘Cubicle No.2’ the dark part of the psyche which can be entered into at your own risk.

Many thanks to Roger Bygott and Paul Tutty for their help in setting up the exhibition, and to the participating artists whose work was a pleasure to curate.

Elisa Artesero

Curator

‘Dirty Heart’ music video

Here’s the video I directed for Hologram Heart Parade‘s new single ‘Dirty Heart‘. The lead singer, Pauline Johnston, saw my work and asked if I wanted to make a video to give an unusual visual to the song as an alternative to a typical pop video. I used some of my Creeping Light film work as the backdrop to the video with Pauline as a central, almost sculptural piece, moving slowly as she sings. Pauline performed brilliantly in keeping her movements slow and deliberate, she has a strong on-screen presence which meant that the edit could be kept simple and understated, the the focus and interest kept on the Creeping Light and Pauline.

Interactive Arts First Year Show

It’s the end of the year show for first year Interactive Arts students from 9th – 13th May. I have put up prints of some of my Creeping Light and City Lights prints and a silent film of my Luminous Man.

For fuller details and more pictures of the exhibition as a whole, go to the Link Gallery blog.