C A R R Y O N

REGARDLESS

University of Lincoln 2014 MA Fine Art and Contemporary Curatorial Practice Final Show

14

6

8

12

1018

16

20

C o n t e n t s

4. Introduction

5. Foreword

6. Larissa Brennen

8. Mike Bruce

10. David Fowling

12. Jon Higgins

14. Laura Johnson

16. James Phailly

18. Duncan Rowland

20. Yao Wang

I N T R O D U C T I O N

The MA Fine Art and MA Contemporary Curatorial Practice courses both put an emphasis on each individual student’s path of exploration and discovery, through their research and practice. Each student has a deeply personal and unique view of the world, which they seek to make visible. The work in this show represents a crossroads, an exciting moment where they choose where their practices will go next. It comes after a long and intensive period of questioning, research, conversations and soul searching. I asked each student to provide a few instances of what influences the work in the exhibition, which you can see at the end of the catalogue. Collectively, I hope you agree, this makes an rich, interesting and diverse list. It is for you to try to connect to each individual student, artist and curator in the show.This cohort of students have been a pleasure to teach and I wish each of them well in whatever they go on to do next.

Andrew BraceyProgramme leader, MA Fine Art and Contemporary Curatorial Practicewww.mafineartandccp.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/

4

F O R E W O R D

“Just look down the road and tell me if you can see either of them.”“I see nobody on the road.” said Alice.“I only wish I had such eyes,”the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at such a distance too!” - Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carol

So what does it mean to study Art, to be an Artist , to make and present work? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.One of the reasons I don’t, I can’t is that every person takes their own journey.

The other reason is that Art in constantly evolving and changing.

Like a drop of mercury it changes form, absorbs and reflects the world around it, expands and contracts, is both solid and liquid, it’s problematic to work out its properties without spending time with it exploring it with your eyes- looking.

So what do I know about Art? I know from my own experience of studying as an artist and a curator that the most important skill art school has given me is the ability to look.

To be able to see allows you to describe.

To be able to look allows you to build an understanding of the world.

Looking is integral to the creative’s way of seeing the world.

I mean looking in the holistic sense, being able to distinguish forms, colour, light, solidity, but also the context in which the objects of your gaze sits. What is the history of the path, the political context around its production, its use, its social value, its aesthetic value, why does it exist, why was it made, does if function well, is it beautiful.

Which leads me to the second lesson, ask questions.

The study of art is a love of questions, they allow us to find our way along the dark paths, they enlighten and solidify our reality.

That’s why artists are so useful, they first stop and look at the world afresh, then question and create a new future.

So where ever your lives may lead, keep your eyes open and remember to not just glance down the path, look. Once you can see the path anew ask ‘could this path be different?’

Ashley Gallant,Collections Access Officer (Contemporary Art),The Collection Lincoln and Usher Gallery

L a r i s s a B r e n n e n

‘Untitled’

The fox is often portrayed as a sly and sneaky character that hides behind the mask of a quick witted and charming gentleman. The rabbit comes across as innocent and naive easy prey for such a resourceful fox. The violence that enfolds between the two characters is comic and verges on dark humour. The rabbit of course always wins so reality becomes reversed.

Brennen’s fables and stories are re-enacted using naturally preserved animals carcasses which she aptly names carcass puppets. Heads and limbs are violently torn apart from the naturally preserved carcasses of rabbits, mice, pigeons and frogs that are found among farm buildings. Their appendages are re-attached to the remnants of children’s’ toys. These carcass puppets born from violence shudder into a semblance of life. The hybridisation of carcass and toy come together within a constructed theatre of abject repulsion and insanity. An uncanny theatre that destabilizes the boundary between reality and fantasy through the destruction of nostalgia encased within childhood objects.

The old dead rabbit starts his life as a scientist and then becomes a baby; the two mice become naughty children. The pigeons and rats remain as they were in life but have slight cannibalistic traits. A dead pigeon swoops down and scoops up the little dead mouse in her beak. The dead rats read from the book of knowledge, while the old dead rabbit enacts his experiments. All of the carcass puppets spend their time obsessing with experimenting and killing each other.

The sublime myths of fairy tales do not dwell within these dust filled rooms.

Childhood nostalgia turns into a violent nightmare.

6

M i k e B r u c e

‘Waymarks’

‘In antiquity, irish scholars were known for their practice of ‘navigatio’, a journey undertaken by boat - a circular itinerary of exodus and return. The aim was to undergo an apprenticeship to signs of strangeness with a view to becoming more attentive to the meanings of one’s own time and place -geographical, spiritual, intellectual’Richard Kearney (2006)

These ‘signs of strangeness’ in the landscape - the familiar becoming unfamiliar through ‘seeing afresh’ underpins what Mike Bruce is trying to convey through his art. It is a theme engaged with by several artists across many art disciplines. Particularly interesting to Mike are the works of Graham Sutherland (especially his small drawings which explore the ‘exultant strangeness’ encountered on Sutherland’s frequent walks in the landscape) and Robert McFarlane through his book ‘The Old Ways - a Journey on Foot’ in which he describes experiencing the landscape in fresh ways. Mike’s art, through the medium of print, examines and reinterprets elements from within the landscape. He practices Vipassana meditation as an important part of his art-work; this meditative approach is his way of engaging with landscape in a more attentive and intense way.

