Redland Art Gallery exhibition | 4 December – 29 January
Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland
Middle & Bloomfield Streets
Opening 11 am Sunday 4 December
Floor talk 1130 am Wednesday 7 December
Exhibition continues to 29 January
I’m having a small exhibition in the toilet corridor of a gallery far, far away … But, hey, you have to start somewhere, right?
This is the first time my stuff has been exhibited collectively in a solo show. Well, it’s the first time I’ve had enough stuff to constitute a show of any sort. It’s also the first time my work has been exhibited in a public gallery.
There’ll be the road sign stuff, along with new works in other media—again, multiples—plus some one-off textual assemblage things I’m calling “sign writing”.
Hope to see a few of you at the opening. Hope a few others can get along to see the exhibition. Would love your thoughts and feedback.
Mindfulness 101 in Louise Martin-Chew’s Art Words blog …
“As far as public artworks go, this one is up there and out there to engage its audience.”
Read LMC’s blog post here.
Year of the Dragon?
Xmas assemblage commission
A colleague commissioned an assemblage for his wife for Christmas.
Starting to use some bigger chunks of the donor signs and incorporate some of the graphical elements.
(Pictured here alongside their very cool 60s wooden pinball case.)
Love in Torquay
The Love Sign is now available at State of Boho in Torquay.
Love Sign in REMO 100 for 2012
Installing at Redland Art Gallery
Delighted to be on the same bill as Judy Watson and Carolyn Dodds.
Gallery staff carefully relocate existing works to make way for the three new exhibitions.
Mindfulness arrives on the back of a truck. Good thing we have Dot Dash’s assembly instructions.
Keen to make the most of the prestigious toilet corridor location, we thought it’d be good to hang the mirror piece opposite the “MALE/FEMALE” doors. Until someone noticed you could see the pissour in the reflection when the MALE door was opened.
Making “Mindfulness 101”
Photo: Erik Williamson
Mindfulness 101
2011
Prototype for new multiple work
High-density polyurethane foam, fibreglass, epoxy resin, vinyl lettering and two-pack automotive paint
1600 mm diameter x 200 mm deep
Final work in blow-moulded acrylic with two-pack automotive paint
In production early 2012
With the size, shape, colour and type mindfully refined by Dot Dash, it was down the road to Albert Smith’s to make the thing happen. After much deliberation, we devised a method for producing a prototype.
Humble beginnings.
Two Marks defining the edge, which I may have overstepped.
Reassuring to see this sign has no regard for warning signs.
Master glasser Adam smoothing out the curves.
If all else fails, we have a passable prop for a B-grade sci-fi flick. Plan 9 from Albert Smith’s?
Ooh … maybe an A-grade sci-fi flick.
Adam is looking rather pleased with himself, even though I cropped him in my excitement, which is starting to surpass my considerable anxiety.
Not bad for a prototype.
To make the exhibition catalogue in time, we had to photograph the not-quite-finished piece in the factory—propped up on an industrial scale easel. Fresh back from a five-week shoot, Erik Williamson made the most of an interesting if awkward spray booth setting. (His pic is at the top of this post.)
This was a Friday. The piece was due at the gallery the coming Monday. I was assured that after a bit of rigging and one last cut and polish, Mindfulness 101 would be ready for the gallery wall come Monday.
And it was.
Phew. And thank you …
I’ve been thinking about making a big wayfinding dot for years. Realising the idea—turning my little scribbles and big hopes into a design that would sing, and then actually making the thing to a standard that could be passed off as art—was a bit of a challenge.
You are here would not be here without several very patient, professional and capable colleagues …
- Mark Ross and the team at Dot Dash: Spina, Peter, Ida, Dom, Heath and everyone else who shared a glass of pinot and their thoughts
- Elizabeth Easton, Mark Smith and the team at Albert Smith’s
- Erik Williamson, photographer at large
Thanks Mates. I hope you’ll work with me again!
Previous post here.
Polishing the mirror
Photo: Dan Pike
Know Thyself
2011
Laser cut, polished stainless steel with diamond etched text
Multiple edition—labelled, number-stamped & signed on back
600 x 500 mm
Know Thyself seeks to give a familiar, matter-of-fact and instructive statement a more profound meaning via a more inspiring setting and context. It takes the text from a car wing mirror and applies it to a mirror we’d hang in our homes—as an artwork/design piece, as well as a functional object. Unlike most wing mirrors, this mirror is neither concave nor convex, but perfectly flat and smooth, giving a crisp, distortion free reflection. The work is intended to encourage us to look at the world around us, look at ourselves, and look beneath the surface. Like the earliest mirrors, this one is polished metal. In this case, stainless steel. It’s rather weighty.
I roped in a fine man of letters to do the typographical specification—Dan Pike at The Letter D. His brief was to make it “quietly beautiful and covetously contemporary”. I think he hit the mark.
Dan’s final type spec.
Once again, Albert Smith’s made it happen. Diamond etched text came up beautifully.
We left the laser cut edge unfinished to reveal/preserve the work’s origins as a piece of metal, as mirrors originally were.
Dan also got roped in rather urgently to photograph the piece for the exhibition catalogue. At this point, we still hadn’t resolved how to hang the bloody thing, so we just propped it up against the wall.
In fact, hanging the thing was proving to be a bit of an issue, as Elizabeth Easton at Albert Smith’s called to explain earlier that day …
EE: Al, the mirror’s looking beautiful, but …
Me: Yes?
EE: Well, it’s really heavy.
Me: Great. I want it to be weighty. It’s a serious topic/artwork you know.
EE: Yes. No, I mean it’s really heavy. Heavier than the big red dot.
Me: Elizabeth, the big red dot is also a serious artwork, and has a name. It’s called “Mindfulness 101”. The mirror is called “Know Thyself”.
EE: Right. So dost thou know how one may hang “Know Thyself”? We may have to drill some small holes at the top?
Me: I don’t think we can do that.
EE: It’s really heavy.
Young Wesley wisely kept his distance. I kept getting in the way.
Wesley’s Love Sign coincidentally caught up in the action.
Projecting a spooky image on the ceiling at home.
Photo: Dan Pike
We eventually figured out a way to invisibly hang the thing in time for the exhibition.
Assembling the assemblages
Photography: Sean Young
Sign Writing: textual assemblages from salvaged scrap signs
One man’s trash and all that. Salvaging scrap road signs from a council works depot. Yes, they know I’m raiding their skip …
Taking stock back home, I notice a SIGN-A-RAMA truck parked outside. It must be a sign.
Plotting, planning, marking up … Cobbling together a vocab …
A serendipitous find—Coonan was my maternal great-grandmother’s maiden name.
Marked up and ready for the guillotine. Now I want a guillotine more than a new Ducati. Except the Ducati is cheaper, quieter, safer, easier to pick up, and it’ll fit in the garage. Hmmm …
Scrabbling letters and words … Spinning some statements …
Assembling, mounting and rigging.
Serendipity everywhere. A favourite word and guiding philosophy.
Scraps of words taking over the house.
C33 was Oscar Wilde’s cell number in Reading Gaol, and the pseudonym under which he published the Ballad of Reading Gaol.
Photography: Sean Young
A curious sign from a friend’s workplace …
