Voids: A Retrospective - Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

more on this exhibition

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-art-of-nothing-pompidou-centre-celebrates-half-a-century-of-minimalism-1633388.html

Antony Gormley's One And Other on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square

Not One and Other, but Another Place by Antony Gormley.
Photo from www.antonygormley.com

If you were on the Aberystwyth University School of Art tour to the Liverpool Biennial last year, what you probably didn't see was Antony Gormley's sculpture installation, Another Place, on Cromley Beach, a good distance from the city. However, you should, in theory, be able to see his latest work from the comfort of your own computer, providing you are connected to the Internet (which you clearly are, if you're reading this).

One and Other is Gormley's successful bid to occupy the fourth, famously vacant plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. Or rather, he won't be occupying it, but selected members of the public, in a living, breathing installation that will change occupants every hour, twenty-four hours a day, for 100 days beginning on the 6th of July, 2009.

It was this little detail that I missed when listening to the item about it on Radio 4's Today programme this morning. I thought, since it appeared to be a news item, i.e. current, that the first person was climbing on the plinth at 9:45am this morning, and that I would be able to post a webcam link here. Well, the bad news is that obviously the plinth isn't occupied yet.

The good news is that I can bring you a link to a webcam already turned on the unsuspecting public in Trafalgar Square. The second piece of good news is that they're still looking for volunteers: 67 people from Wales, to be precise, and various numbers from other parts of the country to make up the demographic. It could be you.

Me, I'd still like to see those figures heading out to sea from Liverpool, as so many did in other times by other means, heading for America, perhaps some of my ancestors among them.

photo from visitLiverpool.com

For the next week, listen again to Radio 4's Mark Lawson interviewing Antony Gormley about One And Other.

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My new career as a fashion icon? Kasia Chlasta

Racing back from lunch, about to have a photo op!

Photo copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2009

I was coming back today from lunch with a friend in town, when I was accosted on the School of Art steps by second year student Kasia Chlasta. 'Can I borrow you for a minute?' she asked, brandishing her camera.

It seems she is now doing fashion shoots and commentary for the Courier, Aberystwyth University's student magazine. 'I really like what you're wearing!' she said. 'Can I take your picture?'

This morning I had been having vague misgivings about my outfit (trousers too busy to go with non-plain top, another laundry crisis looming, time munching on and time to go, etc.). Generally I feel as if when the Idea that Being Fashionable Is Good was being handed around, I was dreaming away on another planet. If there was an opportunity to write a book called 'What Not to Wear, by the Person Who Is Wearing It', my publishing future would be secure. On the other hand, to the extent that I espouse a style, I suppose it could either be called 'out of time', or more charitably, 'vintage - but not always'. Still, I am known for my hats. I enjoy my hats. 'Hats are me!' I quipped, when she asked for a quote.

Kasia did take good photos of me. This project is an adjunct to her usual work, which incorporates fashion, albeit a range of more alternative fashions that tend toward corsetry and bondage with doll-like figures incorporating extreme, one-step-back-from caricatured body modifications. I'm afraid I can't turn my head towards the magazines she uses for source material without closing my eyes for safekeeping first. Her detailed, illustrative paintings are executed, intriguingly, on corrugated cardboard, giving them a rough and ready quality that juxtaposes with the delicacy of her rendering. Books wrapped in brown paper, for anonymity? Such evocations are out of date in times of omniavailability of internet porn and magazines like Nuts on the lower shelves - but, perhaps like my sense of style, her images of doll-like women have an odd charm about them.

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12 random things about my art

Pinhole photograph using Kodak Box Brownie camera, image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2009

I wrote this article early in 2009 while still at the Aberystwyth School of Art, and in the last days of defining myself as two separate categories of artist, a photographer and a painter. I think of myself as an artist very differently now - and I haven't used Box Brownies in a while, though I probably will at some point in the future. 

1. I received my first 35mm camera as a gift from my father on my 12th birthday. It was a Pentax K-1000. I still use it, though not with the original 50mm lens.

2. I have a small collection of vintage cameras, including Kodak Box Brownies, that I use for my current work.

3. I first painted in oils around the age of 6. My father had an oil painting kit that he had obviously given up on. For my first efforts I used them like water colours.

4. My first gallery visits were at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, also around the age of 6. At that age, my favourite works were in the Pop Art room, particularly Lucas Samaras' Mirrored Room.

5. The best life drawing teacher I have ever had is Roy Marsden, FRSA. I have been attending his classes off and on for years.

6. I don't prefer photography to painting, or vice versa, although painting takes more energy. Also, I often realise retrospectively that what at first appeared to be photographic work was, in essence, actually painting (whether a negative was involved or not). This is because I work a lot with alternative processes, where light-sensitive chemicals are painted (by me) onto paper, often along with acrylic paints, oil pastels, etc.

7. The first art work I ever sold was a drawing of a neighbour's house, in charcoal. I think I was about fourteen at the time. I think she paid me ten dollars. Her name was Pearl.

8. My first solo exhibition was at Café Print, Lampeter, from October 2008 - Februrary 2009.

9. The nicest place I have ever painted is on the dunes at Ynyslas, near Aberystwyth.

10. The most unusual thing I have ever photographed is something that looks like a cross between a totem pole and a screw, which is actually part of the drive shaft of a passenger ferry, in Qaqortoq, Greenland.

11. I got into making videos because the creative writing class was already full and the same man was also offering a course in film and video production. It was like I'd always been meant to be making videos.

