Getting ready for another exhibition at The Cornerhouse Community Arts Centre and a photograph from “Order and KAOS”
May 31, 2013
Another short and sweet art blog entry.
Just sorting out the work I need to hang on Sunday morning at the Cornerhouse Community Arts Centre. I’m not sure where some of it is! Various groups of paintings and prints are spread across the house. I know it’s there, somewhere!
Here’s a photograph from the Open Evening at Leatherhead Theatre. I need to take some more images before the exhibition is taken down tommorrow.
Image of the exhibition at Leatherhead Theatre curated by Jenny Meehan. Paintings involving a high degree of abstraction by British UK artists Derek Turner, Jenny Meehan and Nigel Prabhavalkar.
A great pleasure, involving a lot of work. I now plan, while balancing the household management and other tasks in one hand, to take my paintbrushes and myself into a small hole in the ground and become a hermit for a few months, conversing only with my paintings and opening myself up to the Spirit of the Living God….
That is, only a plan. Reality is never planned!
But it may happen…
Just a silly little note now, to Michael, who faithfully reads my Journal, the knowledge of which is a great encouragement to me, as when writing this most of the time I envisage writing only to myself, and the thought of Michael sitting there avidly reading this artist blog brings great cheer to my heart and even suggests that my meandering discourse might possibly be of slight interest to someone!
Dear Michael,
How nice it is to know that you may be reading this, and that it might just bring a small smile to your face. I also would like to thank yourself and Mie for gracing me with your presence at the theatre. What a pleasure it was to meet you both, and I very much enjoyed telling you both more about my painting, how it is created, and why I bother to spend my time painting! I promised to do something particular in the way of writing, and so here it is!
Kind Regards
Jenny Meehan
See more work by Jenny Meehan at www.jamartlondon.com
Writing that title seems odd…I am being my own headline writer and stepping outside of myself in the process of writing it. However, titles should give a succinct overview and it’s much easier to do this in the…er… Yes, my Literature Degree was a long time ago and I have forgotten the terminology…
“The third-person objective is preferred in most pieces that are deliberately trying to take a neutral or unbiased view, like in many newspaper articles. It is also called the third-person dramatic, because the narrator (like the audience of a drama) is neutral and ineffective toward the progression of the plot — merely an uninvolved onlooker. It was also used around the mid-20th century by French novelists writing in the nouveau roman tradition.”
THAT’S what I meant!
Very please about this: https://www.rethinkyourmind.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=527&Itemid=108
“Well Spring” is one of the paintings on show at the soon to be here “Order and KAOS” Painting Exhibition at Leatherhead Theatre, details below:
order and KAOS leatherhead painting exhibition curated by jenny meehan
The Exhibition “Order and KAOS” is viewable during normal theatre opening hours which are usually Tuesday – Saturday between 10am and 10pm. I really depends what is going on at the theatre. During the Drama Festival at Leatherhead Theatre the exhibition can be seen on Mondays too. The best thing to do is to phone Leatherhead Theatre Box Office and check before coming if you have a distance to travel. The Leatherhead Theatre Box Office number is 01372 365141.
If you would like to come along to the “Meet The Painters” Evening then please register your interest through the contact form on my website www.jamartlondon.com or by emailing me at j.meehan@tesco.net
Leatherhead Theatre have included the exhibition in their Spring Newsletter which I am very grateful for. Do take a look and see what else goes on at Leatherhead Theatre over the Spring Season: http://www.the-theatre.org/images/Spring12.pdf
Sadly spending too much time with admin and housework right now, but I have just send off a recent body of work to Poster Pigeon to be printed. See link: http://www.posterpigeon.co.uk/
Having spent a lot of time and money on printing artwork over the years, I am really impressed with Poster Pigeon http://www.posterpigeon.co.uk/ …and not only because of the name, which is a stroke of inspiration in itself of course! The prices are really excellent and the quality is stunning too. I cannot wait to get my recent “Signs of the Times” series of prints back, and I will be exhibiting some of those at the Cornerhouse Community Arts Centre in Tolworth, Surbiton, in June (KT6 7SB). When I find something worth shouting about, I do tend to shout about it, if it is good.
