Modern Fabulists

Spent a lovely day in Bristol on Saturday. Dean Melbourne and I went to check out the Modern Fabulists exhibition at View Gallery. The show is a collaboration between View Gallery and art consultants Coates & Scarry working with European and American Artists.

“The exhibition celebrates the enduring relevance of storytelling. Pagan imagery, human and animal mixed manifestations, the shocking juxtaposed with the sublime, all come together to represent what are ultimately beautiful and spiritual renderings and interpretations of folklore and tales.” (View Gallery)

There was some magical storytelling going on, my favourite piece being this wonderful work by Dee Dee Cheriel:

Dee Dee Cheriel

The show continues until this Sunday (May 29th) so hurry if you want a look!

projection links

http://www.michaela-nettell.com/underskies.html

http://www.michaela-nettell.com/stonesquid.html

http://www.michaela-nettell.com/beehive.html

Interpreting a story with art

Thinking about the relationship between our work and the story I thought it was interesting to see how other artists use their practice to interpret a story. The Freud museum has artists come and install work and its really interesting to see how they work to this theme. I’ve blogged about Mat Collishaws work there before but thought you may fancy a look at some of the others so here is the link to the Archive

http://www.freud.org.uk/exhibitions/archive/

Thinking about sequence

okay so after our talk I thought I’d sit down and write down what for me are the major points in the story. I quite like the idea of the show being literally divided up into chapters which represent themes or sections of the story our artwork has been built around. The chapters also lend themselves to the  light/dark stepping stones idea  - pretty much alternating from one to the other (Dianas room and the orchard merge together though). So this is my initial list with some very rough thoughts on each and what could be included from the works we have so far:

CHAPTER 1: THE START OF THE JOURNEY – order, simplicity, focus on geometric lines, lightness. (possible works = nest in glass box)

CHAPTER 2: THE GATEWAY – the gate,  passing through, decision, choice

CHAPTER 3: ENTERING EDEN – the girls encountered as sirens, distant, untouchable, exotic in their land (possible works = linocuts 0f emerging and goat and sanctuary, monoprint of girls, cage with flowers)

CHAPTER 4: THE DINNER – opulence, lamplight, messages, detail, wine, art, a game/battle, moves like chess “fencing in slow motion”, The Ebony Tower (possible works = suspended fabric piece,

CHAPTER 5: THE FOREST POOL – bathing, beauty, serene, hypnotic, arousal, Gauguin, mythic and timesless moments (possible works = Mouse and Faun, other large painting of tilted reflection, series of reflection photographs, all at once

CHAPTER 6: DIANAS ROOM – unveiling di, her artwork and her self, disclosure, metaphorical nakedness, leading to a connection, yearning, intimacy, a moment (Possible works = the peacock bed, Things Left Unsaid, if I could I would)

CHAPTER 7: THE ORCHARD – glimpses, melted time, intensity, nature being very much alive in the scene – an onlooking and enveloping character, a gate features again at another point of decision (possible works = the window “glimpses” piece, The Promise, Under the Yews – maybe stacked as series of towering paintings, linocut – incapable of independent existence, the dance print, sound piece of victor hugo poem)

CHAPTER 8: LEAVING – illusions or truth, removed, revelation, abstraction again, summer died (from the intensity of the orchard finish with something quite stark and simple. possible works = create a piece based on the miniature house, remaining piece but left shut just displaying engraved words).

Very flexible on this you may see it completely differently but I thought it would be good to write down thoughts before they drifted back out my head. Let me know what you think!

linocut

misc collected images

Mono Print experiments

Lino Cut Prints

thoughts for sound installation

I still really want to get that sound piece done of the Victor Hugo dusk poem read by my French friend. I keep changing my mind about how and where it would best be played, here is todays idea on it:

Constructed room (shed would be cheapest scenario but something bespoke made ideally – no windows, possibly with the shape of an octagonal aviary) within the gallery space – Kilimnik style. Outside covered (including roof) in a floral/bird wallpaper and then possibly with images drawn or painted on in black by you of the Brittany goats, birds, deer etc.

Inside all walls, ceiling, floor painted black. Loose representation of trees painted  on black walls similar in style to Robert Quint.

Sound installation is played on loop inside (Hugo poem read in French then English) and possible also video projection onto floor (and maybe partly creeping up onto back wall) of light reflected in water. Or maybe thats too much actually? Maybe just the sound and the painted black/tree space inside on second thoughts.

In the garden

Here are some of my favourite edited Ebony Tower pics from Brittany.

Possibilities:

1. framed in black ebony frames of different sizes – like the burning flower pic by Matt Collinshaw. Picture them all close together like scenes in a narrative with maybe some lines from the book scrawled next to them in pencil on the wall or with the sound installation whispered next to them that I still haven’t got round to doing (the victor hugo poem that matched our scene read by my french friend).

2. printed large on aluminium or fabric.

3. constructing a type of deep case/frame/box for each picture so the viewer gets some of that sense of looking through/spying to see the image.