Guest Blogger

 

The Henningham Family Press has invited me to be a guest blogger on their site. You can read the posts at http://henninghamfamilypress.co.uk/blog/

Just Like That

 
I will be showing some work at Just Like That, a film and video event with the theme of humour and the absurd.
The opening is on 13th September from 7-9pm at Studio 1.1 Gallery, 57a Redchurch Street, E2. Screenings will continue on the 14th and 15th September from 12pm – 6pm.

Three Crowns

 

Three crowns once belonging to a king lie side by side on a glass shelf in a cabinet in Bergen’s Museum of Culture and History. They have outlived their purpose and survived owners, wars and uncertain times, accomplishing much more than was ever expected of them. They cunningly cheated fate by avoiding being crushed under castle walls, buried in fields, lost on journeys, melted down, smashed to pieces, flattened out or trapped on sinking ships. Now they’re  preoccupied with lying on the shelf and have little to fear. Even though one is missing a jewel and another is lopsided, the prospects for survival within the museum’s thick walls are their best ever. Now they lead lives of kings. 

The Sun in Norway

When visiting Bergen, Norway recently, I was amazed at the intense brightness of the sun. It seemed as if there were two suns, with enough light for two Bergens, two Norways, two earths.

What  if artists became politicians for one week and vice versa?

Carpet Patterns

 

At an exhibition in the British Museum, on a silk carpet from Persia dated from the time of Shah Abbas’s reign, under the spotlights and the glass vitrine, float pink and green cloud-like shapes of trees and flowers in exactly the same sinuous lines as they had floated in a pattern on the fabric of my grandmother’s dress which she wore on bright summer days in her garden in Warsaw.

An Unknown Play

 

Recently I had a dream of being on a square in a city somewhere in central Europe. The sunlight was bright, almost like on an overexposed photograph. The run-down facade of one building probably hadn’t been refurbished since it was built. The effects of smog could be seen on its dark bricks and gargoyles. In front of the building was a boat in which some plants and a palm tree were growing on a mound of soil. A floating island I thought. It was a prop for a play, and the dilapidated building was a theatre.  The props were being moved to (or from) a van standing on the square. 

But where were they going? And what city was this? What time of year was it?  What was written in the newspapers that day? Which songs were playing on the radio? What political party was in power? What was that unknown play called?  Had I seen it? Did I live in that city? What had I done that morning before coming to the square? What had I dreamt the night before?

Three Colours

I went to see the Rodchenko and Popova show at the Tate last weekend. One of the works was Rodchenko’s triptych Pure Red Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, Pure Blue Colour. Rodchenko stated he had “reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow. I affirmed: it’s over. Basic colours. Every plane is a plane and there is to be no representation.”

The Pure Yellow Colour was muted; I thought of the yellow of Vermeer or Breugel. The paint was thicker in some areas and shapes were appearing in the lumpy surface, as if the paint had become tired of maintaining this absence of representation. The Pure Blue Colour was almost navy. At the top, where the paint gradually became more transparent, a lighter blue was showing through, forming something of a horizon at dusk. In the vein-like patterns of the paint’s texture I began to see bare tree branches in a dark forest. My illusion was promptly shattered though, when a child ran into the room and simultaneously there appeared, in the dark shiny paint, a faint reflection of her and of the whole room behind me.

Sounds New

 

I’ll be showing some video installations at the Polish Connections: Contemporary Music Festival in Canterbury that runs from 23rd April to 3rd May. The installations will be on view throughout the festival. If you plan on coming, make sure to catch a concert or two of some Polish jazz, contemporary classical or electronic music.

http://www.soundsnew.org.uk/

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog and to the beginning of this space.

 

A general description of the space:

It is an open sketchbook, an archive of passing thoughts, a place for idling around and a setting for unending conversation.

A more detailed description of the space:

The space bears some resemblance to a room. It is partially enclosed, with entranceways leading to corridors and other spaces. The space stretches out and curves so that it is not always possible to see from one end of it to the other. It shifts and grows with time. From certain angles it appears as if it could be infinite.

Sunlight streams in through the large windows. A few comfortable chairs and a table  stand in the middle and an odd chandelier hangs in one corner. It’s rather untidy at the moment -bits of paper and snippets of pictures lie strewn about. By one window there are sketchbooks, notes, books and a kettle. A film projector and an old fog machine hide behind a curtain. Some plants conglomerate idly in a corner.

I hope you’ll stay a while and make yourself at home.

I invite you to write/form/inhabit this Space.