Pencil and acrylic on paper
2008
Tuesday 26 August 2008
Noemi Lakmaier
An energy efficient and relatively low risk way to stay miserable
Pen, pencil and black printing ink on paper
2008
Pen, pencil and black printing ink on paper
2008
Friday 22 August 2008
Forget Me - an exhibition of drawings
FORGET ME
Curated by Gristle Mountain, a group exhibition of drawings made by artists from across the South East.
11:00 am - 3:00 pm on 13th-14th September 2008
Fort Brockhurst, Gunners Way, Gosport, Hampshire PO12 4DS
Jane Archer, Mike Bartlett, Vanessa Bird, Arturo Casciaro, Rachel Cattle, Nina Clough, Matthew Corbin Bishop, Annabel Dover, Natalie Dowse, Kier Eyles, Patrick Galway, Rebecca Gould, John Green, Paul Harber, Nicole Ingham, Sanam Khatibi, Liz Kent, Noemi Lakmaier, Cathy Lomax, Kate Marshall, Alex Michon, Matthew Parsons, Rachel Potts, Harry Pye, Iain Rayner, Fran Richardson, Keara Stewart, Margaret Sturton, Annabel Tilley, Jo Tindal, and Sam Treadaway.
Forget me revolves around the theme of memory, how drawing can provoke and stimulate the imagination with regard to personal delusion and the possible narratives found in architecture. Each artist has contributed a drawing depicting a story or situation from their past. These stories are either based on completely real events or are a total fabrication. Drawing is a highly personal activity; it generally requires an intimate and immediate response. The work included in the exhibition deals predominantly within the realms of the handmade and heartfelt.
Gristle Mountain founder and artist/curator Patrick Galway said: ‘Fort Brockhurst has an intense psychological atmosphere, with the space lending itself well to framing the artwork. A cloying nostalgia, a teenage overreaction, a retired hobbyist aesthetic, and a complacent misery, this and much more will be found at Forget me.’
The drawings will be exhibited in the central keep and visitors will also have the chance to see a Dada-South GO MAKE! artist residency Hidden Battles lead by Artist Caroline Cardus.
About Gristle Mountain
Gristle Mountain is an independent artist-run non-static gallery concept. Each exhibition will be shown in a place that is not exclusively an art space and will be based around a particular theme, being a playful investigation as to how art objects change the space they inhabit.
About Hidden Battles
Hidden Battles is part of Go Make! and was jointly commissioned by Dada-South and English Heritage. Dada-South is the South-East’s thriving Disability Arts Development Agency, creating new and exciting opportunities to accelerate Deaf and disabled people’s careers in the arts. Go Make! is a programme that commissions new work by Deaf and disabled artists and creative practitioners, providing opportunities to develop their practice and profile within the context of excellence.
About Fort Brockhurst
Fort Brockhurst was built in the 1860s as part of the defence of Portsmouth Harbour and provided military accommodation well into the 20th century. The site has stayed relatively the same throughout its history and is currently used as a museum store for English Heritage artefacts.
Old Age
The first show at Gristle Mountain, held in October 2007, can be found
at http://gristlemountain.blogspot.com/
Fort Brockhurst
I hear fort brockhurst is a place of war,
let battle commence,
private Iain reporting for action.
Did the mortar arrive intact?
Over and out.
Gristle Mountain
What is Gristle Mountain? Or more importantly, where is it? Why would you want to go there? And what would happen to you if you did? All these questions have answers, and some of those answers are here.
Gristle Mountain is a GOOD THING, and inside it are other good things. Many of the good things are what you could call works of art. Often the good things are people, the people who make the good things that are up on the wall or down on the floor, and of course the people who look at them.
Gristle Mountain moves. It’s in a shed right now, but it could be in a shop tomorrow, or on a boat. In a field. Down the pub. At the back of a garage, behind the paint tins. Still, it shouldn’t be too hard to find. It’s really only planning to hang about in Gosport for the time being. Lovely place. Down on the South coast of England, right by the sea. I’ll send you a map if you like.
But finding out is easy. Just step inside Gristle Mountain. It’s waiting for you.
Gristle Mountain
Currently at (insert address here)
Text Richard Blandford
Hidden Battles - Dada South Go Make!
FORGET ME and HIDDEN BATTLES will both be showing at Fort Brockhurst in the central Keep on the 13th and 14th September 2008.
Press Release for Hidden Battles – A Go Make! Artist Residency at Fort Brockhurst
Contact details: Esther Appleyard
Email: esther@dada-south.org.uk
Hidden Battles is part of Go Make! and was jointly commissioned by Dada-South and English Heritage. Dada-South is the South-East’s thriving Disability Arts Development Agency, creating new and exciting opportunities to accelerate Deaf and disabled people’s careers in the arts. Dada-South’s vision is to achieve a society in which disabled and Deaf people are valued, their creativity is nurtured and they play a key part in a thriving economy.
Go Make! is a programme that commissions new work by Deaf and disabled artists and creative practitioners, providing opportunities to develop their practice and profile within the context of excellence.
This residency is lead by Artist Caroline Cardus who uses her own experiences of disability to produce work that investigates the practical, emotional and human rights issues with regard to disability experience. During this residency Caroline has worked with local people to explore the everyday battles and barriers that disabled people face and the impact this has on the individual. Hidden Battles culminates in an exhibition and exploration for Heritage Open Days. On Saturday 13th September there will also be an opportunity to participate in a creative session and experience and artist tour.
Fort Brockhurst offers a dynamic and innovative setting to examine the issues of exclusion, defence and barriers.
