A useful critque

At the Art Academy last night I presented work I am preparing for an exhibition at Ordsall Hall in June. This was the first time I had shown this work to anyone and it was a really useful experience. The exhibition "The Basque children in Salford and Eccles" is my response to a story I discovered about a group of Basque children who came to Salford in 1937 as evacuees from the Spanish Civil War.

My response has been influenced considerably by the Art Academy Regent's Warehouse Residency which I took part in during 2015, where I was reunited with my childhood toys on the day the little refugee boy's body was found on the beach. My talky walkie doll who was wrapped in a plastic bag for protection disturbed a number of people. This in itself is becoming a body of work that I have been exploring through previous crits (including 10th November 2015 and 17th March 2016 ).


The crit was really powerful because it helped me see that this project is pulling together the ideas I have had previously. That there are clear links to previous projects and experiments such as a repetition of colour (that may or not be a link to childhood and growing up), repetition of symbolic shapes, similarity between the lines I create in mono print and stitch.The theme of wearing out to represent transience was also discussed and I was introduced by Niki to the concept of Yabi Sabi

A really useful suggestion that came out of the crit was for me to try hanging the pieces in the gallery at the Mill to see what they looked like out of the studio environment.

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