Todd Jones at New Art Gallery Walsall
I’ve been
over to the New Art Gallery Walsall today to visit the Open Studio of the
current Artist in Residence, a former student of mine, Todd Jones. I’ve
recently made contact with Todd again through Instagram when I saw his name on
the Walsall art gallery’s Instagram feed and wondered if it was the same quiet,
nicely off-beat Todd I had taught when he was a 16- year old college student 12
years ago, and it was indeed. He came along to my own recent private view in
Wolverhampton and it was great to catch up with him. Chris Cowdrill, my
illustrator and lecturer friend was also there, and he had worked closely with
Todd too ‘back in the day’, so a bit of reminiscing inevitably took place
(mainly about aspects of my teaching which had left Todd a bit traumatised at
the time…!)
Todd has
recently graduated from an MA in Fine Art course at Wolverhampton University,
and it was this that had been a springboard for him landing the residency at
Walsall, as the gallery has close ties with the course and I believe a few
other MA graduates have also recently been resident artists there too. Todd had
been using his time to develop what he describes as his ‘ephemeral sculptures’,
which are created from the residual paint dust Todd sands labouriously from
various surfaces including empty sculpture plinths and, during his time at
Walsall, the actual studio walls. This ritualistic sanding has a performative
quality to it, which Todd has tried to capture in video. He also takes rather
beautiful, ambiguous black and white photographs of the sculptures which, as
the sculptures are swept up at the end of his time with them, is an important
document of the whole event. It was all really impressive, and very
Zen-like, and Todd spoke with such enthusiasm and confidence about it all. It
was great to see the journey he has made. I can’t wait to see what’s next…
No comments:
Post a Comment