Fish in a box

When we went to the Bite Size exhibition I was waiting for my friend in the lobby of Japan House, and was looking around.  Drawn to a beautiful example of basket work in a piece of art for the wall I peered closely at Owl by Kazuhito Takadoi.  Exquisite, the tiny ties, the precision of placement and spacing.  To sigh for!
Below the framed Owl, on the mantle of a redundant fireplace I encountered a pile of postcards of the above image and was immediately not only attracted but stimulated.  The postcard is to promote an upcoming exhibition of work by Riusuke Fukahori at the ICN gallery.  The exhibition is entitled Goldfish Salvation.
It was a box of fish which cleared the log jam in my thinking.  It brought back a kind of clarity, not of actual ideas as such, but a flow, a facility which allowed me to approach image-making in a relaxed way.  Over the years fish have wiggled their way into many of my images, and I am grateful to them.
The first work to arise from these little slivers in their box was an exercise in exploring possibilities of viscosity printing with monotype.  Thinking about the fish gave me the figures, which gave me my range of compositions.

offset from the roller on newsprint

another detail of an offset from the roller on newsprint

a detail from the print below



the whole roller offset on newsprint from another design

I sometimes find that searching for content ideas can get in the way of fully concentrating on exploring technique, and so it was a glorious gift to stumble across the beautiful box of fish!



The sideways view

As you can see I am still chewing over the nourishment I received from my visit to the Bite Size exhibition.  The quality of this exhibition, like many in the series has been outstanding for me.  Not only has it introduced the work of extraordinary makers but also has inspired my own work.  One aspect in particular has un-jammed my thinking to enable me to leap forward with my ideas.
Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time will know that I witter on from time to time about my thinking about aspects of 3D.  Well, something finally gelled when I saw some of the pieces in the Bite Size show.

Michael Brennand-Wood's piece Flower Heads (embroidered blooms, acrylic, pencils, resin, and wire on wood base) started it off.  By being bright, recognisable, and hung in a corner I went to it first, taking this side-on snap before squiging myself round to take a font-on view as seen here.  I love those multiple views of the coloured pencils, the flower stems, the angles on the flowers, etc.  The piece is so animated, and although still miniature it explodes beyond its actual space.

Squiging myself again, and hence the dreadful snap - apologies, directly opposite Flower Heads is Masae Bamba's Black water (25 x 18 x 14cm, cotton cloth) which looks mildly intriguing until moving round to the side.

The artist is intent on expressing in cloth something about water - which she says 'for me ... is symbolic of beauty and life.'  Even without the title the sideways view brings more than simply a different dimension to the work - and I also so like seeing the supporting shelf and wing nut too.

Liz Nilsson's Veiling and Unveiling (25 x 25 x 10cm  cotton satin, PVC mosquito netting, embroidery fabric, embroidery thread, Perspex fitting) also had me entranced.  From the front it is mysterious, intriguing, theatrical, ... all of which qualities as well as being architectural are increased when given a sideways view.

Somehow, even with some of the layers unveiled, the mysterious quality remains, simply in another dimension.  In looking at this intense small work from the side I also started to imagine myself in there, walking between the layers.  Heady stuff these miniatures!

Ealish Wilson's Jabara 1 (digitally printed Tyvek with mizuhiki strings) is of course presented for best possible otherwise viewing all from one spot.  It is possible not only to see into the form, but also the mirror at the base reflects the bottom narrower outer section.
It was my comparing the fully rounded 3D pieces with the in some senses apparently more limited sideways view pieces which clicked with me.  I immediately returned to a piece which I had made as an exercise to use up fabric paints.  (Which just goes to show how wise the Irish are - as in the old joke: ask an Irishman how to get somewhere, and the answer you get is 'I wouldn't start from here'!)

I realise now without knowing it then that what I was trying to achieve was a sideways view from the front.  And this is what is filling my mind at present - triggered and fuelled by a smashing show of wee pieces, only a few of which I have mentioned in my posts.

