Day Three of the Plymouth Arts Weekender 2017: Barbican, Athenaeum, and Union Street

I'm writing this the night after the events in question because, just like this time last year, I was mentally exhausted, and couldn't have put in the amount of effort I have done nor done the various artists the justice they deserve. So here, at last, is the final installment for your delectation.

NB: as this article was written in collaboration with Plymouth University's SU: Media online magazine, some editing has been done which I have applied (in places).

In true Plymouthian spirit, the last day of the Arts Weekender was another damp one, but yours truly mustered the determination to don wellies and raincoat, and go forth.

First port of call was to the Plymouth Arts Centre’s small Batter Street space which artist Jules Varnedoe had transformed into a cocoon of natural awareness for his installation Anthrosoluble Dispersion. Invasive plant species hung vacuum-sealed from the walls, a small display case of plastic drawn from the sea stood opposite another of sheep’s wool and fertiliser, while a video shot beneath the waves revealed a shoal of plastic waste. The sound of the rain outside gently bled into those waves, turning this into a fully immersive, yet minimalist installation. I almost didn’t want to leave; I had found a place where art was doing what it did best: opening people’s eyes to the truth. Unfortunately, my expedition was not over so I had to leave in search of the curiously titled I Don’t Believe Birmingham Exists by Adrián Bishop at Studio 102. Based on a statement from the New Scientist Magazine that ‘Nine out of ten people hold a delusional belief’, the exhibition greeted me with several psychedelic faces, most were sporting inane grins and wild red eyes, and illustrating their own real-life delusional beliefs in indelible ink, as if to symbolise the permanence of such philosophies. Wandering the small space, each bold statement seemed more deranged than the last, encouraging me to see that Adrián’s work does what we should all be doing, which is challenging those beliefs.

Having had my eyes opened a little wider to the world, I took a brief hot-chocolate-based interlude at the Boston Tea Party before continuing, this time to the Athenaeum for What Does Not Respect. This three-piece installation led me into the secret disused tunnel beneath the building where I found some curious sights:

Indistinct faces and figures gazing out of the cracked walls, an allusion to the ephemerality of photography courtesy of Katie Upton.

A deflated pool of bread dough on which artist Louise Riou-Djukic had previously lain for her performance ‘Eat Me Eat You’, an homage to the media’s obsession with female dieting and how food consumes us.

A stark canvas creation sitting at the end of the tunnel, gradually dripping icy meltwater into a sling below, dreamed up by Lisa Davison to conceptualise the ‘liminal period experienced during a rite of passage’, this being motherhood. 

If these pieces were removed from the tunnel, they would not have had the same impact. They interacted with all the senses to create an unsettling state of limbo. It came as something of a relief then to ascend to the Athenaeum once again, if only to peer into Rhys Morgan’s Platform, an audio-visual collage dealing with the media and the ‘claustrophobic isolation’ that comes with misunderstanding it. After a brief period watching videos being searched and buffered and layered, everything suddenly cut out – I never discovered why. However, from one installation about exclusion, I found myself moving to one of inclusion: Night Light by Jack Carberry-Todd (part of Transitional Assemblage) at the nightclub The Factory. Inside the unassuming venue were hypnotic, disorienting spirals and diffuse, unsettling shapes on the walls, brought to life under UV lighting to create ‘the techno sublime’, an experience one could only fully appreciate while dancing in this space after dark. Regardless of the lack of sensory overload, I still felt a part of the installation as the pages of my notebook began to fluoresce.

Returning to the Athenaeum, I sat in on Mark Leahy’s Threaded Insert, part of the Tears in Rain installation. As I waited for activity on the stage before me, a disembodied voice spoke from above, counting out steps, spelling out words, and describing exact location. After a short while, the speaker himself appeared in the doorway, showing himself to be taking orders from an mp3 headset. His steps continued despite any obstacles which meant he would climb over chairs or off the stage, and the words were spelled by touching corresponding parts of his body. It was a bizarre spectacle, deriving its content from ‘proper’ speech and conduct guides, and often repeating itself or being stopped partway through by new instructions, as if to emphasise the control this system had over the artist. I realised that the Weekend was similarly taking control over me, my hunger for discovering art meant I neglected my hunger for food. I decided to search for something to eat before I could wrap things up at the Union Street Afterparty. 

