Artist's pick

Studio time is incredibly precious now that my previously uncomplicated timetable (uncomplicated meaning almost non-existent) has suddenly become overrun with a plethora (current favourite word) of meetings and preparatory lectures. As a side note, this term is frightening and - as one of our guest speakers recently divulged - I may or may not be bracing myself for a post-art degree mental breakdown. I can only imagine visible symptoms to be something like an inescapable urge to scrawl 'R. Mutt' on urinals, whilst holding one-sided conversations with Damien Hirst in my parents' garage. I'll deal with that as it happens. 

Regardless of this potentially impending state, I have gathered lots of nice images of my ever-changing studio space and shall share them most unselfishly with the internet. 

These are my particular favourites and have informed some of the work I used to apply for New Contemporaries, as well as a piece that is now being exhibited at Millennium Gallery, as part of the exhibition Fabricate. 

See you soon x

Fabricate is open!

All work and all play

As previously promised, here is a visual (and audible) recap of what I've been making in the last month. For the second time on this blog, this post gives thanks to Bimal Rana and contains some images of his amazing. I had the best time installing with Bimal, Chris Shaw and Sam Blackwood - their work looked fantastic and it was great riffing ideas off each other.

The work I exhibited in SIA Gallery was titled as follows:

I'm no Frida Kahlo (two glass topped plinths containing a jar, flour and a foil survival blanket)
Safety Recordings II (audio recording, approx. 20 mins, to be played through headphones)

The images I've included show the set-up of the work (and some of the guys' work as well) and how I altered my plans around what materials to use. I shall say no more - just have a look.

Oh, I also included the entire sound recording further down.

A section of Bimal Rana's installation - pretty awesome.

We turned the guys' projector around, onto my plinths. Just to see. 

Nice seeing you x

Ruth Proctor

Composition, 2009, by Ruth Proctor from Hollybush Gardens on Vimeo.

Ruth Proctor is coming to give a talk a SHU in a few weeks and - as I was researching our upcoming lectures like a good student - I found this amazing video work! 

Have a peak. 

Colour tests and shiny blankets

The start of February means the start of term two! Could someone slow this year down? I hardly even noticed January sneaking by, the cheeky thing. 

Thankfully, the start of term two also means that I'm now post-interim assessment, which has left me with nothing but self-managed time from here on out. (With the addition of boring stuff like year meetings to attend.) Hopefully this will allow for more free moments to update you on the recent past. 

These test shots were a fun pre-assessment collaboration with Bimal Rana and his absolutely amazing neon plastic. (Hopefully he won't mind me using these images shamelessly.) I'd been trying to hunt down a source for getting larger sheets of tin foil (domestic rolls are great but a bit restricting width-wise) and suddenly thought of those shiny foil 'survival' blankets that I normally associate with helicopter rescue scenes. As it turns out, they're pretty cheap to buy from Decathlon (or Amazon), so I decided to indulge. There were ones that were completely silver and others that had one silver side and one gold side (I preferred the latter, although they're both quite plasticy to the touch and don't really hold their shape in the same way tin foil does)

I love the way these materials look next to each other; on top of one another. It isn't often that I use colour in my work, so it was also just nice for some of Bimal's material to talk to some of mine. I also bought some dust sheets that haven't quite found their purpose yet. I definitely prefer working with those sheets as an alternative to cling film - it doesn't stick to itself for one thing, so I'm much more able to reshape it and move it about. To put it another way, it doesn't make me crazy. 

Just damn good lookin', dontcha' think?

I did decide to use some of these materials in my assessment exhibition (we were lucky enough to install our work in SIA Gallery - a great space that's located in one of our university buildings. I think all our jaws hit the floor when we saw the kit that they were giving us access to. Did anyone say they wanted a table vitrine worth £4000 to display in? Because they've got two!) I'll post some shots of how it all looked and the decisions I made on the way.

Happy thoughts x

Closer Apart, 2013

2014, Week no.1

It's a new year! 

So far, I've managed to survive the first week of 2014 - based on that, I think the rest will be just fine. 

With my dissertation behind me and my degree show ahead of me, the end of my degree seems to be looming in the ever-nearing future. For now, I'll let the torrent of unanswerable questions about the 'next thing' fade into the background and enjoy the fact that all I can do is make work. 

Over Christmas, I signed up to Vimeo (mainly to check out all kinds of amazing videos - can I do a film making course next?) and uploaded a very short clip of my November installation in AGC Gallery (nothing snazzy, just me pointing my camera at things) to show what the sound element was like in the space. Just hit the play.

R U Mine - Installation Documentation from Sarah Botha on Vimeo.

A House Is Not A Home

PRISM 15

Audio - A House Is Not A Home

Catastrophe

"Sound is arousing and dangerous because it can so easily penetrate and permeate, so effortlessly become the soft catastrophe of space." 

Steven Connor, Ears Have Walls: On Hearing Art, 2005; Sound, edited by Caleb Kelly, Whitechapel Gallery, London, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Powder close-ups

Through the creation of these objects - this sculpture - in the AGC Gallery, the section I felt was 'working' the hardest were these little sections where the powder had gathered in the crevices of the materials.

I was thinking about how I decided that these areas were interesting - I suppose it was highlighted through the presence of all the other components, making them just as necessary.