What's next?
After university I will be taking the summer to still develop my practice and develop ideas to further push myself outside of my boundaries. I will be waiting to hear back from awards and exhibitions that I have applied for over the spring term. With some of us on the MA Fine Art course we have started a collective, Uncovered Collective, filled with up in coming artist looking to exhibit and gain exposure in the London art scene. We have been in conversation already to curate exhibitions towards the end of summer.
In the fall of this year I have a residency in Toronto, Canada for the month of September with renowned figurative painter, Jen Mann. i will be living and working in her studio developing my practice and having her by my side as a mentor. I'm hoping to develop my ideas with textiles and oil painting and see where else this new found love for knitting and crocheting takes my practice.
Ugly Duck
A few of us from the MFA course at Wimbledon College of Art got together and started our own collective, Uncovered Collective, and ventured out to do a massive group show with 45 artists. The role I played within the collective was graphic designer and social media. I was in charge of designing the poster for our first exhibition as a collective, business cards, running the instagram account, and making sure to invite as many people as possible through facebook and other outlets.
For the exhibition we wanted to make the theme a postopian world ran by technology and what we interpret that would look like in the near future. While participating as a member of the collective and an artist, I decided to create new work for the exhibition by making a painting but with the flare of sculptural qualities. On the front of the sculptural I painted a face in outer space and put a light up, knitted element on the back to mimic the nebulas being portrayed in the painting.
Leyden Gallery
At Leyden Gallery I was lucky enough to be chosen and interviewed for their Platform for Emerging Arts #21 exhibition. The exhibition was up for three weeks in Whitechapel, London. The whole process was an amazing experience, though I had an intense interview with the curator before they chose me to join the exhibition. As a young artist you hope to be able to speak about your work in person and on paper and hope it makes sense to the audience. But I'm glad I was able to reciprocate the message of my practice in an interview with Leyden Gallery representatives and I hope to work with them in the future.
Riverside Arts Council
I was lucky enough to have a representative from the Riverside Arts Council in California to reach out to me based off of a solo exhibition I did in summer 2018 at Mind & Mill. They really enjoyed a couple of my pieces I did for that show and wanted to put them in their six month exhibition. It was a really easy process, I just had to fill out a form and since my work was still in the gallery at Mind & Mill, the director was nice enough to take my work for me to the next exhibition and install it while I was here in London.
Crypt Gallery
With being involved with the planning of the Crypt show I took charge of doing the poster and some of the marketing on social media. I gained inspiration from the title of the show as well as the Crypt being under the church. I though going for an Adam and Eve type poster would be very successful for the show.
Over the summer during creating work for the show I loved the idea of working with the space as well as the history of the church. That's why I decided to have the meaning of the traditional values of men being the leading head of house and providing for his wife and children. I think it was an interesting perspective even though it may come off a bit misogynistic thinking about the 'man' and his emotions and views in an art world that's moving towards being about equality between the two genders and so on.
The overall show came out great and I couldn't have been happier with the outcome of the show and my piece even though it may not have been 100% completed for the show.
Croydon Art Store
Over the summer I was part of the small group of first years doing a summer exhibition with Croydon Art Store, but sadly due to a family matter back in California I had to drop out of the show two weeks prior to the opening. But overall I was part of the whole process prior to the show; collaborating ideas for the title and basis of the show, meeting the curator at the gallery space with the others and designing the poster for the show as well. Overall it was a great experience curating a show with a small group of artists on the course and it was definitely a learning experience even though I wasn't able to show my work in the exhibition.
Mind & Mill Gallery
Over the summer I did a three month solo exhibition in California at Mind & Mill gallery in Riverside, CA where I showed thirteen paintings.
Throughout the process of preparing for the show, I had a very hands on experience from creating the show poster, advertising, and working alongside the curator and gallery owner, Luke, with hanging the show and going around locally to pass out flyers and tell people about myself and the work I was showing.
After flying to California two weeks before the show I had to take all my paintings I made in first year as well as create four other pieces to fill the space which was very intense and time consuming, but on the day of the private view it was all worth it.
At the private view there was a Dj and a vegan pastry company catering the event. A lot of my friends and family came to show their support but also a lot of people that either lived near by or far away came in and said "hi" to me. It was an amazing experience I hope to be able to do it again.
Dark Yellow Dot
Towards the beginning of this year I had applied for a solo show through Dark Yellow Dot. Unfortunately I didn't get chosen for the exhibition but they were nice enough to feature me on their website with a few pictures of my work and my artist statement for the month of April. I was able to get in contact with the head of the organization and she got to get to know me a little bit outside of my art work and why she got into working with up in coming artists and about her work. It was nice chatting her up and getting a follow from them.
Chelsea Space
In my first year curating a show with the other first year MFA students we exhibited in Chelsea in one of their many studio spaces. I feel as though this was a very interesting learning experience for the fact that there were thirty six of us and a lot of big roles to take on in order for the exhibition to happen.
I feel as though I will probably never curate a show with this many people again because it was stressful, a lot of people did not care, and there were too many people involved for such a small space to exhibit in. There were some that felt as though they needed to be in control and take charge of the whole curation and theme of the show and others who did not want to participate at all outside of just turning up with their work for the deadline.
In the future I will aim to apply for bigger spaces and if I am to collaborate on curating a show, the most I would be able to handle in this situation will be up to twelve other artists so that the roles are distributed evenly and we would all be able to show bigger works within a space and actually stand out from one another instead of collaging together art pieces and not having the chance to stand out or at least present work in a better manner.