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Launching January 2009 Wysing Arts Contemporary   Matthew Slotover, Director of Frieze Art Fair launches Wysing Arts Contemporary on Saturday 17 January from 4.00-6.30pm.  Speeches at 4.45pm followed by a performance at 5pm by Matt Cook.  Inaugural exhibition runs Sunday 18 January – Sunday 1 March from 12-5pm.  Wysing Arts Centre presents Wysing Arts Contemporary – a brand new approach to the collection and sale of contemporary visual art. Exactly one year on from our re-launch Wysing Arts Centre is launching a brand new initiative called Wysing Arts Contemporary. With three exhibitions per year and a series of events around collecting contemporary art, Wysing Arts Contemporary will provide a major new platform for artists working at the forefront of contemporary art practice.  With this initiative Wysing aims to show that working commercially with artists is not only an opportunity to enable art lovers to purchase exciting new work, but that art collectors can positively impact on the careers of emerging artists.  Wysing Arts Centre has a successful track record of supporting its 24 studio artists through bespoke professional development programmes, and Wysing Arts Contemporary is an extension of that work. Wysing Arts Centre’s highly respected curatorial team is building a national reputation for its nurturing ethos - giving artists the creative space to develop their ideas in an environment that values artistic process above all else.  This enables artists to innovate, push boundaries and ultimately create work that is open and uncompromised.   As a not-for-profit organisation, Wysing Arts Centre’s new initiative will also run along not-for-profit principles, with income reinvested back into the centre, enabling it to continue to improve its facilities for artists.  “Wysing Arts Contemporary is about outstanding work at a fair price but even more than that it is about supporting artists who are building their careers and providing a platform to showcase their work, which is an essential part of our role in developing and supporting artists at Wysing.” Donna Lynas, Director, Wysing Arts Centre. “There is an increasing demand from art lovers who are keen to support and collect work by artists working here” says Donna Lynas.“Through Wysing Arts Contemporary we aim to present some of the most exciting work being made in the East and give both an insight into contemporary art practice and offer the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the artists work.”  Wysing Arts Contemporary’s inaugural exhibition is entitled ANIMATED, presenting playful and witty works by Jo Addison, Julie Brenot, Matt Cook, Sarah Evans, Simon Liddiment, Anne-Mie Melis, Alex Pearl and Simon Woolham; that explore notions of energy, movement and imagination in a wide range of media from moving image and installation to drawing and sculpture.                                                                                                                             

Last Friday Lotte, Sarah and I attended an event held at Mead Gallery, Warwick called ‘What do artist’s do?’  which was centred around a discussion by artists on an arts council funded project facilitated by Phyllida Barlow.  For me this was such a timely event because it echoed some of the concerns I am facing in the studio at the moment in relation to how I use the space as a site for experimentation and what  the ‘outcomes’ for the work are when it is made. This also coincided with Phyllida’s brilliant installation in the gallery entitled ‘Stint’.  For more information about the project click here http://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/events/mead

We then journeyed on to Northampton for the opening of the Fishmarket Art Fair where I am showing some drawings and a wall-based assemblage.  For more information about FISHMARKET click here  fishmarket

The days activities were then rounded off with a curry! I suggested a KFC but this didn’t go down too well.

David

   

Both Katherine Hymers and Sarah Evans took the risk of presenting and then talking about their work in a semi - public setting - one artist had created a piece in a short space of time and in a completely new space - Wysing’s window room project space - the other artist had edited and reedited a piece but felt unsure about presenting it as a finalized work to a public or semi-public audience.  To undertake that scrutiny and potential critique of an audience is extremely brave and i hope it felt as rewarding as it did for that said audience.  The evening was among friends but it still felt a rigorous enough process for the artists to feel justified and proud of themselves for taking those steps.

 I enjoyed every minute of the films that were presented and really enjoyed the fact that people new to Wysing felt they too could contribute to a discussion and say just how they felt in reaction to a piece or a presentation.   As a space too i felt the window room had enough informality to be friendly and unintimidating but enough challenge as both a space for art and as a serious place to present and host a discussion on their practice. 

