-into the Wild at chisenhale
-photofusion
-new contemporaries
Alicia mentioned a few artists and her at chisenhale have this programme called into the Wild for recent graduates and that we should look into it.
I asked about her standing figure pieces and she said they’re mostly sold now. On steel bases, customised plywood panels and mixed media on top, each one is very expensive to make, around a thousand pounds. She said some of the ones she sold, were actually hung instead of placed on the floor. It was in an office building, without much daylight which actually worked quite well. She said some people don’t know how to look after works and they’d call back and complain about the conditions, when they’ve put them in the sunlight for too long etc.
Another thing I asked about is the colour choices, which is my one of my biggest struggles, and she said even she struggles with it, and had to paint over the colours underneath before. She said she regrets not learning more about photoshop cause that would be much easier to decide beforehand. That’s what I’m going to do from now on. Also, the cutting out of shapes and making a collage out of it, is kind of like what I’m doing on photoshop, just physically. I find it takes less time, though perhaps there are some missed creative opportunists as a physical work.
In the afternoon, she received news that she didn’t get the grant she applied for. Even after the gallery asked her to change the budget, giving her hope that maybe she has a chance. She also couldn’t see how many other people applied to weigh out her chances. She emailed back asking if she could get feedback, but she said they probably couldn’t do that, usually the London council are good with that kind of thing, they’d tell you what you lacked etc. This showed me how even a mid career successful artist can fail at something sometimes, she said artists starting out get a lot of support, and obviously top artists are in demand, but mid-career.. it is tricky. Applying for 10 just to get one grant.
Apart from cutting the acetate shapes, she also introduced us to another task/skill which was to very delicately trace the shapes onto canvas then cut the masking tape to the edge of the pencil lines with a blade without cutting the canvas underneath. This was quite challenging for me as I am not good at precise activities but I was proud that I could do it in the end.
