Blank Media Collective

No. 1: Paint [BLANKSPACE]

8 - 25 September 2011, BLANKSPACE, Manchester

NO.1: PAINT PUBLIC PREVIEW & LIVE MURAL PAINTING: Thursday 8 September, 6-9pm
EXHIBITION CONTINUES: Friday 9 - Sunday 25 September 2011
OPEN DAY & BBQ: Sunday 18 September (1-4pm)
BLANKSPACE, Manchester
Free Entry to all Events

EXHIBITION SYNOPSIS:
If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint. Edward Hopper

No.1: Paint is the first in an exciting series of medium-specific exhibitions to be held at BLANKSPACE. Celebrating the unique nature of paint, this exhibition will showcase work from 24 varied and distinctive emerging artists from throughout the UK.

Encompassing a wide variety of styles and forms, from impressionistic to abstract, sculpture to installation, the core subject of this diverse collection is: paint.

The selected artists individually push the fundamental boundaries of paint, investigating the numerous angles available within the selected art form.

No.1: Paint is about artists exploring the medium of paint in different and innovative ways, with their ideas and concepts being communicated through purely visual means. The work we have selected encompasses everything from more traditional painting to sculptural pieces and installation work - all coming together to create a unique and exciting show. Jamie Hyde, Curator

An ensemble of colour, texture, concept and vision, this exhibition showcases some of the most gifted talent from around the UK. No.1 Paint will captivate, stimulate and inspire the audience in the dynamic yet intimate environment of BLANKSPACE.

ASSOCIATED EVENTS:
NO.1: PAINT PUBLIC PREVIEW & LIVE MURAL PAINTING: Thursday 8 September 2011, 6-9pm
No.1: Paint launches with a public preview to celebrate the works of these 24 talented artists. Sheffield-based artist Ladoza will be creating a site-specific mural on the side of the BLANKSPACE building on the launch and following days. We are also delighted to welcome back Jazzbo who will be DJing spinning his discs, creating a wonderful soundtrack to the night.

OPEN DAY & BBQ: Sunday 18 September, 1-4pm
A special event capturing the imagination and excitement of No.1: Paint, with opportunities to be part of creating a new mural on the side of the BLANKSPACE building. There will also be a BYOB (Bring Your Own Beef / Bring Your Own Beer) BBQ where you can bring along your favourite foods to be cooked on the BLANKBQ and meet with the artists, curators and facilitators from No.1: Paint and Blank Media Collective.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

| OPENING TIMES:
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday 1-7pm | Tuesday 1-9pm | Saturday & Sunday 11am-4pm

ACCESSIBILITY:
Blank Media Collective and BLANKSPACE aim to promote accessibility and equal opportunities. Ramps and accessible toilets are available for access to the ground floor of the building. Unfortunately there is no lift access to the upstairs areas of the building. If you require specific access requirements please call us on 0161 222 6164 so that we can arrange this for your visit.

WITH THANKS TO:
Ask Developments, Manchester | Fred Aldous, Manchester | Lazy Daisies, Stockport | Sandbar, Manchester | Full Circle Arts, Manchester

Participating Artists

Susan Laughton: susanlaughton.com

The landscape is my starting point, not as a picturesque or nostalgic view, but as a space travelled through and experienced often on the edges of the urban and the rural. It is a source of man-made and natural structures, surfaces and atmospheric colour that allow me to construct my own pared down responses. I make drawings of remembered details seen from the corner of my eye, fleeting juxtapositions elusive to photography or more studied compositions. My paintings contrast pared down marks with random scratches, washes of paint with fine layers of plaster on canvas or plywood – a technique I have developed over the last few years.
Rebecca Wild: scannography.org/artists/Wild-Bex.html

Rebecca specializes in the technique of scanography, resulting in work that is both experimental and spontaneous. With her childhood passion lying in painting, she has been combining these two elements to create work outside of the social normality. Using the scanner as both a camera and a canvas, she questions that way art is formed and approaches the idea of creating art in a new light. Rebecca’s practice allows for the viewer to form their own explanations about the work and apply their own connotations to it. The idea of the abstract has been a key feature in her most recent work; however she also explores ideas that are on a more personal level, usually through mixed media and/or installation to communicate things that usually cannot be expressed with words alone.
neillclements: neillclements.co.uk

