Emma Pearce

Emma Pearce - Pocket Drawings

Swansea based Emma Pearce is showing two works as part of Outsider at Oriel Myrddin Gallery. Her Pocket Drawings are the crumpled, worn receipts and paper scraps that lurk in the bottom of handbags and pockets; that collect the dye from our clothing and the dust and dirt from our everyday lives. Framed under glass, the usually over-looked detritus of the day becomes delicate, intimate art objects.

Emma Pearce - Drawing Apparatus

Drawing Apparatus is a collection of wooden rings, incorporating pencils in different configurations which fit onto the fingers. The idea is that the restriction on the body effects the quality of the mark making.

Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak

We went to the National Botanic Gardens of Wales on Thursday. The current show in the gallery Delicate Balance is by jeweller, Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak. Carol exhibited with Oriel Myrddin Gallery in 2009 as part of Crafted: Contemporary Craft and Fine Art.

There is a particular poignancy to Carol showing in this space as she previously lived in the courtyard of Middleton Hall before it became the National Botanic Gardens in 2000. The show includes a comprehensive collection of work including drawings and prints as well as some quite conceptual images based on a historical collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Carol's work takes "...unorthodox materials and traditional techniques to draw attention to our idea of what is precious..."

Crafts curator, Ralph Turner has said of the work: " Carol Gwizdak's Jewellery focuses on ecological issues that draw on the visual and conceptual language of the natural world and in so doing reinstates nature in its purist form as the most precious of all commodities."

The fact that much of it is displayed under glass domes like a rare Victorian collection; that the natural objects incorporated into the pieces are held in stasis, impotently isolated from the natural environment, colourless; I was struck by the dark undercurrents to the work. There is something slightly horrific, slightly romantic, slightly Gothic; and the setting of the Botanic Gardens and its historical legacy added to the feeling.

Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak - Valued

A new series of framed works Valued, are based on the Bollinger collection of diamond necklaces in the V&A Museum. The pieces are made from burrs which are held in place on a background of wool fabric as a "...metaphor for society's dependence on wealth and status."

Naomi Leake

Naomi Leake - Wind Street - Image copyright of Naomi Leake

Outsider at Oriel Myrddin Gallery includes the video work of Swansea artist, Naomi Leake. Her film, Wind Street is set in the street of that name in the centre of Swansea, notorious for its abundance of weekend revelers. Naomi, dressed in a very benign looking sheep costume, approaches the street from the darkness. She walks slowly passed the clubs, pubs and drinkers with various responses from cuddles and strokes to an incident where the cameraman receives a punch in the head. At the end of the road she walks back into the darkness whence she came. The backing track is a piece of beautiful choral music.

It is a simple piece of performance, but has an amazing depth in its references. The Welsh sheep cliche is there but also the Lamb of God - reinforced by the choral soundtrack; the victim, the sacrifice. In her lecture at the gallery last Saturday, Sue Griffiths (Head of Visual Communications and Contextual Studies at Swansea School of Art) made a psychoanalytic argument for the piece as symbolising 'object loss', the infantile loss of symbiosis with the mother for which we continue to yearn but never find. She also made reference to the complicated layers of looking that are evoked by the piece - various manifestations of 'the gaze'. The identification of the viewer is interesting too, are we looking at the sheep or identifying with it? Is the sheep the outsider, or does it point up an other-ness in the drinkers, in their own form of Saturday night fancy dress?

The piece was originally part of a show at the Elysium Gallery in Swansea called Looking For Love. Another film piece in that show has Naomi attending a speed dating event dressed in a wedding dress - I haven't seen this piece yet - but I'm looking forward to seeing it sometime, it sounds totally intriguing.

Diana Heeks

Diana Heeks - Drawer 1 - seen here

Diana Heeks - Drawer 3 and 4 - seen here

Diana Heeks' recent body of work is the result of her MA studies originally at Cardiff and latterly at Aberystwyth School of Art. Diana originally trained as a painter in her home city, Birmingham. Her paintings are abstract, often referencing landscape, but my favourite works reference textiles. Diana has worked often with the visual culture of south Asia and the Middle East, and the paintings which reference clothing of this culture are some of my favourites. She has made a series of images entitled Jubba.

Diana Heeks - Jubba - seen here

In this image, the start of her MA studies can be glimpsed in the stripes and also I think a slight sense of frustration with the limitations of medium.

Diana Heeks - Drawer 2 - seen here

What I admire about Diana (other than the work itself) is her focused, uncompromising attitude to her practice. She has a deep understanding of her own motivations and interests and is unafraid to take months and years over examining and deconstructing the techniques, colours and subject matter that interest her with a kind of obstinate vision (she would call it 'playing').

Diana Heeks - Indian Yellow - seen here

I went to Diana's studio when she was still experimenting with ideas of pleating and corrugation, and ruminating on how it should develop. I really like the outcomes in the work from her final show.

Mark Folds

Mark Folds - Lovespoon

Here's a little more about the work showing in Oriel Myrddin Gallery's current show, Outsider.

Mark Folds is a sculptor based near Newcastle Emlyn in west Wales, he moved here from Peckham in south London a few years back. Mark was the fella behind I Love Peckham, a one man campaign in the 1990's to love Peckham by anonymously mending dilapidated street furniture and transforming benches into art pieces. Badges, T shirts and a range of I Love Peckham seaside rock followed. The name has now been adopted by Southwark Council for their annual festival - so i guess Mark's hard work payed off - Peckham is loved!

In 2009 Mark had a solo show with Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Comfort Zone which posed a few questions about the low-flying jets we have an abundance of in west Wales. He installed a scale down version of a Tornado jet in the gallery space covered with raw sheeps' wool (accompanied by interesting aroma). On the hills around Carmarthen town, Mark sited giant sheep motifs cut from carpet - a little message to the pilots and a bit of fun for the residents - one did get sabotaged by Friday night revellers, but it's all part of the story in the end.

For Outsider, Mark has carved a giant lovespoon, here's a paragraph from Sue Griffith's catalogue essay for the show: "Mark Folds began referencing the Welsh tradition of the lovespoon some years ago, after relocating to Wales from London. The text on these large scale sculptures speaks of the uncertainties of love and commitment, and also evokes the irony of the object itself, once meaningful and rich in history, and now a tourist 'nick-nack' available in kitsch gift shops. They can be read as bleakly humorous, or hopeful - we smile, because we know that despite the irony, we will still commit to loving" Sue Griffith

Michael Johansson

Michael Johansson - Strövtåg i tid och rum (Strolls through time and space) - seen here

I like Michael Johansson's work, the obsessive bit of me feels such exquisite satisfaction at the organisation - ahhhh! The junk shop-aholic part of me loves the stuff...

Michael Johansson - Packa Pappas Kappsäck (Pack Daddy's Suitcases) - seen here

Michael Johansson - Vi hade i alla fall tur med vädret, 2006 (At least the weather was nice) - seen here

Michael Johansson - Bleka Minnen, (Faded Memories) - seen here

Nacho Carbonell

Nacho Carbonell - The Diversity series - seen here

Nacho Carbonell is a Spanish designer based in Holland, his new series of experimental pieces, Diversity is now on show at Palazzo Ferre in Milan.

Nacho Carbonell, Diversity (preview) from robertanderson on Vimeo.

“I like to see objects as living organisms, imagining them coming alive and being able to surprise you with their behaviour. I want to create objects with my hands, then I can give them my personality. I turn them into communicative objects that can arouse one’s sensations and imagination. In short, what I want to create are objects with a fictional or fantasy element, that allow you to escape everyday life.” Nacho Carbonell