'By The Way'....

-->I enjoyed the opening night last Thursday of ‘By The Way’ at The Bohunk Institute in Nottingham, which featured four of my paintings in what was largely a photography exhibition based on the ‘edgelands’, or wastelands, or margins and the ex-mining communities surrounding Nottingham and Mansfield. There were also text pieces displayed on the gallery walls complementing or created in collaboration with some of the photography, most noticeably a very striking and evocative poem by my artist/writer friend, Andrew Smith. 

 David Severn

My paintings were hung by the gallery in a surprising and dynamic way: four closely together, almost looking like one large wall piece (see image above). I was really pleased, particularly with a new one exhibited for the first time. Of the photography, I was most impressed by David Severn’s documentary photographs of the former colliery community and landscape around Mansfield, which were laid to waste in the 80’s. An image of young men in the back of a van really struck me, reflecting on the potential of their lives, but seemingly trapped by the circumstances of their birthplace, if this doesn’t sound too condescending. It’s just that in current times, the idea of any form of social mobility in this country seems an increasingly dim and distant dream.  Helen Saunders’ ‘constructed’ photographs of the overlooked edgelands landscape were also pretty interesting, particularly one of Birmingham. I’m never very sure about anything photoshopped, however, especially in this context, but they seemed to be successful more in the commercial context of being used on the original book jacket of the popular ‘Edgelands’ book. 

 David Severn

David Severn 

                                                                                          Helen Saunders

-->It’s nice at this late stage of my current Arts Council funding to feature in a group exhibition based on this theme, which seems to be very much in favour since the publication of the ‘Edgelands’ book by Paul Farley and Michael Simmonds-Roberts in 2011, and since I made my grant application. The book, which I enjoyed a great deal, despite the criticisms made that much of the material is explored better in the writings of someone like Richard Mabey, and his ‘Unofficial Countryside’, and others, certainly opened up a door for me to help me shape my own responses to the landscape with more originality and coherence.  I think it’s success is more about capturing some sort of zeitgeist in the air at the time and currently, although the phrase ‘edgelands’ is something Sian, the curator of ‘By The Way’, was keen to disassociate herself with as it is something that seems so overused now.  I agree, but it is a phrase I’m using unashameably as a ‘hook’ to describe my own current work, when discussing it or approaching galleries etc, as I think these things can be useful when trying to boil things down for these purposes. That’s all. I don’t think it gets in the way, quite the opposite. There is the world of making the work, and then the world of trying to market it to audiences.  It seems important to be realistic about these things if you want people to seriously engage with it.  Anyway, the show is on until the 30^th November. Below is Andy's poem: 

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By The Way

Crossing the rosehips    

Between treasuries

Feeling the sagging vervain

Brief swellings under the felly

Beneath forgotten cornices

Lying in the gully

The concrete stadium’s purring

Shovels on the foothills fizzling

thorns and winds

The sleep of dope

***

After the Pierrot of the broken glazing

The packages of spoon-fed florets

There is the padlocked mother

Standing hard and level on the surge   

Smelling colonial  

Tinged with mould and milfoil

Recounting many short shrifts

With large predatory gulls circling  

***

After estrangement

Approaching the round table

Passing the junk food to the right

The private detective

The bulges

The areas for parley

Coming upon the view

A sex and shopping blockbuster

Marshmallows underneath

***

Striking out from the civic centre

Under the vast yardang

Passions expertly shored with broken crayons

Laden with pangs stuck on with chewing gum

Armoured with brass

Lined with dried grating     old lint   

Seeking soft underground lactations

Covered by great standardized neuroses

 

   'Weird Nightmare', oil on canvas, 120 x 90cms, 2011

http://www.bohunkinstitute.co.uk/

Smell The Glove...!

It’s February already (I had hoped to write a lot more in January but I've been too busy to really think about it), and this coming Friday I will be hanging my exhibition at Rugby Museum and Art Gallery with a private view on Saturday afternoon. So without any further ado people, here it is- ‘Smell The Glove!’ Sorry, wrong reference..! Here is the press release and the flyer (above) that Chris Cowdrill has created for me as part of Indigo Octagon Projects. 