Having refuelled at The Bank nearby – and unsuccessfully refused free cake at the Athenaeum – I made it to Union Corner. On the bill was:

Sam Richards: a London-born folk/jazz artist who wanted us to know that everything we do is, one way or another, political

Simon Travers: creator of the Stackhouse Jones Project, this local poet’s haunting tones served up a bizarre reminder of the real world

Lola Beal: The Mayflower 400 Young City Laureate took us through her thoughts on poetry and the work she did to gain her coveted position

Richard Thomas: a surrealistic beatnik poet who gave us a brief glimpse into the anxieties of fatherhood and what it’s like to never run out of soup

Thom Boulton and Daniel Morgan a.k.a. Blaidh and Sounde: a duo who’d give Tenacious D a run for their money brought folklore humorously to life, especially when dealing with one angry ogre’s seagull vendetta

And lastly, only just making it to the Afterparty in time from his slot at Tears in Rain, was Mo Bottomley: when someone walks on stage wearing false eyelashes and clutching a handful of paper strips which all begin with the word ‘pants’, you know there can be no better way to end the night. Or the entire Arts Weekender for that matter. I hope you enjoyed it too.

Day Two of the Plymouth Arts Weekender 2017: Town and Millbay

Today did not disappoint in the quantity of stuff I managed to cram into 7 hours, and I'm sure my pedometer is sitting in the five digits region I've done so much walking. But it feels good to be engaging with this city in such a rewarding way. I hope I have done these installations even half the justice they deserve.

NB: as this article was written in collaboration with Plymouth University's SU: Media online magazine, some editing has been done which I have applied (in places).

As I very much predicted, having set out today with a plan of what I wanted to see and when...nothing really permitted me to follow said plan.

The time was half past nine and I arrived into town to view Temenos, an installation at the Methodist Church Central Hall. The installation revolved around the idea of thresholds, sanctuaries, and new things coming into being, only to find the opening time had changed. Afterwards, I was on a mission to find the Orbit Bus Session but this was unfortunately delayed. I came to realise that is was possible to be too organised.
Fortunately, I was now able to return to the former sanctuary of Ric Stott and Ian Adams. Through a series of 10 paintings (Stott) and poems (Adams), a viewer was taken on their own journey of self-discovery, the former balancing warm swathes of colour with cool scribbles and scratches over beautifully simplistic black and white drawings, which the latter gave greater spiritual meaning to. By the end, only warmth and strength remained, as if ready to start the ‘story’ over, an apt method given its religious vibe.

The Truth Wall - Plymouth What's On stand

Following this, I thought I would be at a loss once more until The Truth Wall began shouting its anti-politics at me from the "What’s On" stand. Organised by the Kiss and Bite Letterpress Studio, any potential traces of old announcements were virtually smothered by the haphazard pasting of 80s-style propaganda. Its boldly coloured declarations of ‘Don’t Be Calm, Be Angry’ were instantly eye-catching and subvert the typical 'Keep Calm and Carry On' narrative. After circling this outspoken piece a few times like an inquisitive dog, I wandered to the Hoe in search of Anita Lander; her unique decision to sit and listen on a bench beneath a tree for seven hours intrigued me. Alas, she too was nowhere to be seen so I turned myself back to town to continue the next leg of my arty odyssey.

Having sufficiently caffeinated myself with an iced Americano and picked up my constant companion in all things arty, Mark Jones, we investigated BankRUN, a small wooden ATM created by Lara Luna Bartley to mark the 10^th anniversary of Northern Rock’s collapse. Having ‘activated’ the machine by trusting my finger to a small hole in the display, a magical hand provided me with the option of three bank notations and one of three radical economists to adorn the note. After a brief wait, the chosen note was delicately ejected through a slot, bearing Ben Dyson’s face on one side, and a female face oddly like my own on the other. Wishing it had any monetary value, we advanced to the bus stop in anticipation of the Wonderzoo Bus Tour organised by Peter Davey. Just up the road sat the number 34 Orbit bus, its top deck stuffed with brilliant pink orbs, taunting my impatience and self-inflicted schedule, but I had stranger things to attend to on a bus. Joined by some of last night’s Versify crew, we experienced out-of-tune group renditions of The Sound of Music. Oddly enough, West country comedian Richard James appeared to be more at home shouting at people on a bus (despite the unconventionality of doing just that) than small talk. Versify’s own poet, Nick Ingram, was looking to beat his own record for the verbal 100-metre dash, before Versify’s organiser Marian tantalised the ears with her poem on whales, whales, whales. After an hour, we’d ended up so far out of town, we needed to catch another bus back.

