The Open Project Gallery Crawl ~ BMAG

This week marked the opening sessions of a new project I am involved with at mac birmingham.
The Open Project will produce a series of innovative exhibitions selected and devised by Young Curators. Drawing on the modernist idea that a house is a machine for living in, artist Trevor Pitt has developed The Open Project through the principle that the gallery is a machine for curating in, incorporating the act of curating into the space itself and sharing with the audience the processes that are usually kept behind the scenes.

After evaluating the role the curator, the space and the audience play within exhibition decisions in our first session, me and the other Young Curators descended on four of Birmingham's art institutions to find out more about their curation approaches first hand.

Grazia Toderi | Orbite Rosse (Red Orbits), 2009

First we spoke to Katie Hall, Exhibitions Officer at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Having looked around the current Gas Hall exhibition Metropolis: reflections on the modern city, it was fascinating to hear the narrative behind curating the space - designed to feel like walking through a day in the life of a city, she explained. The artworks take us through the accelerating hustle and bustle of the day before plunging into the darker side of city life. I noticed that the show starts with the dream-like haze of Andreas Gefeller's over-exposed photographs and finishes with night-time satellite photographs of city lights (SV series, 2012) by the same artist, also indicating that the city's life is cyclic.

Andreas Gefeller | CS 02, 2010

As Katie opened up for Q&A, the group voiced concerns about the lighting used in the show, in particular of the areas for video work not being fully blacked out. Katie explained that when working in such a historical space that considerations have to be made to the building itself, such as not attaching anything to pillars. This means what's best for a specific piece and what's best for the building have to be balanced. We also ask if when selecting work she is more led by the aesthetic or the concept of the work, and she says simply that there cannot be one without the other.


Huang Xu | Fragment No. 10, 2007 [left] Hanni Bjartalia | Untitled, 2012 [right]

Aleksandra Mir | World Map of Social Networks, 2009

Despite having seen a lot of the work before as the collection is shared with New Art Gallery Walsall, I found the final room of the show very refreshing, the visitor being led around Hanni Bjartalia's amazing suspended sculpture to experience work chosen around the idea of future cities and, interestingly, the concept of 'cities' being formed online. A thought-provoking end note to a vibrant and diverse exhibition.

One Beat Saturday.

When asked to drum up some promotional materials for One Beat Saturday 2013, a one day music festival in Cannon Hill Park, I got some marker pens out and played around with type until the fumes seeped into my creative brain. Here is what I came up with ~ a slightly more digital finish than I'm used to but my prerogative was making this sucker as bold and bright as possible.
Hopefully the weather on the day will have the courtesy to reflect this.

The best part of this brief has to be listening to the line-up whilst designing away, so I would strongly and personally recommend going to the event too. Local Birmingham talent represent.

Dream Big & Beyond ~ Designing for Cannon Hill Lectures

After a positive reception to my NEXT GEN FEST flyer for mac birmingham, I was commissioned to create a range of postcards to accompany their upcoming Cannon Hill Lectures series. With an inspiring range of sessions covering personal branding, networking, funding, setting goals and more, the lecture programme is designed to arm young creatives with the information to find their own way within the creatives and cultural sector. After all, knowledge is power.

I kept the designs playful and tactile; an aesthetic a little different for mac but by incorporating some signature colours that can actually be found at the core of their branding it led to a fresh visual offering whilst retaining the identity of the company. My aim was to create something that people would not only pick up but also keep safe and even pin up on their wall. In this ilk the text on the front of the cards are some of the Two Word Pep-Talks that I had generated for myself since graduating university last year; bite-size reminders to have tenacity, aim high and keep going. These phrases were a perfect match for Amy Martin's inspiring line-up and I think the key spirit behind the sessions is to motivate as well as educate.

I would urge all green creative types to get to the first lecture on 30 April. It's going to be smashing.

#NextGenFest

This month I've been lucky enough to get the opportunity to do some promotional design work for mac birmingham, starting with a flyer for upcoming Next Gen Fest. Aimed at directly involving 16-24 year olds within the midlands arts scene, Next Gen Fest has been created by the Cannon Hill Collective, and boasts theatre, dance, visual arts, music, and not least, partying. I wanted the flyer to depict an uplifting celebration with a springtime fiesta vibe, the balloons representing the individual's creativity being 'set free'. Pure cheese, but it really is going to be a bloody great bash.
They even let me hand draw the trusty mac logo.

What's This Story?

I rustled up this zany illustration in support of What's This Story?, a growing interactive narrative made up of words, pictures, music, and moving image. In fact, pretty much anything can be contributed to the continuous story online. This great multi-modal project by Rosalyne Norford is open to everyone and the best bits will be exhibited at mac birmingham in April as part of Next Gen Fest, a unique event created by and for young people.

Join in!

DAN001

Much to my delight I was commissioned to draw a large iconic Bowie this week. Here he is, ethereal and vibrant, from the famous Aladdin Sane cover. I loved drawing this so much that it has sparked a desire to create further drawings capturing some of the many faces of David Bowie, and subsequently forming a range of prints.
Watch this face. I mean space.


Ps. The post title refers to the reference of my first ever invoice. I'll never forget it.

P A L E S E A S

A while back I was asked by illustration comrade Josh Whettingsteel to draw young Southampton upstarts Pale Seas for a zine he was putting together. And so, that is exactly what I did.
Happy to be restricted to the monochrome (as lately I've been going utterly colour bonkers; grabbing any crayon I damn well please) I used it as an opportunity to try and achieve more detail with a finer pencil and I'm quite intrigued with the atmospheric results. A pleasure to draw, I love the band's distinctive look, and their sound is also definitely one to "watch".

Some abstract sketches I created after visiting Mike Nelson's M6 exhibition at Eastside Projects, Birmingham, are also set to adorn the article. These warped ragged tyre forms looked like something that the sea would bring in, weathered and strangely alien, and fitted in nicely as the extra bits of mark-making that Josh was looking for. Really looking forward to seeing what he puts together!

Just Like Hats.

Having promised myself I would enter Secret 7" this year, I created this little hat design with just hours to go! Torn between Elton's Bennie & The Jets and Laura Marling's The Beast, I surprised myself and went for classic track Harder Than You Think by Public Enemy. My design came out of trying to draw the caps featured in the video each time they appeared, to mixed results. Wanting the sleeve to remain humble and unedited I left the drawings laid out just as they appeared on the page. Hopefully this simple little idea acts as some form of testament to just being yourself and trying until you get something right.

Good luck to everyone who entered and you can vote for you favourite design over on Talenthouse.

And Now Here's Byng With The Weather.

The dawn of March meant it was my turn to pick a theme over on After School Club. Perhaps atypically British in my decision, I decked out the blog with all things weather-related, as we really do seem to have had an awful lot of weather lately. I brought in Michael Fish and his reassuring forecast that there will be NO hurricanes, as well as making a rather strange 'Sunny With a Chance of Cher' background and giving our very own chair a spot waterproofing.

You can read the full story over at my After School Club theme intro post.
Just make sure you wear galoshes.

Let's Draw.

I woke up on 8th Jan to hear the world whispering about David Bowie. Why isn't every day like this? I thought, to find the tweets and articles had been triggered by Bowie's return to releasing tunes at the age of 66. Needless to say this prompted a drawing, hoping to capture his chiseled, now aging, face as well as the colourful character(s) to be found inside him.

Viva la Bowie.