The year is going so quickly, it is quite scary. Mid April I realised I did need a diary for the upcoming pre degree show madness and 2 weeks into it I feel slighter better for having it. It has forced me to write to-do lists and the relief of ticking items off on it is so great it is spurring me on to do stuff. I ticked a major one of today, but the worry is now the resulting product will be okay.
There has been quite a lot of exhibitions opening the last few weeks, the highlight of a week past Friday being Pockets of Landscape in the Lower Foyer Gallery at DOJ which included fellow classmate Hayley Mathersin it. All the work in it was lovely, sharing a quite, subtle, contemplative feel, focusing on objects and drawing.
After that there was the Alex Frost opening at the DCA which I did enjoy. His portraits are stunning and the methods he uses to produce his “2d” work is quite stunning. The noses were interesting although I fear lost a little charm out of their original residence of a water reservoir outside Glenfiddich distillery. It was hard not to enjoy the exhibition, especially with a whisky cocktail in hand!
The DCA was followed by a mysterious event at Tayside Recyclers entitled Miscellaneous Enquiries, featuring 8 female Dundee artists. There was a bit of secrecy around this event, but sharing a studio with half of them did result in bits of jigsaw coming together in my head to make it not such a mystery as to those involved ;) It was an excellent night! We were all handed a lab coat when we went in, making us, the viewer, feel part of the event itself and thus engaging their audience automatically. They had a mock job interview we could take part in, film projections of the artists themselves and the Tayside Recyclers staff, the dissection of Jelly Beans, and a sound performance utilising, mainly, exercise machines of sorts. I have a few photos uploaded over in the gallery at dundeefineart2010.co.uk.
This last Friday also saw a few exhibition opening. The first was Moving Images At The Attic Archive at the Cooper Gallery at DOJ. I got through a couple of the film pieces and plan to visit again in the following weeks. There is a good amount of things to keep you occupied. The Attic Archive itself is related to Peter Haining, who we had an artist talk from in 3rd year and who was at the last Cupar Arts Festival, with part of his archive. The stuff at Cupar was mainly literature that was a highlight and included quite a few publications I wouldn’t mind in my own collection. More info on The Attic Archive is here.
After that there was Billow Bellow, an exhibition of Deilia Baillie and Lee O’Connor, both of whom were 1st year tutors of mine. It was rather good, mainly paintings with a few photographs by Delia. I loved the paintings, there is a quality to Lee’s that make me instantly connect to them, and Delia’s have always impressed me. Also could not help noticing the flat they were exhibiting in had an amazing ceiling and entranceway, which joined with a couple of musicians in the background made it a good evening.
This was all then topped of with a visit to the union metal night \m/ The next Distorted is the last one of the (academic) year, which is a sobering though since it is on May 7th, effectively degree show time, technically the last one ever for me (I doubt I’ll venture back outwith studentdom) and possible summer weather will be occurring. Better get on with that to-do list!
Tags: art COLLEGE, art EXHIBITIONS, DCA, DOJ, Dundee, Tayside Recyclers