Once returned to familiar ground, we trekked out to what I perceived to be the final location on my schedule, the Plymouth School of Creative Arts, playing host to multiple installations for the weekender, which included:

The Curious Cattewater Dog Cabinet (Zoe and Callum Moscrip): a means of bridging the gap between artefact and community by bringing evidence of one such artefact (a shipwreck) to life in the form of a skeletal puppet dog. Despite its obviously deceased state, I felt it might move at any moment – if only the mechanism would allow it to.

In the Air… (Jenny Mellings): a set of three aerial painted scenes of remote landscapes – even as far as Saturn’s moon, Titan – which provided a way to make the distant seem nearer, and the reverse, in a tangible space.

What do you see? (Janine Rook): a series of visitor-created Rorschach inkblots intended to explore one’s psyche. Most of the images had a biological nature for me – lungs, tree, uterus – what could that be saying about my psyche?

Paradice Lost (Stuart Robinson and Kirsty Harris): in my quest for deeper meanings behind art, this minimalist interaction of a neon red sign saying ‘PARADICE’ (Robinson) and a colour scene of a mushroom cloud (Harris) said it all loud and clear. However, that was not all there was to it. Other interpretations emerged from my conversation with Stuart, such as the installation’s sense of not-rightness. This derived from the incorrect spelling of paradise and the innocuous ‘poof’ of the cloud.  It was through this conversation that my [true] final stop was mentioned: KARST’s contribution to We the People Are the Work, I Am Your Voice by Claire Fontaine.

In the spaces provided, we found a map of the British Isles composed of burnt matches, signifying a ‘tragedy perceived too late’, the smell of which tainted the air; and a set of three neon signs in red and white lighting up an otherwise pitch-black room which smelt of fresh paint. Their ambiguous messages allowed a viewer to question the concept of morals: I do it because it’s right/It’s right because I do it. 

An ominous self-portrait

The signs frighteningly seemed to communicate with one another as the individual words lit up, making me glad to leave the room – if only to peep into KARST’s own Peepshow. Through nine installed peepholes could be seen a snippet of the resident artists’ work, allowing the average viewer a glimpse behind the scenes, one piece proving difficult to tear Mark away from due to it living up to the installation’s name.

Phew, and with that, day two is wrapped. Any quotes are taken from the provided leaflets. Bring on day three!

Day One of the Plymouth Arts Weekender 2017: Various Areas

So here we are again, PAW round two. So far it's been a wet but still fulfilling day and I can only expect more to come. Someone help me, what have I done? But in all seriousness, I am writing this review for the university's online magazine so I must make the effort, plus I like working to deadlines. So enjoy.
NB: as this article was written in collaboration with Plymouth University's SU:Media online magazine, some editing has been done which I have applied (in places).

It’s getting late as the first day of the Plymouth Arts Weekender 2017 draws to a damp close, but the challenge of documenting this city-wide event still lays before me, and so, in true student fashion, I shall be awake long after my accustomed bedtime (and probably for the next two nights also).

I was reasonably well rested but was very eager to seek out the artistic talent that was on offer in the Scott Building on campus. My main goal was to locate on the top floor a small exhibition of MA Photography called Perception. Slowly tracing my way down the silent corridor, I gave each piece my full attention and found my favourites to be thus:

She is Whispering, They are Whispering

 Mary Pearson – She is Whispering, They are Whispering: an almost 3-dimensional diptych of misty trees which felt as if they were hiding their aforementioned whisperer(s) in the gloom.

Cheryl Davies – The Seven Seals: a contrasting pair of white on black Spirograph-effect forms, one orderly, one chaotic, but both equally discomforting in their respective states.

Christopher J. Russell – My friend, you are a lunar lamplight: in five night-time shots and a brief travel narrative, the streets at night are brought alive despite their apparent barrenness, everything the light shines on brought into sharp focus.

