Last week I went to the first art exhibition I’ve been to in absolutely ages, down by the harbour at the Aspex Gallery, a place I used to frequent in my student hey-days but unfortunately haven’t had time to visit for a while.
The gallery is one of my favourites, simply because they support artists at the beginning of their careers, when the work they are producing is new, fresh and exciting. I’m a big fan of anywhere that gives artists and writers a hand up, as the industries are so notoriously difficult to get into. It’s situated past the town centre by the harbour, next to a clock tower and close to the most beautifully smelling lavender bed I’ve ever come across, and is one of my current favourite places.
Location aside, the exhibition was fantastic. Although the gallery only has enough space for a one-room show, personally I thought it was excellent. Titled Stranger Things are Happening, the artists used different forms of media to explore the human mind, and comment on issues of race, religion and gender amongst others.
Having only just discovered the exhibition by happy accident, I’ve missed most of the off-site events and screenings that accompanied it (very much looking forward to the talk by Plastique Fantastique on 1st August though!), so decided to give the in-gallery artwork a severe blogging to make up for it.
Plastique Fantastique are an invented group made up of a collaboration between David Burrows, Simon O’Sullivan and others, who comment through art on politics, popular culture and sacred practices. Their offering consisted of a performance to open the exhibition back in June, which sadly I didn’t see (I’ve since signed up to an email newsletter from Aspex so this doesn’t happen again!) but which involved masked performers from Planet Plastique, who came to explore Portsmouth but can only see things through mirrors. I did, however, see the amazing glitter painting on the floor of the gallery, immediately in front of you as you walk through the door past reception.
Lit from above, it was particularly impressive and offered a rather breath-taking encounter when studied at various angles, changing the areas that were emphasised as the light reflected from the glitter. The images varied from faces to trees, flawlessly printed in a range of colours, and as a whole the piece was said to convey the narrative of the performance (yes, the one I hadn’t seen!). It’s pretty hard to comment on the exhibition in any meaningful sort of way, or to examine what the artist is attempting to say without having seen the ‘full picture’ as it were, but I thought the piece was so impressive that I just had to write about it. Also worthy of a mention are the sculptures which accompanied the painting, and were set behind it against the wall.
I have to admit to being a little stumped when it comes to the meaning behind the sculptures, but am hoping for a little more clarity once I’ve been to the talk given by the artists at the gallery. Until then, I’ll just be content to be in ignorant bliss, and enjoy the images.
The second artist that I absolutely have to write about is Jonathan Baldock, who displayed two salt dough heads within the gallery space, a reference to his love of the theatre.
The heads were every bit as macabre as they appear in my pictures, but at the same time are pretty spectacular. I took a close up to show you just how eerie yet intricate the detail is:
The information that went with the exhibition reported that Baldock has a fascination with the ‘grotesque and carnivalesque’, which was certainly apparent from his sculptures. I’ve been enjoying scrutinising his blog obsessively, as there are photographs of his other works that list the materials used, such as dolls eyes, cloves and in one case, human hair. I’m certainly not a great art guru or critic, just a blogger commenting on things that make me stop and take a second look - and Baldocks fantastic sculptures were certainly worthy of that.
As if the brilliant exhibition wasn’t enough, the gallery also has the most marvelous little gift shop with possibly the best nick-nacks for sale that I’ve ever seen. As well as items relating to the current exhibition, there were countless art magazines (I stopped at two, but I’m not promising anything for next time…) and random trinkets, such as the tambourines and vintage-style buckets and spades:
And finally, I couldn’t possibly finish the post without blogging about what I wore for the day. The harem pants got a second outing, this time mixed with little strappy leopard print slippers and a green oversized batwing top from Matalan. The scarf was £3 in the sale from, cough cough, Peacocks. (By the way, I’m not doing a crane impression, just trying to display that the top does in fact have batwing sleeves.)
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