Ready for the show!

Here are some images of my recent work, hung for the show. If you live in or near London you can see this for yourself from 25th until 28th May at Middlesex University in Hendon. (Grove Building.) Alternatively, selected pieces will be on show at Truman Brewery in Brick Lane between the 9th and 11th of June. Come to see it for yourself! All pieces are for sale, please email me for further information and prices.

The old and the new

This is the final piece from my body of work on my time in Finland, featuring stereotypical English phrases translated into Finnish. Selected pieces will be shown in central London from June 8th.

I've already moved onto new things, working with the themes of self-examination and the conflict between public and private lives. This work will centre around a list of 50 little known facts about myself, confronting the viewer with them, and questioning how much information is too much. The viewer might react with interest, shock or disgust at finding out these facts. I'm expecting to show some work on these themes at an upcoming show in July.

The Sketchbook Project

I can confirm I will be exhibiting in The Sketchbook Project 2013, as I did in 2011. My book for this year will involve documenting my environment and actions at the same time of day, every day, until the book is filled. I did this before as part of a project during my Foundation year, really enjoyed it, and was planning to do it again anyway, but this is an ideal platform. At the moment things seem to be falling into my lap, and opportunities keep arising to let me realise my ideas. It's great.
As well as producing interesting and varied results, working in this way also forces me to create work daily, even if it is on a small scale. I think that at this time, when I'm obliged to find a day job and bring some of my attention away from art, this is invaluable. Another positive side effect is that I want to create an interesting piece, so I'm encouraged to go out and do interesting things, not just create page after page about me watching TV and eating dinner.
When I worked in this way previously I used the time of 3pm every day. This guaranteed that I would be awake and out of bed, but was also a time when I'd be doing a variety of things, not the same thing every day. I've put a little more thought into my chosen time on this occasion, because I may well find myself in a situation where I'm working and cannot stop to draw or take photos. I'm thinking 6pm is a good time, as I'm more likely to be out of work, but still likely to be doing different things from day to day. Hopefully the time will not be a problem and the book can be consistent throughout, if it proves difficult I'll just have to change it.
Aside from that I'm finishing off my body of work on Finland, and details of the exhibition will follow soon. I'm just looking forward to receiving my sketchbook and working on this new project.

New work to end this

I'm getting started on a new piece, which will be the final part of my body of work on my time in Finland. I've really enjoyed making this body of work, and I'm proud of what I've done, but I feel like it's time to move on. When I started this work the experience was really fresh for me, but now six months have passed and other concerns have come up for me which I'd like to work with.
Recently my work has become concerned with human experience, not just relationships, and I think the new piece is more reflective of this. I'm very interested in language, and whilst I was away I was very keen to learn and speak as much Finnish as possible. Even now I still try to keep practising with it. In London it's very normal to hear foreign languages around you, so I didn't find it too daunting to be surrounded by the Finnish language. Finnish is such a minority language that few people are familiar with it, so I thought it would be really interesting to confront my audience with it, allowing them to share my experience of being surrounded by it. I think it will be easy for an audience to relate to this piece, as viewers have likely had the same experience whilst on holiday abroad, or may have lived abroad themselves.
I've chosen to embroider a variety of stereotypical English phrases and concepts, translated into Finnish. The image is of a trial piece I did yesterday, reading "cup of tea". I'll provide a handwritten board with translations, otherwise no one will get the joke of the two cultures being mashed together, unless a Finnish speaker happens to see the work.
For this piece I'm using a style more reflective of handwriting than the block capitals I used previously. This adds to the human element.
I think my exhibition will provide a strong feel of my Finnish experience, and I'm very glad that I'm able to share this with others.
Additionally, I'm currently applying for an artist's residency in Turku for Autumn 2013. I might be back sooner than I think!