“When you visit Fort Brockhurst, there’s immediately a feeling that it’s an eclectic and mysterious place. There’s all this empty space which was built to have people in it, but there aren’t any now so there’s a feeling of loss, or lack. Maybe that appeals to my melancholy side. It was built to be used, but was never used to it’s full potential. I found that interesting too. It’s also very inaccessible. A challenging place to send a disabled person and then ask them what they think. I like to make work that considers the barriers people encounter, so having workshops in a space that has lots of them seems like a logical starting point to explore those feelings. Maybe if we held them somewhere nice and accessible instead, we’d be too unattached to everything. I want people to feel frustrated for this one so we can explore how to represent those feelings.” Caroline Cardus, Artist in Residence, Fort Brockhurst.
“Hidden Battles is a groundbreaking residency exploring how architecture, heritage and the experience of disability can be investigated through visual art. This residency is also an opportunity to creatively and innovatively experience historic buildings and make an impact on them, rather than buildings merely impacting on us as disabled people” Esther Appleyard Go Make! Project Manager Dada-South.
Silence (a love story)
Why don’t you say something? You just sit there, looking at me with those big blank eyes of yours – I don’t know, judging me, pitying me, laughing about me to yourself or whatever. But then, how can I know? How can I know if I’m pleasing you, or displeasing you, or if I even mean anything to you, when you give nothing back? Because it all looks the same. You happy to see me. You not wanting to see me. You enjoying my company. You angry at me because of something I’ve said or done. It all looks the same.
I don’t know what to make of you these days to be honest with you. The only word for it is cruel, the way you sit there, just looking all the time. What are you waiting for? Waiting for me to slip up I expect. So then you can punish me for it. You never say that’s what’s happening of course, but I know when it is I’m being punished.
Sometimes I think you’re a mirror that reflects only my bad side, or a big black hole that’s sucking me away bit by bit. But other times I can see there’s love there, like the love I still have for you, my sweet. Something in the way you look at me just says so all of a sudden, even though I know nothing’s really changed in your expression.
And then sometimes I wonder if there’s anybody in there at all.
I just wish you’d say something, that’s all.
From the forthcoming collection, The Shuffle by Richard Blandford.© Copyright Richard Blandford 2007
Gift
It’s a long story about my gift. It takes me back to a year ago, when I was in Hong Kong. At that time, there was an advertisement, which was very popular. In it, a boy and a girl fell in love and they had strong emotion for each other but for some reasons they didn’t get married. They encountered each other after years and the man helped the women to wash her hair with the shampoo. After I watched it, I said to my boyfriend “Life is complete if I can find a man who is willing to wash my hair for me”. After a few months, we broke up and he gave me a bottle of shampoo, which is the same brand as the advertised. He said to me “Although I can not wash your hair for you, I will still remember you”.
Anon
Dead Sheep
The grass makes my feet itch and I remember nanny telling me to wear socks but it’s too late now we have driven all the way here and I’m not going to tell nanny cos she won’t let me play on the grass if I say anything, and the countryside is mostly grass and some sheep. Jamie has been car sick and is getting a cuddle from nanny so granddad has to clean it up, he’s talking with strange words and his nose is wrinkled and I sit on the ground and watch him and I think he’s mad but when he turns round he smiles at me and pretends to flick the wet cloth at my head, so I scream and giggle and roll away, but the game is over and I collect a pebble and put it in my pocket.
We are walking away from the car, we are told not to run off but we do, there is nowhere bad to go anyway and we keep stopping to look at the rocks, the stream, or the sky, so nanny and granddad keep catching up and nanny tries to hold my hand and I keep twisting away, maybe granddad will put me on his shoulders, I remember he did that once and I was scared of falling off but I know I wouldn’t be scared now, but I think he might be scared of dropping me so he doesn’t. We’ve walked for ages and we get a packet of crisps, the wrong flavour but it doesn’t matter. We never get crisps with mummy and daddy, instead we have to have an apple, except Edward who gets crisps cos he can’t eat apples, they might choke him. We were showed what to do if Edward is choking, the lady at the hospital said we had to bang really hard on his back and I giggled cos that means it is OK to hit my brother and my dad got cross and I had to go to bed early. Edward goes red and then blue if he chokes, I saw it once and mummy had to hold him upside down and call an ambulance, and we had to go and sit with a next-door neighbour, the one who collect elephants. Today Edward is in the hospital, and we have to stay with nanny and granddad and I know Jamie is a bit mad cos last time Edward was in hospital he got more Easter eggs than us, and he couldn’t even eat them.
I scratch my feet and we all sit by a stream and watch the water for a bit. Nanny is singing quietly and I feel really lazy but I don’t want to fall asleep in the sun cos I’ll get a headache and we’ll have to go back. Jamie takes off his shoes and paddles and he shrieks and says the water’s cold. I splash him and granddad splashes me and I run away, round a rock to where he can’t get me. A bird flaps its wings and flies away, I stop running and there’s some wool caught by the stream, I want some wool to show nanny so I reach for it and it feels so soft, and I start to pull some and then granddad knocks me over and he’s shouting, and I must have done something bad but then I see the dead sheep, and the red and the pink and I start crying. Nanny keeps asking did I touch it, did I touch it, and I’m shaking my head but they put me in the stream anyway and Jamie watches, he doesn’t say anything so I know it’s bad. All my clothes are wet and we walk back to the car, I think maybe I’ll die and I am crying again, I don’t understand why everything is wrong and I want to go back and play on the grass with Jamie.
I’m sure I must be in trouble when we get back but I’m put in a hot bath and my skin goes all red and wrinkly and then I get some of nanny’s hot chocolate drink and Jamie gets some too even though he didn’t almost die.
Text by Frances Lewis
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