I am interested in the fundamentals of painting; the specific materials and unique abilities of the discipline. My paintings seek to reflect this, they acknowledge their own materiality and physicality, promoting their essential nature above all else. The manner in which the paint is applied establishes the picture as both a portal and an object. A horizon line straightforwardly implies depth, creating a landscape waiting to be occupied. The images that emerge on the surface of the paintings never stray far from the elemental; the illusion of a three dimensional structure never stops being a flat area of paint. My paintings are visual as opposed to conceptual; it is what they are, rather than what they are about, that is important.
Melissa Henderson: melissahenderson.co.uk

I was born in Sweden in 1977, and I live and work in London. I was educated at Wimbledon College of Art. My practice is research and process led. I make drawings, paintings, sculptures, videos and installations. The core of my art practice is constituted by drawing. I delight in the process of editing, to select what to highlight and what to conceal. I like my art works to have a history. Found objects, dust from the studio floor or marks from earlier activities are frequently visible in my works, and art works are often reworked and set in a new context. I am interested in psychology and history of ideas. I am fascinated by how our thoughts continually change, whether this is on a personal level, or in a historical sense. Unrelated data, fact and knowledge, mix with everyday thoughts. Events are set in new contexts and experienced differently as we move through time and continually change ourselves and our perceptions. I find that this mirrors the activities in the art studio; the way artworks often are ephemeral, reused and re-contextualized.
maggieroyle: maggie-royle.com

I am interested in relationships between abstraction and figuration in painting. The paintings in No.1: Paint have developed from my experience of art history which exists within a context of my own history as a maker of abstract paintings. Taking overlooked or insignificant elements from an earlier painting as a starting point, an ‘abstract’ improvisation occurs alongside the response to the appropriated figurative image. For example, ‘You’ll never find that perfect love’ came from some ideas that I was developing from looking at a fragment of a painting by Poussin. For the exhibition ‘No 1: Paint’, three abstract paintings are exhibited independently of the figurative paintings which were made alongside this work.
Liz Gaunt: lizgaunt.co.uk

My work has always aspired to being a clean inquiry into what it is to paint- notions of pairing down, building up and refining. Imagined objects, tables, a few marks that form something familiar yet not fully there – This is a reduction, removal, a working backwards - away from the image through a movement of retreat. Compositionally the images are interested in still life, celebrating the painted surface, enjoying flatness of the marks yet seeing how few can make a piece.
Lisa Denyer: lisadenyer.com

Until now, my practice has revolved solely around escapism; from everyday life into the natural world. However, in recent work my focus has shifted from vast landscape vistas to geometric shapes and patterns. I believe that this adaptation of my practice is due to the fact that, having spent the last two years in a city that I love, escapism is no longer a major concern within my work. It is aspects of the city such as repetitive patterns, architectural design, light reflecting from windows, and sharp, layered shadows cast by buildings that are currently influencing my paintings.
Lesley Guy: lesleyguy.com

My practice is experimental and multi-disciplinary, often driven by an interest in contradiction or paradox. I use photography, sculpture, sound and drawing to construct scenarios or images that manipulate the ‘real’ or recognisable. Fliers and leaflets are a surface of existing forms, which serve as starting points for semi-abstract ramblings. These are doodles, not made out of boredom, but in response to the absurdity of advertisements and the quantity (and quality) of information we constantly have to deal with. By defacing this kind of material I’m attempting to express these frustrations in a humorous way as well as transform it into something new albeit equally meaningless. This could be seen as appropriating images of Capitalism as a new space for reverie or fantasy. As a project in development this is something I’m keen to explore.
Ladoza: ladoza-uk.blogspot.com