Donna Richardson – The River Flows; and Mathilda Hu – It’s difficult to be water: water can be a difficult form to capture, but both Richardson and Hu managed to depict their subject uniquely and clearly. 'The River Flows' provided a snapshot of life, especially vivid when seen through a lightbox, the motion of the water’s texture anticipated but never realised. However, with 'It's difficult to be water', this texture was played with, first scaly and cold, then soft, through to warm and golden.

Sue Taylor-Money – Leaving by Degrees: a particularly poignant piece told through photo and poem of an ageing man contemplating life, exuding a kind of sad strength which touched me, as I imagine it would have done others.

After a little disappointment from two exhibits nearby – and a few hours spent manning the Peninsula Arts stall during Freshers Fair (my thanks to everyone who came and listened) – I wandered my way through the rain to the Safe House. This was an installation whose location was only disclosable via email, but which revealed itself to be a small semi-interactive sound-and-vision immersion within St Peter’s Church. 
I was greeted by the artist herself (who shall remain anonymous), who, in keeping with the installation’s domestic theme, provided me with a mug of tea before explaining the story behind what I was seeing/hearing. Each of the four projected videos within the small chamber illustrated her feelings concerning domestic abuse, something she has been a victim of herself: a cloth doll being gradually unpicked; the suicidal or forced proximity to a cliff edge; the playful yet uneasy fall of feathers as if from a pillow fight; and the small beams of light/hope from a net curtain. Wrapped up in a paranoid-schizophrenic chatter, its entrance was strewn with broken eggshells – which I was encouraged to walk on – and it was impossible not to feel uneasy myself; the church, a usually safe place, only amplified the voices. But Karen, by providing me with the background information and becoming my living placard, seemed to soften the chaos, further illustrated by the happier, silent video which sat on a separate set nearby.

Still smiling, as I walked back into town through the rain, my penultimate stop was I am not a robot at the Radiant Gallery on Derry’s Cross. Set up to raise awareness of foster care, the small dimly lit space was haunting, hung with tangled webs of fabric and multiple silver and white cages, each home to a furless, metallic, sleeping Furby. These would periodically wake up with a subtle click of their plastic ears and beaks, half-lidded eyes blazing bright. The atmosphere was enhanced by a sci-fi soundtrack which was equal parts hopeful, yet haunting. These metallic ‘children’, representative of real ones, were intended as foster child analogues to test one’s fostering skills, but the moment I saw Tim Burton’s poetry sitting on the provided sofa, I was only worried I’d make the poor things cry.

Thus, with a rotisserie chicken Subway in hand, I finished the day with an evening of words and sound at Versify, the culmination of a month of creative workshops at Union Corner. Having spent the better part of an hour simultaneously finishing a half-written poem about an overzealous poet and listening to those on the night’s set-list practise their material, we were ready to begin. Amongst the talent was a spot of exotic dancing, some short but infectious rapping, young singers testing their vocal chords on punk and rock, an even younger dance prodigy who moved like a robot marionette, and a sizable dose of modern day comedic poetry, most notably (and deafeningly) delivered by the established poet Nick Ingram - a man I would describe as the ‘clown’ of the Plymouth poetry scene. When it came to test out my new material, I was genuinely surprised at my own nerves, but also at the post-delivery high I had forgotten came with these gigs – not to mention the occasional enthusiastic compliments. My good friend Mark Jones followed in my wake with his own breed of brief and bizarre wit, before the night began to wind down and put an end to day one of PAW17.

Day Three of the Plymouth Arts Weekender: Union Street and The House, Plymouth University

My contribution to 'What we talk about...'

Here it is, the final day of the event. Unfortunately, I haven’t been as involved in it as with the first two days. I think my artistic eye is beginning to tire. Nonetheless, I managed to attend one small exhibition on Union Street: ‘What we talk about when we talk about love’ by MarcellaFinazzi at Sloggett and Son. 

Walking in, it felt at first like any other antiquities shop, however, further back it became more like a domestic living space crammed with retro furnishings – a boar’s head on the wall, old bicycles, comfy chairs. I would describe it as homely yet foreign chic. The idea behind it was to take in the room and then write a note about what love means to you. My meaning was along the lines of love being a place where you can go with the one who matters to you – coincidental then, that a map of the Netherlands happened to be on the wall, the very place I had visited on two occasions with my special someone.