I decided to promote the exhibition as an Indigo Octagon Project as a way of nurturing the project further, and also with the intention of collaborating with other artists to try and add a different depth and texture to the exhibition than if I was just doing it on my own. Chris has designed a great pamphlet created from some photographs I’d taken and images of the paintings, which will be available for a nominal fee at the exhibition, and artist/writer Andrew Smith has written a terrific essay about the work . This is a piece of writing based on his own personal response to the work and conversations we have had. I will be also posting this on the blog, together with an introduction to the exhibition that I have written. For now though, this is the press release: 

                          Press Release

Stolen Car

New paintings by Shaun Morris

At Floor One Gallery, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum,

Little Elborow Street, Rugby CV21 3BZ

Tel: 01788 533201 E: ragm@rugby.gov.uk

Sat 9^th February to Thursday 21st February 2013

West Midlands based painter, Shaun Morris is pleased to present ‘Stolen Car’, an exhibition of recent paintings and drawings based on his nocturnal observations of the underside of the M5 motorway that circles the edges and borders of his native West Bromwich and Birmingham.

The work on display represent the artist’s first serious collection of landscape painting, and reflect his interest in depicting the so-called ‘edgelands’: the forgotten, overlooked, nowhere zones that exist between the city or town and the countryside. Feeling and experience are held in these vivid images that represent an individual and personal vision from this emerging artist, and his close relationship to this rarely represented landscape.

These large and dramatic paintings, which were created from studies made at night, invite us into a half-seen world where shards of the surrounding landscape are illuminated by the sodium lights that spill from the enormous, looming structures of the motorway above. The black shapes that represent the concrete pillars holding up these giant roads, serve to break up the picture surface and create a dynamic visual tension between dark and light, abstraction and realism, depth and flatness. The space depicted often appears ambiguous: one is not sure whether the space is positive or negative, where the structures, devoid of all detail, can at once appear solid but simultaneously appear as openings, or doors, into a depthless and unknown world.

You are warmly invited to the Private View on Saturday 9^th February 2013 from 1-3pm, where there will be refreshments and an opportunity to meet the artist. There is an accompanying booklet designed by artist Chris Cowdrill, with an essay by artist and writer Andrew Smith. This exhibition is supported by Indigo Octagon Projects and by funding from Arts Council England. 

We Carry On...

It’s December already. What happened there? The exhibition came down just over a week ago now. I was hoping to post something more about it but unfortunately I just haven’t had the time. It was a good experience and I was glad to be a part of it, and alongside some really talented artists. As many of these artists are friends, it seems wrong to critique any of their work in this context, but there was a great deal of things I really enjoyed exploring in greater depth during the days I invigilated the show. 

H R Smoke, 'Important Words Obscured by Smoke', acrylic on canvas

Chris Cowdrill, 'Fence', digital print

Craig Underhill, 'Oak', ceramic

Hugh Marwood, 'Shut 1', mixed media on panel

Andrew Smith, 'Tower', acrylic paint on photo on canvas

The only real problem was the venue, which, despite it being a great space, proved even more limited (and much more expensive) than we first imagined when it was booked. The industrial building which houses The Works Gallery is occupied by many artists, and I discussed many of these issues with one of the studio holders one afternoon when they came in. They frequently use it for exhibitions, and they shared a similar sense of frustration. Another visitor also asked if we were going to do more events there, but as we packed up on the Friday afternoon, Chris, Andy and myself all agreed we were not.

There seems to be a real paucity of venues for hire to support artists like this in Birmingham. It’s a shame because there is a real wealth of talent in the area that is not associated with Digbeth’s eastside, or at the other end of the spectrum, the RBSA. There is a more fertile middle ground of intelligent, challenging and skilful artistic practice that often goes overlooked. Artists like Barbara Walker, Graham Chorlton, and Paul Newman spring to mind.

 It was also good to see my own work on the gallery walls and out of the studio, which often can be as much an excuse to organise an exhibition as any. It is strange seeing the three above together at last. They are to be seen as a triptych, placing the viewer in various positions in relation to the enveloping dark space, so displaying them like this for the first time was exciting. I’m still particularly keen on the one on the left as I think it is the best one, but after a couple of false starts with other paintings that I have now scrapped, this piece was the first one I was happy with and kickstarted the direction of the others to this point. This is bookended by the most recent one (below) which I think is also very strong. It seems to bring together all the concerns with trying to balance the formal concerns with trying to create a strong sense of place, the abstract with the representational, and a dynamic interplay between the colour and the light within the image (if I say so myself!). It was also painted very quickly and has a fluency in the execution that I can see now was perhaps ‘rehearsed’ across the preceding paintings. I’m now looking forward to exhibiting the wider series in Rugby in February 2013.

'Licence and Registration, oil on canvas

The question that currently preoccupies me though is, “what next?”

And yes, the titles were hastily arrived at by shamelessly looking through all the Bruce Springsteen songs and lyrics written about driving cars (which is obviously quite a lot!), and pilfering lines that seemed to fit.