Distilled delights

No matter how clear or otherwise I am about the road to follow in expressing myself, one clear aim which I try to keep in mind is to distill.  Not just to Keep It Simple, Stupid, but to try within that clarity to have depth and power.  It is those admirable qualities which I see in so much of the work presented over the years in Lesley Millar's exhibitions.
It can be seen in the work of Sue Lawty and Diana Harrison in the Bite Size exhibition, and shown in my post of  5 November.   It can also be seen in the pieces by Harumi Isobe, Masakazu Kobayashi, Hideaki Kizaki, and Shihoko Fukumoto, for example.

Harumi Isobe: Untitled  12 x 23cm

Masakazu Kobayashi: Untitled  25 x 25 x 4cm

Hideaki Kizaki: House As Asian Origin  20 x 23 x 20cm

Shihoko Fukumoto: TOHOKU 28 x 25cm

This last was quite sufficient in itself: a sumptuous small treasure, and then I read in the catalogue that it is made of paper fabric.  The pleasurable frisson I felt at that I suppose equates to the delight some folks have in eating a particularly rich dark chocolate.

Love-hate relationship?

This rather inferior snap is of Jun Mitsuhashi's Rainy Book in the Bite Size exhibition.  It seems at first glance different from his other work.
I liked the statement made in the catalogue:

In Japanese we have a phrase which translates as 'work in the fields when the sun shines, read books at home when it rains'. .... 

I based this piece upon a book.  The inspiration was the bookmarks that I used to mark interesting pages as I read through the book.  The bookmarks are like splashes of rain, reminding me of rainy days.  On the cover, fossils or gemstones are embedded as a reminder of ancient events.

I hope that this piece serves as a 'book mark' to show the intersection between a uniquely Japanese view of nature and my own point of view.

I found that the work stands alone without any explanation, but the statement gives so much more.

Of course this piece brought me again to thinking about the book form as art.  I have said that I have a longterm tussle with this area.  I am so drawn to the form, the feel, the delights of broad aspects of what can be called a book.  I have even from time to time gone so far as to play with actual maquettes such as the one below.

But there is always that niggling question of whether an art book is neither fish nor fowl.  Is the form appropriate for the content?  Does the content merit this form?  This arose again at the sight of the Rainy Book because I wanted to open it, and was it really a book if it could not be opened?  I'm splitting hairs because it could be seen as sufficient that the piece had stimulated curiosity and desire as well as memory of other books etc. within me.  But nonetheless, that niggle keeps returning, and I would call Rainy Book a piece of sculpture and not a book.

A satisfying meal

Yesterday my duodidactic friend and I braved forecasts of apocalyptic rain to travel up to London to see Bite Size an exhibition of miniature textiles at the Diawa Anglo-Japanese Foundation.  The day was gloriously sunny, and the exhibition was stunning, delightful, thought-provoking, and inspirational - so well worth the trip!

The work above, Flower Heads by Michael Brennand-Wood  25 x 20 x 20cm, is one of the brightest examples.  So many of the pieces are understated but breathtaking in their achievement.

One such is Lead XV by Sue Lawty 24 x 24cm (above is a detail).  It is woven lead.  Extraordinary in that it is so simple, elegant, powerful, and quietly redolent of the heavy noise of early battle!

The exhibition is curated by Lesley Millar who has brought so much of what is happening in textiles to our attention over the past ten years or so.  I suspect that she has also stimulated many artists into broadening their outlooks and their ambitions by bringing so many of them together, either directly in collaborations in the past (such as Through the Surface), or simply in introducing them and their work to each other.

I as an onlooker have certainly been a most grateful beneficiary, not only from the great input, but more important for me, has been the inspiration.  It never ceases to amaze me that seeing brilliant work such as Eilish Wilson's Jabara 1 20 x 20 x 20cm(pictured below),

or Diana Harrison's Damage (work in progress) 22 x 23cm stretched on a square of tiny pins,

or Chiyoko Tanaka's Mud Dyed Cloth - Twig and White Dots #279 12 x 13cm (below)

none of which is remotely like my own work can have my brain buzzing with ideas on the train journey home, and through the night, and still developing now, ....  And those ideas are for my work - again not anything like those images which I hold still precious in my memory.

There is an excellent and delightful small square catalogue which on each double page spread presents a large clear photo of each piece of work with a comment from the artist opposite, available for sale.  If you go to the exhibition take your cheque book with you, because they can only accept cheques.  And do go to the exhibition if you can!