12. When I was seventeen I was on a photography course in high school and we had been assigned the theme 'garbage'. Hearing that I wanted to shoot 'something gritty', my father drove me to Niagara Falls, New York, not the falls but some of the chemical plants, where I photographed a series of dark drums visible through the chain fence enclosing the visitor's car park. Suddenly I spotted a man with a payloader who proceeded to block our car against the fence between two parked cars and said we couldn't take photos. I sat in the car while my father argued constitutional law and free speech with the man, which I realised was futile as he was wearing a trucker's cap that said 'Eat My S**t' (the man, not my father). Suddenly two police cars appeared and we were escorted to the onsite office. It was at this point that I discovered that police cars do not have handles on the inside rear doors. The onsite manager did not believe that I was a student, not a photojournalist accompanied by a reporter. I was wearing a black tweed wool coat with a black fedora and could not remember my photography teacher's husband's name to look up her phone number, as being a married woman she had no phone listing of her own. They rang my school, but it being Saturday, nobody was there. My school principal was a nun and I had no idea where she lived. Finally the weary police officer suggested that if I left the film with the company as requested, I could collect it next week once my identity was proved. As I handed over the film I realised I would never see it again, which indeed proved to be the case. On Monday my school principal and photography teacher were both outraged at the treatment they received from the company over the phone. I guess everyone was a little jumpy in Niagara Falls, after Love Canal. At the end of term I received a special photography award for courage. It didn't feel like it at the time. As we finally drove away, my father said he was really sorry about me losing the film. I pulled open the ashtray. There was the film, which during the constitutional rights argument I had with shaking fingers swapped for a fresh one.

Margaret Sharrow - presentation part 2

Roy Marsden's painting class, 2006. Artist's impression!
Image by Margaret Sharrow, 2009.

Continuing my Powerpoint presentation on my work...

One important more recent influence on my work is Roy Marsden. I have been attending his life drawing classes at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre and his painting classes in his studio for many years. He's the best life drawing teacher I've ever had.


Ansel Adams, Clearing Storm, Sonoma County Hills, 1958.

Another theme in my work is photography. I have been taking photographs since I was four years old, and received my first 35mm camera when I was twelve. I still use it - it's a Pentax K-1000. I've always tried to capture the sense of wonder I feel at encountering a beautiful or sublime landscape, so the work of Ansel Adams and the photography in National Geographic magazine were the first things I tried to imitate.


Margaret Sharrow, Landscape, Carmarthenshire Beacons. Acrylic on canvas, 2006.

This painting, from my days in Roy Marsden's studio, was no deliberate imitation of the previous photo. But I'm using it to introduce the next theme in my work: colour. I have always been drawn to pure, bold colours, mixing them on the palette or directly on the canvas.


Claude Monet, Water Lilies (the Clouds), 1903.

I was certainly influenced in my use of colour by the Impressionists: Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh. There was a major Impressionist exhibition at the Albright-Knox when I was about ten, and after that I tried to make my own impressionist paintings, using pure colours and impasto application.

Margaret Sharrow, Portrait of my father teaching, acrylic on canvas, 2006.

Another aspect of my work is brushwork. I've been interested for some time in building up layers of brushwork, layers of colours. In that respect I've been influenced by many different artists, but in particular some of the abstract expressionists.

Jackson Pollock, Convergence, 1945.

Jackson Pollock was for a long time my favourite of the abstract expressionists, and this painting is an old friend I revisit whenever I'm in Buffalo.

Pablo Picasso, La femme au chignon, 1901, and Les deux saltinganoues, 1901.

I also admired the solid forms of figures in pre-cubist Picasso, and Cezanne.

to be continued...

back to presentation part 1

Margaret Sharrow's paintings on Tea With Warriors' 'Niagara' album cover

Margaret Sharrow has provided the front and back cover images for the forthcoming album 'Niagara' by US-based band Tea With Warriors.

The album covers feature two images from her 'Blue Forms' series (2008), which are mixed media paintings of acrylic and cyanotype on paper.

Tea With Warriors is the prog-rock influenced brainchild of John Neumann of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

For more information about release dates for 'Niagara', and the latest free downloads, please visit http://www.teawithwarriors.com/, or the Tea With Warriors MySpace page.

mockup of back cover

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Simon says: How to stretch a canvas

Today it is possible to buy cheap and cheerful pre-stretched, pre-primed canvases at any discount stationer's or art supply shop. However, for those wanting to stretch their own, Simon Pierse at the Aberystwyth University School of Art has just given his annual demonstration on how to do so - from scratch. I will be re-presenting his talk here.

Stretching the canvas means putting it onto a wooden frame and fastening it tight like a drum. Pre-prepared canvases you buy in a shop will also be sized (treated to make the surface shrunk and sharp) and primed (painted white, or another colour). Sizing is optional if you work in acrylics, but if you use oils, the paint will seep into the canvas (using more paint, and dulling the colour) and also the painting will eventually disintegrate (probably after you shuffle off your mortal coil, but nonetheless, something to consider if you sell your work professionally).


Things you will need to stretch a canvas:

- canvas or other suitable fabric (more on types of fabric later)

- wooden canvas stretchers

- staple gun or hammer and tacks

- canvas pliers (optional but handy)


If you are sizing the canvas you will need:

- rabbit skin glue (or vegetable-based substitute)

- double boiler or other way to put one container of liquid into a pan of hot water

- kettle to heat the water

- house paint brushes, e.g. 1 or 2 inches wide


If you are priming the canvas you will need:

- gesso (for acrylic)

or

- oil painting primer (alkali based)

- Wooden canvas stretchers




to be continued...





See also, Simon Says: oil paints - everything you always wanted to know