I think that the invigilators thought that I was a bit wierd (who wouldn't?!) as I stayed in the space for ages and just took in the work. The only other time that I've done this was at a fantastic Cy Twombly exhibition at the White Cube where I was so in awe of these amazing massive paintings, I just sat down in the middle of the floor and spent ages there ... I'll admit myself that I must have seemed pretty wierd but if you've ever felt really moved by a piece of work you'll know how I felt! I really liked the fact as well that for me, the drawing referenced l’écriture féminine which is a framework for my PhD research because of the poetic and amorphous nature of the work. I always love going to the New Art Gallery Walsall as it's such an amazing
gallery in both an artistic and architectural sense. I also love being able to stand on the roof terrace as well as its so quiet and high up and it feels so removed from daily life; just staring at people passing by and the surroundings of the gallery and the mundaneness of it.
I also delivered my first conference paper a couple of weeks ago at the University of Wolverhampton at a conference called Space: the Real and the Abstract. It was a fantastic experience and a big stepping stone for me in my research career in getting my ideas out into a wider audience! My paper was titled 'l’écriture féminine: an Alternative Space in-between?' and explored the potentiality of a painting practice based on l’écriture féminine that creates alternative spaces for feminine/non-phallocentric subjectivities and notions of a hybrid writing//painting methodology.
It was a pretty damn scary experience talking infront of so many people and despite how nervous I was before I got a positive response afterwards : ) I feel really good now having done it and a big sense of ... PHEW!!! ... and I'm hoping I engaged the audience as well! The conference lasted two days and included some really interesting talks; I particularly liked Simon Harris and Caroline Cleary's talks which considered space in painting and also Eva Bensasson and Tansy Spinks' talks as well. It was really nice as well as the speakers
had dinner together on the evening of the first day and went for drinks after so we all got to know each other and our research a bit more. I struggle a bit with lots of people and meeting new people so it was particularly rewarding to chat about our research with each other.
As well as the conference there were six artists who also exhibited/performed work alongside it which opened with some drinks on the Monday evening. All of the delegates took part in a performance by Tansy Spinks which was really fantastic!
And yes, that is me singing in the video ... it didn't occur to me at the time that it would be picked up so much! The staircase in the Art & Design building is really high reaching seven floors and we made a collaborative sound performance with Tansy playing the violin at the bottom and the rest of us climbing up and down the stairs at different paces and singing accordingly! It was really cathartic and was really fun to be a part of.
I was lucky enough to include some of my own work and showed two book-paintings that I'd been working on. I haven't really done any work like this before but I'd had the idea for a while and was glad I had the opportunity (and pressure) to materialise them. I worked into each of the pages and included different texts from different languages; layering text, mark-making, images and painting where the text spilt into the margins of the pages and transcended the structure of the books to become sculptural.
View of the gallery space with Caroline Cleary's paintings on the right
Close up of one of Simon Harris' paintings - I SO wanted to touch them!!
Lorna Moore's piece 'Touching the Other'
Marcus Leadley's sound installation
I've been trying to relax a bit since and have spent a couple of days in Norfolk ... and I'm looking forward to making, writing and researching again.
