Stepping Out...

 

'Sleep', oil on canvas, 150 x 180cms (selected for Worcester Contemporary 2013)

I was delighted to hear today that two of my paintings have been selected for the Worcester Contemporary Open 2013 exhibition, which opens on July 13^th at Worcester City Art Gallery. I’m delighted because the exhibition has been approached differently this year with the entrants being purely selected instead of just the previous free for all which had two strands to it: a selected exhibition (the winners), and basically another show that exhibits everyone else (the losers). I’ve always ended up in the dangerous ‘everyone else’ losers pile before, and after last time decided I wouldn’t bother again. It doesn’t do your work any favours to end up in this other show.  But with this year’s change of format and some of high profile selectors from the region, I thought I would try again. And this year I won. Hurrah.

'Silence' oil canvas, 100 x 120cms (selected for the Worcester Contemporary Open 2013)

I’ve also been approached by an artist’s group from Nottingham in the last couple of weeks to participate in an ‘Edgelands’ themed exhibition they are curating in a new artist’s run space in the city. One of the artists, photographer Sian Stammers, came across my paintings on the internet, I think from the labels on the blog posts, and asked if I would be interested, and then took my work to the rest of the group who have also agreed they would like my work to be part of their project. This is a really exciting development, and will take place in October.  It will be great to meet and work with some other artists from outside the region. The exhibition itself was also inspired by the Simmonds-Roberts and Farley ‘Edgelands’ book, which seems to have caught a fire in many ways since it’s publication, and now I’m on board Sian suggested the idea of exploring where the fringes of the East Midlands meet the fringes of the West. I can’t wait, and am meeting Sian in a couple of weeks when she will be visiting the studio.

All this is more exciting than the experience of exhibiting at the Park View Gallery in recent weeks. How come I end up exhibiting my work at the only commercial gallery that asks me for advice about selling work? That’s their job isn’t it? Perhaps telling people that my work is actually there via the website, or at least your Facebook page may be an idea…Oh well, and on we go.

Other Notes: I’ve become really into Pinterest in the last few weeks: the online pinboards where you share your passions with others in the online ether. Whereas other people seem to have all sorts of weird and wonderful boards and themes, my passions seem to somewhat predictably just centre around painting. After initially being keen to just start an ‘edgelands’ themed board as a bit of ‘research’, I’ve now got seven painting inspired boards on the go. In many ways it seems like a bit of a game or nice distraction, and I find myself quietly addicted.  Here’s a link:

http://pinterest.com/shaundmorris/boards/

http://www.worcesteropen.co.uk/