At the end of a long week of work I stumbled into the ‘Glamourie‘ exhibition with a colleague and was confronted with an array of crazy, intriguing and wonderful art pieces. A few quick snaps shown above… But if you do get to go to the show be sure to check out the dark mask hanging ominously on the wall.
“In Celtic magic a ‘glamourie‘ temporarily warps the normal aspect of an object or area. Through this magical agency a primitive shack may be transformed so as to appear as a lordly; rags might be temporarily glorified as resplendent robes, whilst leaves take the the semblance of silver and gold. In the art exhibition Glamourie, common themes will surface, as will applications of ritual, ceremony, reciprocity and appropriation; but none of these will have proscribed its content. We will be prevy to celebrations of the strange and pathetic, and to objects obsessive, mordant and morbid. One artwork may bleed into the next, whilst aesthetic and conceptual motifs are plucked from individual artists and fed back into the show. Glamourie seeks to appropriate and employ its constituent parts to fashion a entity wholly of its own atmosphere.” – Lewis Spence (paraphrased)
Just paid the Oriel Mostyn a visit in Llandudno. Amongst the few artists that are exhibiting there at the moment there is one particular piece which I absolutely loved. ‘Shelter’ by Gareth Griffiths began with a body of paintings focusing on Gareths childhood memories of camping in a particular blue tent in Jamaica. Gareth then began to construct small maquettes of tents and shelters which then grew into a larger project. He asked his sons (also artists) to construct their own versions of shelters and then began to collaborate with other artists on their ideas of shelters. At the Oriel Mostyn all the small shelter constructions have been laid out on a table top with an index on the wall. Just by looking at the variations of shelter designs and ideas was great, it gave me a lot to think about in terms of how we humans have built the spaces around us, what they mean to us and even what the ‘outside’ means to us. This exhibition is a simple and lovely way of conveying how we have come to perceive the idea of shelter and how we box our selves in and away from the ‘outside’ world almost deliberately differentiating ourselves from the natural world.
A recent visit to London lead to a great catch up with Karolin Schnoor and progress towards some very exciting times ahead. Above are two things which contributed to the lovely evening.
Woody van Amen, Taxat 2010, LED lighting, 2m wide. Image coutesy of C-Space Beijing.
About 2 months ago myself Paul Barton and Karolin Schnoor completed a website project for the Hidde Van Seggelen Gallery. The website is ticking over nicely and there are some brilliant pieces of work by the artists represented by Hidde Van Seggelen in Chelsea London. Some of these are featured above but you can view more by clicking here.
Early this year after a visit to St Ives Cornwall I read ‘The Darch Monarch’ by Sven Berlin and I absolutely loved it. The reason I came across the book was because of an exhibition of the same title in tate St Ives which was on at the same time as my visit. As explained in the video above the exhibition was about showing relationships between British modernism and the supernatural, the magical and the paranormal. The exhibition begins with a beautiful unicorn piece by Damien Hirst which leads you onto a bevy of mystical related pieces of modernism including a few pieces by Sven Berlin himself, I absolutely loved it, so I bought the book! The book itself is a kind of autobiography of Sven and life in St Ives at the end of the 2nd World War. The subject matter of the book was very controversial as many of the characters were depicted as comic but unsavory and were clearly based upon people Sven new whilst living in St Ives. Despite changing all the names of the central characters in a loose attempt to cover up their true identities Sven was sued and the following court battles bankrupted him and forced him to leave St Ives. The book is very well written with brilliant descriptions of St Ives as a place and the almost magical or supernatural feeling it has. The book is great in its own right however having visited St Ives on a regular basis for the past 15 years and having experienced what an impact it has on a person or an artist made the book all the more fantastic.
Just found these old picture’s from my final year of university, at the time I was living with some good friends in London and it was brilliant! Especially because we were a mixture of graphic designers, artists and fashion designers and the house we were living in (New Parsonage) was massive and a brilliant sociable space. These photo’s were used on my old website to promote the little artist collective we had going on in the house. Below are a couple of pics of some of the New Parsonage housemates.
This is a 'Design blog', well kind of! I use the term loosely as not all the posts are design related, apart from being posted by me, a designer! Some posts are my work but most will be work by others discovered by endless searching of the web. Anyway hopefully you will find a feast of visualy exciting links and posts here. My email is: info@jeffreyshield.co.uk