I will keep the vision of the falling snow and the gently swinging figure - in a secret forest somewhere - with me despite the current summer sun.

The Wysing evenings whether organised informally or formally are going from strength to strength and a real testament to the developing community of artists who are not only prepared to share their work but also to step out of their comfort zone and both organise things for themselves but also to host and present themselves to a wider audience - something not all artists are prepared to do.  The more the merrier.

Thank you.

 

As a way of introducing Sarah’s new work, ‘Northern Light’, which is now showing in the window room, I would like to share some thoughts that arose during some of the conversations we’ve had over the past few months….

 

Firstly, I suppose I was interested in how Sarah might use the space to make as well as show work. I was aware that Sarah had spent a number of days in the Margaret Harvey Gallery in Hertfordshire, creating an installation, for her solo show, making the work in situ…..Sitting in her studio I recall talking about the difficulties that come with this approach…making private work in a public space. The differences between losing oneself in the process of making that occurs in the studio, following an idea and an aesthetic for the pleasure of doing so, but also the danger of becoming too precious about the work before it is even seen. Also, the difficulty in carving out a chunk of time in the week to give oneself the time and space to focus, to make, to spend time with the work.

 

Maybe working outside the studio enables one to step outside of a comfort zone, to commit to a timeframe, to respond immediately to a space in a given timescale?….But also giving consideration to how the window room operates. Primarily it’s a social space, a shared space. I think it is fair to say that Sarah expressed an interest in using the space not only to make and show work, but also as an opportunity to consider the importance of contextualising the work.  The conversations and discussions that have come about through the use of the window room have never had a formal structure, yet these openings allow a chance to begin to articulate something of the work, for both artist and viewer, to find affinities and differences across practices.

 

So, having asked Sarah to ‘use’ the window room, I didn’t want to curate her work as such, but rather try to facilitate in a way that would be helpful to her being able to use the space…to be around if she needed a pair of hands, or in setting up a more formal way of us as a group of artists discussing her work in the window room, and her approach to the space. Therefore, ‘Northern Light’ is now showing in the window room, and we will have an informal get together, to which everyone is welcome, on Thursday 24 July at about 16:30pm. 

As a way of introducing Sarah’s new work, ‘Northern Light’, which is now showing in the window room, I would like to share some thoughts that arose during some of the conversations we’ve had over the past few months….

Firstly, I suppose I was interested in how Sarah might use the space to make as well as show work. I was aware that Sarah had spent a number of days in the Margaret Harvey Gallery in Hertfordshire, creating an installation, for her solo show, making the work in situ…..Sitting in her studio I recall talking about the difficulties that come with this approach…making private work in a public space. The differences between losing oneself in the process of making that occurs in the studio, following an idea and an aesthetic for the pleasure of doing so, but also the danger of becoming too precious about the work before it is even seen. Also, the difficulty in carving out a chunk of time in the week to give oneself the time and space to focus, to make, to spend time with the work.

Maybe working outside the studio enables one to step outside of a comfort zone, to commit to a timeframe, to respond immediately to a space in a given timescale?….But also giving consideration to how the window room operates. Primarily it’s a social space, a shared space. I think it is fair to say that Sarah expressed an interest in using the space not only to make and show work, but also as an opportunity to consider the importance of contextualising the work.  The conversations and discussions that have come about through the use of the window room have never had a formal structure, yet these openings allow a chance to begin to articulate something of the work, for both artist and viewer, to find affinities and differences across practices.

So, having asked Sarah to ‘use’ the window room, I didn’t want to curate her work as such, but rather try to facilitate in a way that would be helpful to her being able to use the space…to be around if she needed a pair of hands, or in setting up a more formal way of us as a group of artists discussing her work in the window room, and her approach to the space. Therefore, ‘Northern Light’ is now showing in the window room, and we will have an informal get together, to which everyone is welcome, on Thursday 24 July at about 16:30pm. 

Here are a couple of pictures taken at Sarah’s private view last night at Margaret Harvey Gallery, St. Albans.

Sarah’s P.V1

Sarah’s P.V2

Congratulations to Sarah on a beautifully and sensitively presented Solo show.