If you like geometric abstraction, colour, expression of feelings and if Kandinsky-ish type of visual communication interests you, then you would probably enjoy this exhibition very much. The opening night is Tuesday 4th June between 7pm and 9pm, and all are welcome. Email me if you think you would like to come along if possible, so we have an idea of numbers. I also have recent paintings on show, in which texture combines with colour in some process-led compositions, and though I haven’t decided yet which ones will be on show, there will be at least four of those I should think!
In a rather disorganised manner, (or maybe just a differing narrative arrangement!) I loop back to the Rethinkyourmind strand. Let me expand the strand!
Rethinkyourmind
“Well Spring “ was selected as one of the artworks to be used in a fantastic mental health resource. I am told that 260 artworks were submitted and I feel very grateful to have an image of this painting included in such a great project. I’m not sure exactly what the book which is going to be made will be called,(I think just Rethinkyourmind ????) but it’s going to be spread around the UK, as it will be made available for free at the 38 NHS Trusts across the country who signed up to the venture. So they are going to print thousands! It says on the Rethinkyourmind website “These positive books will be made available for families, carers, service users and professionals to give them a very connecting and useful resource at times that can be disconnecting.”
I am so pleased. I like my work to be used in a socially engaged way! What we do is never just about us, I don’t think. We always leave a mark.
The prize presentation for the 46 selected entries will take place in the Cholmondeley Room at the Palace of Westminster, House of Lords, London on May 1st 2013 with Professor Lord Patel of Bradford OBE. I am quite looking forward to that as I have wanted to visit the House of Lords for a while and this is a very good way of doing so! Each of the selected artists will get one of a hand bound copy of the book too.
The Rethinkyourmind Book
The 120 page hardback book includes
Material to aid recovery from SISO (Safe Inside Safe Outside)
Recovery material from The Institute of Psychiatry Kings College London
Recovery material from The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Recovery material from The NHS Confederation MHN
Signpostage to National organisations and charities of support
A page for the local NHS trust
46 pages of positive artwork and poetry from the project
Forewords from prominant figures including Professor Lord Patel of Bradford OBE
A page from each member of the artwork and poetry panel
A CD with the music singles and two poems to be attached to the book
About Rethinkyourmind
Rethinkyourmind was born out of the Leicester based Community Interest Company SISO (Safe Inside Safe Outside) with the desire to raise awareness of mental health, help people look at the subject from a positive perspective, and bring a sense of community into circumstances that can make people feel disconnected.
Here is an image of the painting “Well Spring” which they have chosen to include in the book. I think I posted it earlier (I never look back on my journal entries! Goodness knows how many times I repeat myself!)
Well Spring is one of the artworks in the new Rethinkyourmind mental health resource
I also submitted a poem, but I don’t think the link between the painting and poem was registered. (This was my fault I think as I didn’t make it clear, and there were two different selection committees!) However, the link is very important to me, and so here is the writing which accompanied the painting.
Well Spring
Source of my life, spring upward!
Refresh my soul, bring colour!
Deep, deep, is the quarry of my life
Harsh are the hard rocks;
They face my every move.
But fear breaks in the face of love
and waters bring joy…
Bring forward hope, hope for my living.
Beyond the breakage
I see light.
I might play around with the punctuation I bit more and the line arrangement I think, but that will do for now.
When painting the work I was very aware of how much it reflected my own need to draw from a source of refreshment and renewal, most particularly in those very dry, dark and difficult times, and so I do hope that seeing the image will continue to be a source of visual life and energy to those who do see it.
Urban Dialogues Event
Urban Dialogues Connect was an interesting evening, and I notice from the Urban Diaologues Facebook page that they have put up some photographic images from the evening which was held at the White Cube. Or is it The White Cube? I don’t like the lighting in there, though it maybe good for viewing artwork, it seems very harsh. The space is intimidating I think, though it must be pretty handy if you have HUGE sculptures to show. (I wonder how often they repaint it?) I don’t like having my photo taken at the moment, because I need to loose some weight, and doesn’t it just show in photos!
