Lucy Archer
Wednesday Artist Talks
Every Wednesday, 2 artists give an hour talk. Here are a few a found rather interesting.
Vanessa Cutler
Cutler is a sculpture, who experiments with glass. She enjoys pushing machines and materials to their limits and not settling for the basics. One of her pieces ‘Suburbia’, she was experimenting how thinly glass could be cut. It was inspired by a street in Sunderland; its layout looked quite grid-like. ‘Mayday Mayday’ is Cutler’s take on travelling on motorways such as the A1. It shows her opinion that you can see anything on a motorway. Another sculpture of hers ‘Wheaton’, its shape come from an ice-cream truck and represents putting something into an empty void. I appreciated her work, however I feel she isn’t relevant to my current work.
Helen Pailing
Pailing’s focus is sculpture and instillation. Her work is linked to loose embroidery; she is also inspired by it. She uses cheap, readily available materials. The engagement with the materials she uses is central in her practice. She questions whether the action of making can be the artwork itself. She’s interested in viewing the objects as action. One of her pieces, ‘Planted’, Pailing attempts to show that there is nothing natural about landscape anymore. She is putting something artificial disguised as something natural, showing man’s mark on the world. Pailing next began to experiment with scale and using weaving to trap found objects. I like the idea that she mostly uses found objects, recycling them into art, however, at the moment, this artist isn’t relevant to any of my current projects.
Miriam Hanall
Hanall’s main focus is mono-printing and is interested in layering. She wants to have a deep meaning to her work. Painting never did what she was wanting to show, so she began experimenting with printing. For the print ‘Passing’, she uses mono-print technique and adds acrylic paint to it, she enjoys the matte texture on top of the oil based ink. Hanall likes finding the link between how you remember something and how it actually is. She also wanted to break free from the borders of printing. I really like her method of working and her artwork; she will be interesting to look at as I am also experimenting with printmaking in my work.