Alternative cinema

Thanks to David Salas, I've made it into this weekend's NOSE, a companion event to the city's annual Exeter Open Studios.  David's running one of his regular pop-up cinema events and my video pieces, She produces the text (2006-12) and Bound (Gravity Drawing) (2008), are among more than 60 short films being shown in this marathon clubby filmfest.

Puny Gods

Friday 22nd, Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th March
12.00 noon - 9.00pm

52 Fore Street (empty shop opposite BHS) 

Exeter

www.punygods.com

Birds and bananas

Have been trying to work out how my banana project Foreign Soil and my larger body of work on bird flight fit together. Maybe they don't. Maybe the increasing focus on botanical themes in my work is a completely new direction and I'm in an awkward transition phase. But I tend to believe that your work may take you on some interesting and worthwhile journeys, but it usually brings you back to the same place.

The banana project began at a point where I didn't have a lot of exhibiting commitments and so I gave myself permission to do anything. And I realised I'd been thinking about growing bananas in Devon every since a casual conversation with Christine Duff of Organic Arts in 2009. I then found myself involved in The Library of Lost Books and made a work about seed banks, so there's a preoccupation with ecological change.

But I also think it's interesting that my bird flight work is concerned with testing the limits of objectivity, that is, trying to be really precise about what's out there in the world. With the banana project and its nod to scientific research, I'm doing almost precisely the opposite - trying to will something into existence through sheer force of documentation.

Seeing the difference - Exeter and visual art

It's 10 years since I gave up my 'proper' job in London and headed off to Exeter to start a new one as a freelance artist and writer.  If I'd known then what I know now about artists' careers (not to mention rising fuel and travel prices) I might have stayed put.  But, at the time, it seemed important to put myself in a completely new place physically if I was going to be in a new place mentally. And, looking back, I'm pleased to see just how much Exeter has developed as a centre for visual arts.

When I graduated from Exeter School of Art & Design in 2006, the college was about to relocate to join its parent organisation, Plymouth University, and the prospects of any thriving visual arts scene in the city looked bleak. We had a smattering of galleries in the city and an annual open studios event, but the ground for new artists was sterile.  It was clear anything I did, from exhibiting to finding studio space, was going to have to be self generated.

However, it's hard to describe the level of inertia I encountered. At the very first meeting about setting up studio space, an artist who'd lived and worked in the city for several years came along solely to tell us that it 'couldn't be done'.

These days Exeter feels like a different place. A centre of excellence even back then, Spacex now engages more actively with local artists providing freelance and  professional development opportunities, small commissions and occasional residencies.

Its near neighbour Exeter Phoenix has been showing good quality contemporary art in its galleries for a few years now and offers a number of exhibiting and professional development opportunities for SW visual artists. It's become home to Double Elephant print workshop, which has recently started to offer residencies and bursaries to contemporary artists. And to start-up PrtSctPress, which produces risograph artist editions.

OrganicArts, the farm-based arts and education charity has gone from strength to strength since 2006, and the Centre for Contemporary Art & the Natural World (CCANW) found a home at nearby Haldon (though it's soon to relocate to Exeter University and work on a project basis).  The university itself has recently launched courses and research programmes in Art History and Visual Culture and is working hard through its Arts & Culture team to engage with the wider community in Exeter.

Last but not least, the newly refurbished Royal Albert Memorial Museum has just appointed a panel to advise on contemporary arts programming. And the city council in general is much more arts friendly, perhaps looking to its competitor Plymouth and seeing the surge in energy and profile that hosting BAS2011 brought.

As a result, more artists with energy and ideas seem to be basing themselves here. There are now two group studios offering access to workspace: EVA (offspring of the project that 'couldn't be done') and the new Arts Hub.  These complement the private studios that have sat above Spacex for many years. Best of all, we've seen a number of artist-led projects such as No Guts No Glory, DIY, This City's Centre, NOSE2013 and Stowage.  Exciting times for Exeter.  At last I can allow myself to feel at home.