I view my artworks as research, often looking back at work that would appear finished as a source of learning and reflection. It’s important to me not to work with one media as my I like my ideas to influence and choose how it is best shown rather than an individual practice to shape the ideas thus restricting its natural place. My works are often abstract in appearance as I am keen to explore suggestive representation through familiarities. My fascinations with landscape and area, both rural and urban, have fueled the aesthetics within my work as I am responding to the various languages of a particular place. First hand observation and documentation play a huge role in my approach to making artworks. It is important that I experience locations as this helps reflection and sources my imagination allowing a more comfortable understanding when I begin experimenting in the studio. Site-specific pieces of work are important to me as they help find a balance between compromise and artistic dominance. My studio and gallery work is very controlled and deliberate, but in working with site-specific artworks I have to consider other dynamics such as social values and politics to ethical and aesthetical interest. Other areas of interest include music, sound, video, sculpture and installations.
Georgina Vinsun: georgiepaint.com

I paint gently expressive, colourful Romantic abstracts in oil on canvas, with flurries of brushstrokes and soft veils of saturated colour. Filled with depth and detail, the paintings are all inspired by the awesomeness of nature, in particular, the sky. My usual starting point is the vast sky and its ever-changing cloud formations, although this is just the starting point as the works inevitably end up encompassing many other ideas and themes. I never tire of watching the sky, observing the changes in light and tone or feeling my spirits lift as I leave buildings to be surprised by spectacular colour combinations - especially grey tones - and the smell of the cool fresh air. The paintings take their form from my memories, both of the sky and of my own emotional reactions to it, intertwined with day to day living. As such, the paintings are not faithful photo-realistic works; instead they incorporate feeling, thought, emotion, and my attempts to capture an essence of these transient sensations through the medium of paint.
caroline hall: carolinehall.net

My work explores the boundaries between video and painting; between the contemporary and the traditional. These paintings begin life as a filmed journey. I deliberately deconstruct and reconstruct video until I am left with a series of pixels. All sense of narrative removed. Using individual frames as a springboard I recreate fragments of time, eventually allowing the painting to break free from its digital roots and develop its own individual story.
Cara Campbell: caracampbellartist.com

Drawing upon empty buildings and gritty industrial interiors, my work references places the function of which have long since expired. They are neither blank nor are they devoid of their history, but spaces in between. Bachelard’s notion that ‘profound metaphysics is rooted in an implicit geometry’ is fundamental to my approach to image making. Using architectural space as a formal and conceptual device to explore spatial relationships and give absence its own kind of presence.
Katarzyna Jablonska: blankmediacollective.org/portfolios/kate.fineart

In my works I intend to capture movement, dynamism and transformation, to explore natural phenomena and chemistry between them, and to evoke the essence of life. Central to my practice is the experience from work I have done in conjunction with Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, Lime Arts, King’s Fund, Unltd and Arts for Health at the MMU, which increased my wonder at the inherent power of colour. The streams of light colour and transform the paintings made to installations. Suspended in the air with the light shining through they gain colouration and shine. This explores the use of glass paints, transparency, impact of colour, site and texture. The small scale images can be viewed more intimately, almost jewel like. My works aim to reduce anxiety, encourage creative thinking, uplift and enhance the environment. The painting act itself is an unexpected spontaneous process of fluid paint travelling on a plastic surface as a symbol of life, energy and nature. The flexible surface allows the paints to flow and mix with each other in a way that is dynamic and mysterious. This results in every image being unique. Considering the meaning, impact and use of colour my works derive from intensity of shades creating fascinating pieces that capture the beauty of colour and light challenging viewers’ perception.
Jane Looby: artreview.com/profile/JANEEVANS

Life is about negotiation, compromise – it’s something you learn, as you get older. Alice Neel, Elizabeth Peyton and Marlene Dumas inspire me to create work that is psychological and reveals some of the weaknesses of the human condition. Painting is for me, also a negotiation between materials and myself. I never draw anything; I never work out beforehand what will be. My most successful works are an intense relationship between myself, subject, material, constantly reworking until the piece is complete. Watercolour increases this relationship that I have with my work. With oil painting there is always that chance to remove, rework. With my watercolour everything is laid bear, every wrong move is exposed but often they bring something new and exciting to the work.