Work Sells Well at Brighton!

New work taken to Brighton sells well. Last weekend was a success in terms of commercial outcome and conversations had. It was a pleasure to see some of the developments in fellow artists work. Alex Slatter, Natalie Martin and Sam Lock to name but a few. It was also great having a fellow SEOS member there and a great stand it was, Clare Palastanga's ceramic work was a treat to find amongst the avenues of the fair.

I sold some of the new convex forms and will be posting an image of then in their new home once they are hung in Italy.

The studio beckons me this weekend as I conclude the concave forms ready to take to Fulham Palace for the Art Fair. This will be the first time they are seen, so take the opportunity to grab some FREE tickets and mail me, first come first serve.

All Quiet.... But, for how long?

Following the mad (and very enjoyable) couple of weeks that was the lead up to Brighton Art Fair followed shortly after the inaugural Palace Art Fair. Both of which were personal successes and fun, it was great to be a part of such a well run event. However it is nice to be back at the barn and able to breathe in the changes in seasons that surrounds us.

Some respite is being permitted by self and then back to work. Ideas from conversations, sketches made in between conversations, comments and enquiries...

'don't you want to make sculpture again?'

have left an internal voice resonating in my head. So with some new materials ordered and days blocked out in the ever filling diary. I am back in the practice of booking studio time and making this non-negotiable for other events, meetings with clients or admin or simply coffee and cake. The discipline feels good.

This new work will be shown in December at the '@home' show in SOHO, London. Between the 3rd and 5th December. HOLD THE DATES

Palace Art Fair

The studio has once again become populated by work on every horizontal surface drying between marks made and glazes. In anticipating of the Palace Art Fair.

Informed by the conversations I had at Brighton Art Fair, the work is responding to my reactions to the visitors feedback. To the allusion of depth my richly layered work plays with and the spartan qualities of the reductive work. Where marks are made and worked towards erasing them, leaving but a trace of the ghost like original or an archeology of my mark making process.

I will be present on Stand 9 at Fulham Palace from the 8th- 10th October. I look forward to seeing you on stand.

Brighton Art Fair 2010

Brighton Art Fair 2010 is over...

Thanks go out to Jon, Sarah, Anne-Marie and their team for ensuring another successful event.

It was a chance for me to show the larger work that has been percolating in the studio over the summer and to have the ever valuable conversations with fellow exhibitors and to engage with visitors. The fair was rammed at the Private View, with a 'one in; one out' policy operating on the door and work seemed to really shift from the hall over the three days.

For me it was a great weekend, sales and commissions were up and was good seeing previous buyers and new folk step up to the stand and comment on the new developments. I am encouraged to get back to the studio to complete and start replacement work ready for Palace Art Fair in three weeks. See you there!

Planning the Stand!

Taking a break from the surrounds and smell of the studio, I pour myself a glass of wine and sketch out to reasonable scale my thoughts towards the layout of Stand 2 at Brighton Art Fair next Thursday. Taking a mix of my new large work and familiar small delights, that are my studio obsessional pieces, it is reassuring that keeping a uniformity of size enables the shifting of a variety of squares around fixed walls easier than irregularity.

A partial premature delight in curation comes when the pinning and moving and re-pinning of thumbnail computer prints upon and around a cardboard model starts to bring a cohesion and dialogue to this year's work (not showing you an image of that, you will have to come to the Corn Exchange over the weekend to see).

Committing to Big!

Having had some studio visits from friends and colleagues recently. I have been reminded of the need to engage with your work as a viewer and not just as the person who makes it. It is easy for thinking to become contained within the 'studio references' and not be wider, bolder, connected, multi-layered and bigger than intention and process.

Imagining myself as a viewer approaching my work, I was challenged to not just give an intimate up close selective experience. But rather ask: 'What if the work was present and greater in scale?' the impact being physical and visceral as well as ocular.

So be it.... I started getting bigger.

The series of 50x 50 cm gesso panels will be taken to Brighton Art Fair along with several 1 metre sqaures. Larger work can be seen in London at the Palace Art Fair in October, where I will have a bigger stand to take the bigger work.

Studio Shots

Work is well underway for Brighton Art Fair in a couple of weeks time. You will be able to find me on Stand 2, just as you enter the Corn Exchange to the left.

I will be showing new work from the daily studio collection (the small 10x10cm ones!) Along with larger work. Watch out for the 1 metre square, the 1.5 metre square and the departure from square format.... a whopping 2 metre x 1 metre panel, stretched French linen and gesso.

I have some spare tickets to the Art Fair, so if you would like to come see the work you have been following on this blog, then drop me an email.

The One That Got Away

I took a break from work for some R&R and sun in Spain. And as ever ended up working however some of it in my sketchbook on the balcony, working some ideas through for new works in the studio upon my return.

As I was in the throws of creative inspiration a gust of warm light Mediterranean wind took the one I was working on off from the ledge up, up and into the trees. Where it remained. Staying at the Hotel Romantic in Sitges, known for its' own art collection of local and regional artisans. Can I now say, 'Work hanging in an international art collection'?

Lots of sketches and colour studies made, so keep an eye on my flickr page for new work as it evolves ahead of seeing it in the flesh at Brighton Art Fair in September. Contact me for invitation or ticket details.

Hold the Dates!

Two Fairs in Two Months... twice the chance to see and buy new work.

Following on from the success of taking my own art work to Brighton Art Fair last year, I decided to apply for it again this year. I will be taking work from the studio and enjoying a few days by the sea 16-19 September.

I have also decided to support the team of Jon Tutton and Sarah Young with their venture of taking the excellent BAF product to London and I will be exhibiting in the inaugural Palace Art Fair 2010 in Fulham Palace, 7-10 October.

Art Fairs have been good to me. I have enjoyed taking groups of artists to fairs, fueled by the energy and buzz that you get from other participants and the punters. I have been invited to speak at several on developing successful sales and networking opportunities and indeed mentored artists during BAF several years back. I now find myself doing it for myself once more and relish the thought; a heady mix of market stall vendor and critical friend to those looking to make a first purchase or hardy collectors. Come and see me. Say Hi!