External Projects

Tribe 2016, with Chrom-Art at the Ugly Duck gallery, London

From the 30^th of September to the 2^nd of November I was exhibiting my work in an exhibition called tribe16. This was a group international art fair with the ethos of being a community and enjoying art in all forms. I was also asked to do two drawing workshops with kids at the event which went down really well and the results of these sessions can be seen in the collage I have done of my drawings and some of the kid’s drawings as well. For me this has so much energy and joy you can tell that we were having fun and just enjoying the atmosphere of the event. One girl even did a portrait of me which can be seen in the left drawing in the red pen. I enjoy viewing this piece because it is full of joyful memories and also it has my signature bright colours and style.

‘Nervous? You should be’ (2016)

Life size resin foot, with acrylic box, mechanism, timer and light box

Price £500

This piece represents the social struggle of humanity through the concept of when Hughes is nervous his leg uncontrollably moves up and down. Hughes feels this piece should be viewed as a visual aid for you to think about what makes you nervous and scared. Engaging the viewer to ask questions of themselves.

I’m happy with this piece but now it has been exhibited I have plenty to work on to take this from a working prototype all the way to being a fully-fledged artwork, so below is a list of problems I need to overcome.

·      The foot is too heavy to be lifted by the mechanism I crested so to overcome this I will need to make the foot much lighter. I intend to achieve this by making a hollow foot still using resin but pouring it into the mould and then out again so you just have a thin skin and repeating this a few times until the correct thickness is reached.

·      The lighting I found not to be strong enough in the daytime at the exhibition so to overcome this I will need to use a stronger light source or think about displaying this alone in a dark room.

·      The foot fell off the stand a few times so next time when its lighter and more fragile it will need to be attached to the up and down motor but still allow for some movement so I will probably use a hinge.

The works reception

The overall feedback from the exhibition has been very positive. I tend not to stand too close to the artwork when people are viewing it because I don’t want to put them off, but from overhearing a few conversations I heard that people were freaked out by it because of all the detail to it, which does make them feel nervous. Another great piece of feedback was how unique my work is compared to all the other artists at the show, this really makes my work stand out and means I’m not competing for the same clients as most of the other artists.  

The lighting of the work went down well also because of the red light it made the work feel lifelike like blood flowing through the sculpture.

One major point was because it had a switch on people thought that the work did rise and fall and people expected that to happen so this is the biggest negative for the exhibition in terms of the artwork only being a working prototype.

Gains from the exhibition  

I have a potential buyer interested in buying some of my work. Jo Hayward an artist exhibiting at the events sister (can’t remember her name) is really interested in purchasing a piece of my work as she and her husband are moving to Denver and want artwork to fill the property. Following this lead up I’m going to grid international art fair in London on the 30^th of October to see Jo exhibiting and keep the contact going.

A second real positive is the event was organised by chrom-art and leading it is a man called Javier Melian. Javier has been following and sharing my sketch a day project for a few months now and after the success of the workshop I ran he wants to collaborate again and have me involved in working on a large public piece of artwork… this is huge and would really give me a huge new audience of people, they have done this before with an artist called Mark Craig who created a huge piece in London which holds the record for the biggest doodle on leake street in the graffiti tunnel 
   

Another very big positive about Javier is that he pays artists!!! For doing the workshops I got £50 per session and expenses paid so ended up coming away with £130 for the weekend which is a needed so I can continue doing what I love. So again this next project would be paid work. I finally feel that the networking and long hours spent applying for exhibitions and work is paying off and I can’t wait to see how these opportunities pan out.

Pay and Display Exhibition, Centrespace, Bristol

At this exhibition i displayed my piece 'Bully' I was informed when i went to drop off my work for the exhibition that my piece had caused a stir, and was debated on heavily if it should be included in the exhibited because some of the judging panel believed my work not to be a piece of art. I found this news both upsetting because i felt a gallery would be a space my work would be accepted into but also, delighted my work had caused this debate. We look back in history and see many great artists work being refused display such as Duchamps  'Fountain' and this extends to many new media artworks.

My work was displayed on a traditional white plinth and this is fine but i had a problem with the hight of the plinth, it was rather low which meant the viewer had to bend down to view the work and see what was going on with the kinetic sculpture.
In many ways i feel my work was not appreciated within this exhibition and was shunned in favour of more traditional artworks, But i am also grateful for the exposure and debate around my work.