'No Fun II' @ One Thoresby Street, Nottingham

No Fun II is a exhibition of work from Artists Sean Cummins, Jo Mitchell and Mark Pearson. I found the exhibition as a small yet, thought provoking show that showed themes of subculture and a believable tribute to anarchic attitude of punk, with a balance of youth with the experienced. It was great to see the work of one of my tutors at university Sean Cummins, whose work i found to be really impressive when viewed in the flesh. No Fun is described as:

'NO FUN II IS AN INSTALLATION OF WORK BY 3 ARTISTS WHO DISLOCATE STRATEGIES TAKEN FROM GRAPHIC DESIGN. THEY ARE INTERESTED IN ITS WIDER CULTURAL CONTEXT OR SUB-CULTURAL REFERENCES AND ENJOY SUBVERTING ITS COMMUNICATIVE POSSIBILITIES THROUGH FRUSTRATION, REPETITION AND CONFRONTATION.

NO FUN II WILL PRESENT PAINTINGS, TAPESTRIES AND ENLARGED PHOTOCOPIED IMAGERY, BECOMING AN IMMERSIVE, OVERWHELMING AND COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT OF GRAPHIC IMAGERY. THEY INTEND THIS INSTALLATION TO BE A CREATIVE EXAGGERATION OF THE LANGUAGE AND PROPERTIES OF GRAPHIC DESIGN, USING ITS CONVENTIONS AS A VEHICLE FOR ENHANCING THE ABERRANT URGES AND INTENTIONS OF THE ARTISTS THEMSELVES.

ON THE SURFACE MOST GRAPHIC DESIGN WILL SUGGEST EXPRESSIVE POSSIBILITIES THAT ARE OPEN ENDED … BUT DESIGN BEING DESIGN… IT IS ULTIMATELY LOCKED INTO THE FUNCTIONAL AND RATIONAL OBJECTIVES OF COMMUNICATING AND ADVERTISING. NO FUN II READILY EMPLOYS METHODOLOGIES OF GRAPHIC DESIGN BUT THEIR OUTPUT IS JOYOUS, HUMOROUS AND A LITTLE BIT FREAKY WHICH ULTIMATELY DOES MEAN FUN.'

Sean Cummins 

Mark Pearson

Work from a different exhibition downstairs

j

Finished Cardboard Boot

Here is the finished Cardboard boot. I am really happy about how it has turned out. There were various challenges that i had to overcome in order to keep the piece from falling apart. But, I have taken templates from each piece of cardboard i used to construct the piece, so i now have a way of mass producing this work. As my Print workshop is this Friday, i am planning to use these templates to make a screen for screen printing which will hopefully come across as a interesting in look into how a boot can be constructed out of any material.        
                                                 

                                                         

Liverpool Biennial 2014

I have been meaning to write a post on this years Biennial for a couple of weeks. Around three weeks ago I went to Liverpool with my university course to see some of the galleries participating together with this years Biennial called 'A Needle walked into a haystack'. I went to various galleries such as 'The old Blind School', FACE and Liverpool Contemporary. The old blind school was a far out favorite of mine as they exhibited works that really opened my eyes to what contemporary art is. I wrote a thousand word review on this visit, primarily based on the old blind school. Here is a short example of what i wrote:

'My first impressions of walking into the old blind school, was something of a pleasant surprise. My feelings on the way to the gallery was of course curious because of the bizarre name of the place, which did spark some form of interest into going. But inside, the gallery was breath-taking; the walls were crumbling in places, paint was peeling away from years of neglect and a once large brick fire place has given way to time and became part of the floor with broken brick, these becoming more like walkway cobbles than the foundations of a once fiery heart of the building. ‘The Liverpool school for the blind’, founded by Edward Rushton in 1791, was the first school of its kind in this country. The school taught its students trades such as brush-making, Braille, basket weaving, piano tuning and knitting. Over the years, however, the school became other things from a trade union to a famous independent music venue (1984-2004) and a police station of sorts. There is no wonder why the place is worn out'.

Peter Wachtler 'Untitled' 2013, Watercolour on Paper.

 Private Collection.

Still from 'The Waterway' Louise Herme and Chloe Maillet.

 HD Colour film with sound, 25'. 2014.

I am really happy that i went to thr Biennial. If i did not go, i would not have seen such works from artists that i had no idea about before going. It has also made me rethink my opinion on Liverpool, I used to dislike the city from a few times i have been but going to the city purely as a artist, I now find the city colourful and full of life in terms of art and has shown to me a vibrant art scene.

Cardboard Shoe Progress

For the past week, I have started construction on creating a Doctor Marten boot using just cardboard box. There was and still is many challenges that I need to find a solution to. For example at the start of the project I needed to figure out a way of attaching parts of the shoe to the inner sole of the boot. I did think about stapling but after further thought, I realised that this would prove complex as there is not a lot of flexibility that a stapler can offer; this flexibility is what makes the project challenging. The cardboard is an item that is used for geometrical shapes not for organic looking forms. I fund that a combination of a type of glue called UHU Creative foam rubber and flexible materials glue (despite the name) proved an excellent way of securing the card into the shapes needed to create the foundations of the boot.

The creation of making the right shapes that fit the boot together was mostly guess work. I was constantly using my own pair of boots to find the shapes and sizes to create paper templates to use onto the card. Also the templates will be useful in the future as I plan to create boots from other materials such as metal.

To create the pieces needed to make the shoe, I used the same sheet of cardboard. After looking at this and taking into account a comment from one of my friends in the studio who said it looks like the plastic frame the parts to a airfix model comes in when it is in its box. I found it to be a prefect way of documentation of my process to the creation of the boot so far. I wrote some of my notes and measurements I made in my sketchbook onto the cardboard to show my working and off cuts that did not measure up to the actual piece when it came into play.