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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
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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 30th
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/
.JPG)
