My work Requiem for Oil has been selected for the Bath Open Art Prize Exhibition 2024. There are other pics of work in progress earlier in this blog.
Prize winners will be announced by judges Leonie Bradley and Karen Wallis on Friday 11th October, wish me luck!
The exhibition runs:
10th to 26th October
open 11am-5pm daily
at 44AD artspace, Bath BA1 1NN (this gallery is in the centre of Bath)
bathopenartprize.co.uk
fringeartsbath.co.uk
#BOAP2024
Thank you to organisers Fringe Arts Bath @fringeartsbath and the prize’s supporters for this opportunity: @Wessex_Area @thebellinnbath @studio44ad @minervaartshop
Poster artwork: Andrew Jenner, Sunday in the Park with George @the_dolliverer
The Oil quilt consists of four panels made up of about 80 squares of 20 x 20 cm, printed, painted, drawn, embellished, stitched and embroidered in various ways. I’m finding it hard to finish, the desire to add more detail is strong but almost certainly misguided. Better to work on another piece I think.
Oil quilt, detail, approx 70 x 35 cm
This detail is from the upper left of the second panel, it feels topical. The quilt as a whole seems to be a polemic.
Oil quilt detail, approx 70 x 35 cm
This second detail is from same panel, lower right.
Still sorting out work from a year or two ago, this quilt was made in 2018, there was also an artist’s book using similar mask images. The animals are all British Isles native apart from the grey squirrel, although that has been here for quite some time now. I haven’t done much work for the last two months and sorting out old pieces, repairing or completing them feels like a way back in to making some art. These are sketches of some of the mask images, drawn on a tablet, or drawn on paper and scanned and manipulated in Affinity Photo. The bamboo silk fabric was digitally printed and I also screen printed some tiles but the results were messy.
Many people have reported how the early part of the Covid crisis was a period of stimulus and creativity, I felt that but in the second UK lockdown I felt quite depressed, especially with our government incompetence and found work difficult. I did start work on a fairly large piece – another art quilt – but progress was slow and I have put it aside for a while.
Animal Masquerade, quilted bamboo silk, 120 x 90 cm, 2018
The next and final step is to make a border, this will need to be a dark material and quite wide I think. The quilt was to be a practical piece for a child’s bed but didn’t get finished and so wasn’t used that way. I try to use organic fabrics, usually from the Organic Fabric Co. in Wales but this isn’t always possible; I like bamboo because it is grown without herbicides or pesticides and is really versatile, takes dye and print beautifully and is widely available. The quilting (wadding) is also bamboo.
This little fabric print was made with a simple stencil, I made lots but didn’t use them. Came across it this morning and thought I would add a border. The impression of a face was entirely accidental.
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