Julian Isaacs: A man at one with his creative side

I again had my companion Mark Jones with me today, and while he was willing to explore whatever exhibition I chose, my heart wasn’t in it anymore, and so we turned away from the simmering revelry of the Union Street Party and re-entered the town centre. Along the way, we spotted local performance poet Julian Isaacs strumming away on-stage, before passing what the Arts Weekender leaflet termed ‘the smallest exhibition space in Plymouth…probably’ in the window of The Zone – and it was pretty much just that. Steve Clement-Large’s ‘Probably’ was a small collection of items in a shop front which you could easily miss if you weren’t looking for it. I didn’t examine it too closely though, so any significance between the title and its components was lost on me. A further disappointment

Spot the Exhibition: Steve Clement-Large

was learning that Jo Beer’s collection of works at the Theatre Royal entitled ‘Fleshy’ was not open to the public until tomorrow. The glimpse I caught through the window though looked promising so I may return. However, I did have one last event for the day: ‘Music of motions and presence’ at The House. 

It was quite honestly the most original, haunting, and experimental piece of abstract music I had ever heard. The instruments seemed to come alive under the musicians’ hands, sometimes, with the aid of motion sensors, without even touching them. This was, of course, the aim: to create sound using gestures and the musicians’ body movements. Marco Frattini commanded a drum kit, a small set of acoustics, and an electronic drum pad, from which escaped sounds unlike anything I’d ever heard from such instruments: explosively metallic heartbeats, chaotic stampedes, and screams drawn out by running a violin bow along the edge of a cymbal. Running solo was Lara Jones on a saxophone, creating noises which ranged from the roar of a plane overhead to the discordant trumpet of several stuck elephants, with a classic jazz tune in between. To complete the trio was the most important figure of all: researcher, composer and performer Federico Visi. His instruments of choice included electronic drum pad, synth board, and guitar, the latter of which dominated my attention. There was an almost organic quality to the noises he drew from it, groaning, growling, lurking like a predator, at times giving me chills when he drew a bow across its strings. All of this combined to create an ensemble full of anxious energy, hints of the industrial classicism of steampunk, and ghostly

Calm before the Storm: 'Music of motions and presence'

reverberations caused by the musicians’ movements. It was truly otherworldly to watch Federico move his hands above his guitar and hear the notes being drawn out, as if his own body had become an instrument or, as in the principle of The Extended Mind, the instrument was part of him. I learnt in a short talk with him after the show that these performances are a fairly even balance between scored and improvisation so it’s not always clear what will happen next. To be honest, I could’ve listened all night; there’s just something about the distortion and uniqueness of such music that never ceases to amaze.

As, indeed, has this Plymouth Arts Weekender.

Day Two of the Plymouth Arts Weekender: Plymouth University

In a fashion quite unlike me, I decided to have some company while viewing today’s selection of art pieces, in the shape of friend and fellow performance writer Mark Jones. My centre of attention today fell upon the exhibitions being held on the university campus.

Douglas Gordon

Starting in the Peninsula Arts Gallery, we found ‘Searching for Genius’ by Scottish, Turner Prize winner Douglas Gordon, labelled a ‘reconsideration of genius, virtuosity, education, and skill’. The three installations present were thus:

• ‘Self Portrait of You + Me’, a quartet of publicity photos (Omar Sharif, Johnny Cash, Oliver Reed, and David Bowie) with eyes and mouths singed out and mounted on mirrors. The idea here was the perception of identity, recognising a famous figure without their facial features. While familiar, even without his iconic eyes, Bowie looked nothing short of horrific. Mark was able to see the funny side, remarking that it was literally ‘Ashes to Ashes’ for Bowie, while Cash had fallen into an actual ‘Ring of Fire’. Perhaps that was the idea.

• The glasses of artist Joshua Reynolds which were described as ‘auratic’, embodied with his aura, and conveying his physical fallibility. I saw it as depriving Reynolds of his eyes, just as Gordon had done with his celebrity photos.
• ‘Feature Film’ – a ‘divorce between sound and vision’ – consisted of an unseen orchestra with only the conductor’s hands visible on screen, and beyond, a small television silently playing Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’. In this instance I felt the actors had been deprived of their ability to talk as with the photos.

