SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution

On Sunday morning I visited SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution at Somerset House. I've had a page on SHOWstudio.com for a few years now and I really enjoy its energy and vibrancy. Headed up by legendary fashion photographer, Nick Knight, SHOWstudio "...has pioneered the most imaginative and exciting forms of fashion for the Internet. These have both informed and inspired the current fashion revolution. In championing the new medium of fashion film in particular, SHOWstudio.com has harnessed the potential of new technology and the Web to completely reinvent the fashion image and the way we experience it."

By democratising the processes of fashion and opening the forum to all comers, Nick Knight has challenged the notions of exclusivity in the fashion world. In utilising digital platforms, embracing and experimenting with the new technologies, the business of fashion photography has expanded to incorporate performance, film, music, art - SHOWstudio has pioneered a 'richer landscape' for the fashion universe.

Close Encounters of the Frillip Moolog Kind

Kirsty E. Smith - seen here

I went on a London odyssey last week, my main objective was to visit Origin, The London Craft Fair at Somerset House - but had an agenda to visit a few other shows en route. Firstly I headed to Westbourne Grove Church Art Space in West London to see Close Encounters of the Frillip Moolog Kind by Kirsty E. Smith - unfortunately it was closed for a birthday party so I could only peep in to the foyer through the door. I have been quite intrigued by the images and concepts from the show.

"Fascinated by the idea that objects might have a life of their own and inspired by previous narrative surrounding the found objects and textiles used in their making, Kirsty E Smith creates sculptures which resonate on a deeply emotive level and that people readily engage with. Frillip Moolog is the name which she has given to this place. Smith draws on sources as diverse as Mid-Century Modern architecture and interiors to Hollywood show biz costumes." Seen here

Eve Dent

Eve Dent - Fireplace 2000 seen here

I am really interested in the transfer or projection of identity from people to their possessions and their spaces, the idea of the 'ghost'; the way the object can be both infused with identity and subsume identity. There comes a point where the distinction between the the object and the user becomes unclear. In my own recent work I try to find and express the essential poetry of this relationship.

I have recently read the book White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi, a Gothic tale in which the family house becomes a malignly intentioned narrator and the spirits of its matriarchs begin to subsume their young descendant. It made me think about the extraordinary work of Cardiff based performance artist Eve Dent. 'Eve Dent installs her own body, hiding herself in the very fabric of buildings, going between the walls like a ghost, hovering between the spaces of the real and some other world that lies just behind it..." Sara Rees - seen here.

Eve Dent says of her own practice, "...I attempt to fit my body into the nooks, crannies or internal holes or cavities that exist with the architecture...This act of living entombment and incarceration I find both deeply fascinating and disturbing, mirroring my artistic concerns: the housing of the body in site; the rite of disappearance and loss; a vision of the sanctity and strangeness of bricks and mortar, anchored and mediated through a human presence, animating the hidden poetic life of a space" seen here.

Eve Dent - Anchorage 2002 seen here

Event Horizon

Louise Bird - Event Horizon (installation - Rhondda Heritage Park) seen here

Louise Bird's Event Horizon project continues. Having recently been accepted as a member of Fibre Art Wales, she is exhibiting with the group at Rhondda Heritage Park in the Welsh valleys. Made up of hundreds of black crocheted pods, the piece explores the science/art themes that inform Louise's practice. This installation includes a DVD of the pods being created. In Crafted - Contemporary Craft and Fine Art at Oriel Myrddin Gallery earlier this year, Event Horizon appeared without the film.

Louise Bird - Event Horizon (installed in Oriel Myrddin Gallery) seen here

Bottle Tree Ranch

Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch on Route 66, image: Ken Rockwell, seen here

Finding out about Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch this morning has reminded me that this is a wonderful world! A beautiful piece of roadside art. Taking up welding after his retirement, Elmer started his project with his father's bottle collection and it has grown and grown from there. Here's a You Tube piece about him and his creation.

I found this image too, which is a similar project by Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel in Ohio.


Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel, Bottle Farm - seen here

The Bottle Farm no longer exists, but there is a plaque to mark its location - here's the text:

"A direct descendant of original settlers in Jackson Township, Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel was born in 1876. Throughout his life he was a natural born showman, teacher, eccentric, anarchist, and “possibly the grandfather of American Pop Culture.” At a young age and tired of the routines of Farmersville, he declared that, “He would live by his wits while his brothers lived by the sweat of their brows.” He and a friend bicycled first to New York City and then turned around to head west and eventually the world. Later his home would overflow with items collected while traveling the world. Outside was a similar story. While chiding the American people for their wastefulness and abusing their environment, his 22 acres of farmland became his artist's canvas filled with the thousands of items he collected from the “wasteful.”

Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel's farm property became a field of glass as he adorned it with sculptures and “art” using glassware of all kinds, bells, bed frames, wood, and other discarded items. His finest works, fashioned from bottles titled “Kindly Light” and “Full Measure” created the popular Farmersville Bottle Farm. The farm also provided interesting listening experiences. In addition to the bells and twinkling glass that rang out in the wind, residents in town could count on hearing “The Old Rugged Cross” played on loud speakers on Sundays. Bells on grazing sheep added to the “noises” he described as restful. The farm attracted visitors from every state in the nation except Delaware. Dying in 1953, Swartsel bequeathed his land to the community to become the Farmersville-Jackson Township Joint Recreation Park to be used for the pleasure of children."

Ground

Jonathan Anderson - Ground, seen here

The publicity for Oriel Wrecsam's programme of exhibitions came through the post today and this image really caught my attention, it is the work of Swansea based artist, Jonathan Anderson . It will be part of a group show called Ground which has been curated by Swansea artist and Senior Lecturer at Swansea Metropolitan University, Tim Davies. He has chosen 5 young artists from Swansea for the show. I like Jonathan Anderson's work very much, I enjoy the materiality of his pieces, he has an acute sensitivity to the process of making, but also to the archetypes and deep symbolism of his images.

Curator, Tim Davies has been an influential figure in Wales, the book Process: Exploration of the Work of Tim Davies published in 2002, documents his work and practice, through which "...he forges a balance between conceptual responses to political issues and a visual language which is essentially informed by an adherence to the semiotics of materials and experience " (seen here). Having been less visible lately as an artist, he now has a major solo exhibition due to open at Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea, Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

Eva Bartussek

Eva Bartussek - Horse House, seen here

I'm looking forward to seeing the photography exhibition, Horse House by Eva Bartussek at the Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea, it opens on Friday 9 October.

Here is the gallery information:

Eva Bartussek is an emerging Swansea based photographer who seeks to expand notions of documentary portraiture through her work. Horse House is the documentation of an extraordinary, local, domestic situation: a mansion that for some time was simultaneously a home and stable. By photographing this 'world' extensively, Bartussek sought to foreground its dreamlike, even surreal aspects. In this piece, she creates a portrait of a person without photographing them directly and in doing so the portrait becomes that of a home, its contents, a house, its history, a situation, a space and so on.