Postcard/philosophy piece

I had an extremely busy and productive weekend whilst visiting my parents. I completed this piece, which I am so excited about, and was kindly assisted by my mother, who cut out all the pictures.
The premise is a 2000 word original philosophical text, presented in a visual way to be shown alongside my other exhibition pieces. I wrote about the nature of distance and separation, and it's effect upon relationships, as this is very relevant to my life and work. Originally I wanted to write the text onto postcards from Finland. However, the tourist postcards I found in Turku at Christmas cost €3 each, and as I used 30 postcards for this that would have amounted to €90 in total, plus I didn't particularly like any of the available options. Instead, I used blank postcards and printed some of my own images that I took during my time in Finland. Another advantage of this approach is that the imagery is much more personal to me, and will allow the viewer a better understanding of my personal experience. There is a huge variety of different images in this piece, including a photo of my old house in Turku, images of public artworks that were part of the Capital of Culture programme, and pictures of places that I particularly loved.
Finally, I stitched the cards together to form a very long concertina. The cards can be flipped over to read the text or look at the picture. The finished work, when completely laid out, was the same length as my parent's living room! I'm still considering how to present this work in an exhibition space, but I'm keen on the idea of laying it out as it is in the above picture, probably on a table.
I really love this piece, and feel it successfully shows more of my experience in Finland. This week I'll be working on an embroidered map I started last week of the subjects in the portraits, and the connections we have amongst ourselves.

So many ideas!

This week I've had so many ideas that I'm keen to try, my brain has been working overtime. One particular idea that I've become very passionate about very quickly is top secret, and I've only discussed it openly with two people so far. I'm not going to reveal it here, because that would kind of defeat the object of the whole thing. I know this is all very mysterious, but when this plan comes to fruition all will become clear. It's a really exciting and fun idea, which I'm sure will get a lot of support from other artists, and I feel certain that this will happen and produce some brilliant results.
Apart from that, I have been discussing staging an exhibition in London during the summer with a photographer friend. It's early days and we've only had the vaguest of conversations about this, but I'm optimistic about this too.
Another idea that I'm really enthusiastic about has come from my observation that people pay a lot of attention when I'm embroidering, because it's unexpected, even within a Fine Art community. When I paint nobody takes any notice - it's nothing special in a studio environment. However, sewing produces a very different reaction. A few days ago a lady I'd never even spoken to before came and sat with me for about 10 minutes whilst I was working, to look at what I was doing and chat to me, and she's not the only person to do so. There's also the fact that my appearance, being somewhat unconventional, often attracts attention in public. I'm quite used to people asking about my tattoos, commenting on my hair, and often just telling me how nice they think I look, which is always lovely.
From these two things, I came up with the idea of securing a residency, even if it was short term or just in a cafe, not necessarily a gallery, where I could just get on with my work, and people could watch, as if I were an exhibit. It would kind of be a performance piece, although without much theatre involved. This could be filmed, or alternatively, I could just produce a film, with a collaborator who knows more about that than I do. In the case of making a film without a residency or exhibition, I've considered how theatrical this could be made, possibly with costumes or some kind of movement, but always with the constant theme of me sewing, to play with the idea of myself as a spectacle.
Besides that, I've thought about what I want to do once this body of work about Finland is over, and I want to make work exploring myself and my experiences. I have so much going on in my mind, so many ideas, memories, and ambitions, that I think sorting it all out through art could be fascinating. It'll be a while before I look into that more seriously, but it's something to think about.
I'm sorry if this seems very manic, but there are so many ideas and so many thoughts going on for me right now. It's a good feeling.

The memory blanket

It's finally finished! It still needs to be put it the hot press, but the embroidery has been completed! I'm very proud of the result, and I think the amount of hard work and effort in this piece is evident. Once it has been pressed and tidied up I'm sure it'll look even better.
As I have mentioned previously, this piece lists various memories from my time in Finland, colour coded to correspond to the mixed media portraits of my friends. I feel that this has become a self-portrait, as we are products of our own experience.
Finishing this work has left me with a feeling of pride and relief, but also sadness because it has consumed me for the past couple of months. Throughout this time, I have become more and more enthusiastic about maintaining embroidery as an integral part of my practice, and has lead to me being referred to as a "punk embroiderer". My intention was to have imperfect stitching with a clear human element, and as it was put to me, there would have been no punk without prog rock, as punk was a deconstruction. I have deconstructed hand sewing, and the importance of careful, uniform work. Hence, the punk embroiderer.
I will be exhibiting this piece at my show in April, and after that will probably be selling it. I don't think this will be the only completely stitched work I will produce.
Now that this piece is done I will be looking back over a couple of my mixed media portraits that I was not totally happy with, and possibly giving them a bit more work now that I can see them with fresh eyes. From next week I'll start on a new piece, which I have a few ideas for.