The Urban Dialogues Connect gave me the opportunity to network a little, and I do have an interest in dialogue… Yes, I remember being constantly told off at school for talking too much! The idea behind the event was to enable artists from different faith/religious groups to network with view possibly of working collaboratively, which is something I could get very enthusiastic about indeed. It’s an excellent idea/vision, and I hope they do many similar things, as it does take time to work out who you could work well with.
http://urban-dialogues.tumblr.com/tagged/udevents2012
I am currently reading “A New Kind of Christianity” by Brian McLaren but I haven’t yet got to the chapter “How Should Followers of Jesus Relate to People of Other Religions?” I am expecting of course the simple answer to be with love and respect, and from my reading of this wonderful book I expect to be stimulated in my thinking a little further beyond the simple answer…
I am very glad indeed I found “A New Kind of Christianity” because it is one of the most interesting books I have read for ages. It seems to have stirred up all kinds of rather extreme responses from some quarters ( Brian McLaren is apparently a heretic and all kinds of other fearful things!) but it’s the book I searched for (without knowing if I would find it!) as I scanned the bookshop at Spring Harvest Minehead this year. I think his perspectives are timely and interesting, and challenging. Can that be a bad thing? I think not.
Poetry Library
The Saison Poetry Library houses the Arts Council poetry collection, the most comprehensive and accessible collection of modern poetry in Britain. The collection, dating from about 1914, consists of most poetry from the United Kingdom and Ireland, a large selection from English-speaking countries worldwide, poetry in translation, poetry by and for children, rap and concrete poetry. Audio and video facilities are available in addition to a large variety of magazines, press cuttings and ephemera. Membership is free and the library is open daily (except Mondays) from 11am to 8pm. I went along there for the first time this week, and I will be making this a regular trip in order to widen my own poetry reading, which kind of went to pot after I finished my Literature Degree.
And Everything Else
This looks like an interesting exhibition, though a bit too far away for me to visit! http://www.newcriterion.com/posts.cfm/-Painterly-Pasted-Pictures–at-FreedmanArt-7100
I do have the chance to visit Tate Britain, which I am going to do soon. I like the way things get shuffled around and the exhibitions change quite regularly. I haven’t been for a long while. It’s going to be a very nice walk there if the weather stays good.
Also plan to see this: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/gert-uwe-tobias. I love what they do. I first came across Gert and Uwe Tobias at an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery a year or two ago. Cannot wait to see some more of their wonderful work. Exhibition text from the Whitechapel website, for your information I quote below:
“Romanian-born twins Gert and Uwe Tobias (b. 1973), make collaborative woodcuts, sculptures, collages and drawings. Having moved to Germany in 1985, they studied in Braunschweig and live and work in Cologne. The influence of communist era style combines in their work with the legacies of European folklore and German post-war painting.
The Tobias brothers’ giant woodcuts and wall paintings draw on modernist geometric abstraction; but they combine line, shape, colour and typography with the narrative images and patterns of folk art, using decorative motifs such as flowers, plants, patterns, embroidery and domestic objects.
Their collages are like stage sets on which splashes of pigment and found images of animals or humans are assembled in a performance. Playfulness combines with violence as body parts are fragmented across the picture surface. Their figures also metamorphose into plants or birds; macabre yet innocent, they lend a surreal dimension to the Tobias’ imagery. The artists also use the antiquated aesthetic of the typewriter to create intense drawings that spike the eye.
This specially conceived installation also includes ceramics. They take mass produced crockery and add ceramic extrusions and coloured glazes turning an ordinary plate or vase into an expressionistic sculpture. Boundaries between craft and fine art, abstract concept and unconscious fantasy, modernity and tradition, dissolve. ”
Wonderfully exciting work, beautifully described. Well worth a visit!
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2013
I entered the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition this year, for the first time. I view it as a gamble, and a rather wild one at that. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. I would rather chance it.
It’s the history which attracts me. Interesting information here on the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition:
Jenny Meehan Website Information
I’ve realised I don’t tend to highlight the fact that I have a website on this Jenny Meehan WordPress Journal Artist’s Blog, so I will try and remember to include at the foot of each posting my website details which are www.jamartlondon.com My jamartlondon.com website is quite new and so needs a bit of work bringing it up to date but it does give a taste of my practice, certainly in terms of showcasing some recent paintings from 2012, recent experiments with digital prints and also some examples of poetry. I have a lot more work than is shown on the website though, so if you want to commission something or have a particular kind of imagery or work in mind, do contact me. I enjoy working three dimensionally too, but I have chosen not to show that strand of work on the website, just to attempt to keep things tidy, at least in theory!