Victoria Walters

Jamie House

Moving upstairs, we encountered ‘Edge of Collapse’, an installation of art by placement students. Entering the room, we were immediately confronted with a lamp-lit row of plants confabbing through microphones. This was ‘Emergency Conference’ by Victoria Walters. Speaking to her, we learnt she drew her inspiration from the work of German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys whose interest in flora and fauna instigated the concept of climate change in her work. It was an ingenious piece, reminding me a little of Alice in Wonderland with its talking flowers. Her second piece ‘Groundswell’ was of mixed media and gave a natural effect to otherwise unnatural materials, in particular a set of candyfloss-pink polystyrene blocks looking like alien driftwood. At the centre of the room was the singular ‘Seizure Drawing, treatment 1, 2, 3’ by Jamie House, a sheet of rolled paper bearing a pattern akin to seismic cracks or, to quote Mark again, ‘an aerial view of the Grand Canyon’. This intriguing piece was in fact

Claire Thornton

created by electrically charging the paper and intended to visually represent electroshock therapy. The third and final was ‘friends of magic | agents of change’ by Claire Thornton, a mixed media piece where what seemed solid wasn’t quite so, and what looked liquid was solid. In particular, a podium made of what looked like multi-coloured marble was in fact foam. 

Tim Mills

Over in the Scott Building, there was a lot more work on display than I had originally anticipated, with two exhibitions overlapping each other. Due to this, I shall simply highlight my favourites. Of the ‘Media Arts @ Plymouth’ exhibition by BA (Hons) Media Arts staff:

• Tim Mills: ‘Malaise’: This had the Droste effect about it, being a series of photos of advertising boards at Bretonside, Plymouth, displayed within themselves. Mills described this as a way to ‘fill a void within a void’ and confront the public’s general feeling of malaise – caused by the EU referendum. The tiny points of interest in each shot gave them further personality.
• Inés Rae: ‘Guards’: A varied series of sepia photographs of gallery guards. Simple, yet complex in their variety, and taken at angles which one might not have considered. It was as if Rae saw the guards themselves as exhibits.

  

  David Hilton

• David Hilton: ‘Along the Way’: Anyone who has taken a panorama shot knows the potential for accidently splicing your scenery, yet Hilton has used this effect to his advantage, including motion blur, spliced vehicles, and colourful scenery in his set of London and country photographs. They give the viewer a sense of motion, as if glimpsing the world out of a train or car window.

Liz-Ann Vincent-Merry

Of ‘The Forms of Possibility’ exhibition by graduating MA Photography and MFA Photographic Arts students:

• Liz-Ann Vincent-Merry: ‘The Marseille Papers’: At first, just a series of aged female portraits, but with some insight into Vincent-Merry’s thought process, it became an attempt to create a ‘dialogue between past and present’, penetrate the 2D photographic surface, and question who they were. One face, central to the collection, was particularly striking, her eyes looking right at you through time.
• Sian Davey: ‘Martha’: While this piece, as a photograph, did not interest me, the idea behind it opened up a world of speculation. Davey’s daughter features in it, on the cusp of adulthood, and thus neither a girl nor a woman. She becomes someone ‘free of the weight of societal expectations’ and thus not a person at all, a ‘nonentity’. Additionally, she is not identified in the picture which only enhances the enigma and invisibility of ‘Martha’.

  

  David Gibson

• David Gibson: ‘Dark Light and Mist’: This small series of misty black and white photographs was perhaps the most introspective of the lot, leaving the viewer feeling almost isolated in the profound quiet of the pieces. Each appears to be filled with fog/mist with just a hint of detail such as a tree, allowing the eyes to sift through the layers and the mind to imagine what lies beneath.

I think I have successfully covered all which piqued my interest for today. All quotes are from the various leaflets provided. With day two over, bring on the third and final day!

Day One of the Plymouth Arts Weekender: The Barbican

I know I usually use this blog for posting my old and new poetry, however, this piece (and the two that will follow) does not quite fit the parameters of my other blogs, thus I give you Day One of the Plymouth Arts Weekender: The Barbican.

Today I learnt that I was missing out big time. Last year, the Plymouth Arts Weekender meant virtually nothing to me; however, this time, even just from today, I found out I had deprived myself of so much local artistic talent. 