Finding a way through

"At a time when rising costs are driving more and more publishing online, the gift of a beautifully produced piece of print – accidentally encountered – feels almost subversive."  I've written about Nick Davies and his risograph artist editions, Loophole Supplements, featuring work by Ryan Curtis, Alex Murdin, Sam Aldridge and Thomas Goddard.  http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/3047310

High expectations

Interior of High Cross House with If I am left handed, I will of course reverse the sources
by James McLardy

Designed by the Swiss-American architect William Lescaze and completed in 1932, High Cross House was built for William Curry, the first headmaster of the progressive Dartington Hall school in Devon. Taken over by the National Trust in 2012, it's now being used to show period furnishings alongside a rolling programme of exhibitions and residencies. It will be interesting to see how this develops as, at the moment, two very different approaches are battling it out across the salmon-pink sofas.

'Legacy: Five Schemes First Variation' curated by Carl Slater features work by Gwenael Belanger, Blue Curry, Karen Henderson, James McLardy and Richard Stone. It builds on Slater's ambitious 2011 show 'Vessel', which brought together a range of international work to comment on Plymouth's post-war regeneration. Offering contemporary reflections on Modernism, 'Legacy' is a perfect show for this space; I just wish it could have been larger and less compromised.

'Legacy' shows alongside maritime paintings by by Anthony Amos, as well as a range of ceramics by Leach Pottery's lead potter Jack Doherty and glass by Fabrizia Bazzo. With their Southwest connections and focus on craft, these artists sit well within the Dartington setting, and they're certainly popular with the Sunday afternoon visitors. This show follows safely in the footsteps of numerous commercial galleries across the region and, if this is the way High Cross House wants to go, it needs stop flirting with ideas-led shows at the same time. Both are valid, but they just don't mix.

However, the 'artists in residence' in the 'studios' upstairs need much more careful thought. With the exception of Sarah Scaife, who is using the opportunity to address the notion of home with participation from visitors, these are not meaningful residencies. While not wanting to deny any local artist the opportunity to work and sell in these superb surroundings, I feel the whole venture panders to the public myth of artists' practice in a most unhelpful way.

These are not studios, they are showrooms where the artists (currently including two painters and a woodworker) occasionally sit, presumably noodling at some unimportant part of their work while chatting to visitors. It edits out the dirt, the mess, the sweat and the focus required to make good work. Instead it presents professional art practice as some kind of cosy, sociable hobby that can be pursued in a carpeted room with a view. No wonder people think we shouldn't be paid.

'Legacy: Five Schemes First Variation' - 12 January - 3 March, 2013
http://www.karst-projects.org/hxh.html

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/high-cross-house/

Current artists in residence are Sarah Scaife, Natalie Outhwaite, John Puckey and John Anderson.

Eyes down in Plymouth

Ian Woo (from Island Vernacular at Peninsula Gallery)

Long overdue visit to Plymouth. I was in town to see i-DAT about possible involvement in my banana project and did a quick run around the nearby galleries.  

First up, the restaurant-formerly-known-as-Plymouth-Arts-Centre to see Ula Dajerling's Dark Materialism, a petite exhibition of four pieces concerned with transformative processes.  It's shown as part of a wider programme of films and events focused on a re-examination of Modernist concerns.  Upstairs I tried to see James Eden's Formative but there were too many people in the way. Eating. Until 28 March.

On to Hannah James' The outline seems indelible at Plymouth College of Art, a spare collection of photographs, audio monologues and wall prints informed by Robbe-Grillet's novel La Jalousie. I enjoyed this very restrained exhibition, but felt it was perhaps asking more of me than it was prepared to give. Until 1 March.

And to Peninsula Arts to see Island Vernacular which brings together two Singapore-based painters: Milenko Prvacki and Ian Woo.  I realise it's a long time since I stood in a whole gallery full of paintings - and I've almost forgotten how to look at them. Painting is indeed a different language.  Until 23 February.

Plastic fantastic

Photos from Neoreplicants, Exeter Phoenix, 16 November 2012 - 19 January 2013.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/exeterphoenixgallery/sets/72157632073532540/