THREE DOORS UP EXHIBITION RECAP

Just some immediate thoughts and reflection from our recent group show in Three Doors Up. The show was called Who Me? and was the collective work of the 2017/2018 Fine Art Masters group from Cardiff School of Art and Design. While not a traditional exhibition, the space was presented as more of a working environment with a relaxed attitude. We were encouraged to drop in and produce work, change up the pieces and evolve the show over the period.

For this show, I chose to exhibit my Schoolday’s End self-playing game. I had initial thoughts to have the piece projected onto a wall, but it eventually worked out better to display via an old CRT TV on a plinth. A requirement of the space was to have a sofa for people who wanted to come and chat. I positioned my work adjacent the couch, something which I felt added a little to the overall feeling of my work and suited the nature of the exhibition.

I was able to change up my game throughout the show, adding different things, correcting errors, adding a new level and overhauling the colour. Other artists produced works on paper in the space, adding to the exhibition throughout the fortnight.

Some commented on the ramshackle appearance of the show, and I do indeed agree that we could have taken a more refined approach. Overall it wasn’t particularly bad considering it was the first time we had all exhibited together and also that we had all mostly different work. Part of my idea for at least one of our future exhibitions is to have a theme to glue our works together. It can be a loose theme, perhaps just a word or phrase, but something to help make it feel like a curated show and not just a collection of works produced by people studying together.

As far as paperwork was concerned, we had a printout of artist statements. There were no other materials, and some artists and visitors expressed that we should label the work, perhaps also including a visible price. It would probably have been useful to some extent, but I did enjoy approaching the public and explaining the works and artists, often giving much more insight than a simple title or printed piece while allowing for further conversation and discussion.

Thanks to Rob, Richard and Ronnie for their parts in the organisation of this show.

THOUGHTS ON REVISITING OLD IDEAS

I’ve started noticing a pattern in my recent projects: that I’ve been revisiting old ideas and reworking them, trying different approaches, techniques and developments.

Typically, I work quite quickly with ideas. They are executed as close to conception as possible. This is not to say that these ideas don’t develop over time, or develop through iteration, often I can build and change out as I go. This lets me see if something is working or not if I am achieving what is intended.

Examples of this are in the Emoji Morandi project, which originated as a collection of eBay images, followed by paintings, and now as a series of emoji paintings (above). See also my latest game about mining, which was prototyped a few years ago as a proof of concept for a game about mining lyrics. When trying to create work in response to Bitcoin, it was the perfect opportunity to hang that idea on.

Much of what I have produced over the past few years is site or project specific, which I think lends itself quite well to this approach. More recently, I’ve been able to make explorative work in the process of my Masters. Perhaps this has allowed me to revise old ideas without the limitations inherent making something for a specific exhibition. It might also be understood that the safe framework of the academic environment allows me to revisit these concepts and further develop them. Either way, I’m enjoying this new approach of revisiting older work.