The 100 Most Watched

I started my expedition at the Plymouth Arts Centre to take in Danish artist Katya Sander’s exhibition ‘Publicness’. This consisted of ten pieces created from the material of the streets – graffiti, finance, the ‘public subconscious’ – which brought the city into the gallery. The two pieces on the ground floor were stark and simplistic, ‘The 100 Most Watched’ chaotically scrawled across one wall. The second floor was more of a burst of colour, as seen in the

Some Statements in Relation to
a Bank

complicated ‘Some Statements in Relation to a Bank’ which conveyed an ignorance and a lack of trust for the humble banker. Two installations were audio videos and, as art in this form goes, a little confusing, but ‘Exterior City’ made me feel as if Sander were trying to say ‘we are all actors within the manuscript of our city’.

Sue Willis

My next stop was Only Originals on White Lane where the works of Sue and daughter Christie Willis were being displayed and sold. I spoke with the artists, though at the time did not know it. The acrylic floral paintings of Sue Willis struck me as possessing a pastel-shaded vibrance which almost seemed to glow, while her serene country and maritime scenes captured the varying levels of sunlight perfectly. Daughter Christie’s work focused primarily on animals, lacking slightly in depth or character, but the brushwork remained soft and practised. It was the perfect scenery for a typical country poem. Check out their shop on White Lane, Barbican.

Christie Willis

Up next was the Barbican New Street Artists at Studio Two, New Street. This collection of art belonged to local artists Glyn White, Dave Crocker, Keith Simmons, and Caroline Mercer. Unfortunately, I missed the work of the latter, but what I saw did not disappoint. Keith Simmons displayed a series of maritime pieces in acrylic, a piece entitled ‘Spirits of the Sea’ capturing water in motion with surprising detail. Dave Crocker favoured an almost photographic approach, painting local buildings and people with a degree of soul and personality, evident in ‘The Girl with the Silver Tongue Stud’. However, it was the moody maritime and moorland scenes of Glyn White’s ‘Blanc on Blanc’ which stole my attention. I was fortunate enough to meet the man himself and give my feedback on his

Diogenes at Night in
the Studio Window

work, stunning him, I think, with my view that the water in his paintings looked almost like stone, while the stone looked rather like water. Check out his Facebook to see what you think. 

My fourth stop was at the New Street Gallery for prominent South West artist Robert Lenkiewicz’s ‘Diogenes Show’, a series of projects based on his friendship with and the life – and death – of vagrant Edwin Mackenzie, or Diogenes after the cynical Greek philosopher. The series depicts Mackenzie as the embodiment of chaos and death through paintings, sketches, photography, and 3D masks in plaster and thermoplastic. I saw these as ways to immortalise and spotlight this otherwise invisible man and all that he stood for. Two particular pieces caught my eye, the first, an immense painting of Mackenzie entitled ‘Diogenes at Night in the Studio Window’. His blue eyes were so alive, the light glinting on his unkempt hair to great effect. The second was two photographs of a dead Mackenzie entitled ‘The Putrefaction of Diogenes’. It shocked and fascinated me, but also reminded me of the fate of any other vagrant.

Tim Pearse

My final stop was at the Comma Five Art Space on Southside Street to see the local talent in Comma Five fullstop. They were setting up when I arrived, so I was unable to get the full experience but, for the second time, was able to speak with the artists present. The first to catch my eye was a series of simple yet thought-provoking urban photographs by freelance photographer Alexander Kanchev. They made me want to know what lay beyond the pictures’ borders. The second was Tim Pearse’s more disturbing and introspective photography which, after a short chat, I learnt contained pieces of his own inner self, the monochrome and distortion effects only enhancing this and endearing the collection to me. Check out his Facebook page and see how it makes you feel. The third set I viewed

James Wells

was a series of ghostly and industrial black and white photographs by James Wells. One image appeared to be have been laid over another as if showing the past and present in one shot; again, something I could appreciate. The fourth installation was from Sarah Fitzpatrick of Fitzy Pawtraits, a neat set of colourful cartoon scenes of Plymouth. Not generally my cup of tea, but the clean style and inclusion of a colourful canine made the set noteworthy. 

Sarah Fitzpatrick

A brief explanation that I was writing for the Plymouth University magazine even got me a little postcard for free. The final instalment came from Josh Greet and was a lenticular poster board which I was unable to figure out. That’s not to say I had no concept of what it could mean – there was something in there about the technological age as it bore the dreaded Internet Explorer logo – but again, it wasn’t quite the kind of art I found myself drawn to. 

And with that, day one of the Plymouth Arts Weekender draws to a close.