8

D a v i d F o w l i n g

‘The hastening doom of an experience swiftly diluting into a memory’

The participation in David Fowling’s work will offer the audience no true tangible evidence of a piece, only the hastening doom of an experience swiftly diluting into a memory of its ineluctable disappearance. The inevitability of ruin or destruction is what drives Fowling’s practice but not all ruin and destruction is tangible nor evidential.

10

J o n H i g g i n s

‘Aeterno Gratia -Timeless in Grace’

Sat aplomb and untrammelled against the milieu of azure skies, these alluring archaic aeroplanes are the superlative creation of an era when the romantic dream of flight exemplified the spirit of their time.

E. Jeppesen wrote “A pilot is a technician, an aviator is an artist in love with flight”. Jon Higgins is an aviator in every sense of the word, for him flight and art are intrinsically linked. Drawing inspiration from the romantic era of maritime painters and contemporary aviation photographers, Higgins’ practice captures the atmosphere and sentiment that these antediluvian aeroplanes generate within their naturalistic environment.

12

L a u r a J o h n s o n

‘Ousia’

“In order for there to be an event, there must be an “intervention” which changes the rules of a situation in order to allow that particular event to be” Alain Badiou

Formlessness is a process within an event, an energy that is released for a change to take place. Like the ‘event’, formless can never exist alone, it must share an objects spatial location; both cannot be without one-another.

Laura Johnson begins with relocating her studio to become an intervention within the ‘gallery’ space. Johnson activates the event through the manipulation and transfer of energy to the material, this happens by mixing the plaster, and is released through the act of pouring.

When the plaster is released, a period of ‘formless’ begins; the plaster is in flux until it hits a surface. The plaster then settles itself and sets into its ‘true form’. The event is over.

Johnson’s interest in events began with formlessness and how materials take control of the artworks outcome. It is the process of the artist setting off a chain of events and the material completing the chain.

14

J a m e s P h a i l l y

‘And my lair is my tome spiralling...’

The nature of James Phaily’s practice is essentially occult-led and takes the form of a tireless inquiry into the “ruthless archane symbolism” of his very own reified “Shamanic Playground”

In this arena resurges what is essentially a Magickal “esoteric poesis” having the “artistic intention” of creating a surrealistic art which channels primal atavistic energies.

It is through the invocation, manifestation, transformation and channelling of these energies in paint, sigil, found object, cut-up and spell that he creates and weaves a “chtonic” esoteric web that through the above stated magickal children offers to both viewer/reader and creator the sense of an ongoing social/cultural and historical mythology and narrative. These atavisms apply themselves intuitively and vitally to both the conscious and perhaps more importantly the unconscious mind.

James Phaily’s exhibit manifest itself as a (cosmic) installation structurally rendered before you with the artistic intention of carving an inter-textual “mythopoeic” narrative which highlights both the process and the product of his practice. It manifests itself as an esoteric sensorium based on magickal foundations.

16

D u n c a n R o w l a n d

‘Untitled’

With a background in computing arts projects, Duncan Rowland believes the purpose of technology should be as a mechanism to bring individuals closer together. His artistic practice reflects this desire as he adopts a holistic view of the Universe inspired by digital physics and the algorists. Rowland works in the medium of ‘information’, controlling ‘bits’ of various size, with brush and algorithm alike. Though conscious that the effects of manipulating information ripple through the entirety of space and time, his focus is on the human experience of the here and now. Promoting mindful encounters drives Rowland’s work.

18

Y o a W a n g

‘Accidents Need Not Happen’

Curated by Wang Yao

Andrew Bracey, David Fowling, Laura Johnson, Liu Chunmei, James Phaily, Zhang Tao, Eleni Zevgaridou

Project Space Plus, Wednesday 25th June – Friday 11th July

“Accidents Need Not Happen” featured new artworks by artiststhat responded to the ‘Media Archive for Central England’(MACE) that is the screen archive for the Midlands in the UK,and was curated by Wang Yao.

This exhibition intended to bring awareness to the Mace Archivein the MHT Building of University of Lincoln. The exhibition featured new works by international artists (Visiting Academics), who are a bridge to Chinese audience; MA Fine Art students and UK artists, who study and teach at the University of Lincoln. The variety of the art in the exhibition was mirrored in a parallel exhibition at The Collection, ‘Someone Had Blunder’d’ that responded to the Tennyson Research Centre, which established intriguing links between the two exhibitions.

20

Lynda Benglis, Aleister Crowley, Orryelle Defenstrate-Bascule, the MA Fine Art students, Piero Manzoni, John

Michael Craig-Martin, Andrea Roe, William S. Burroughs, Richard Long, Natasha Kidd, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, Les Joynes, Robert MacFarlane, Andrew Sorensen, James Turrell, Martin Creed, Kenneth Anger, Dietmar Eckell. Jan Švankmajer and Eric Ravilious.

Dibbs, Animation means to give ¬life and animate dead matter and make it remain dead, Black humour and Failure.

adverb

http://carry-on-regardless.com