Interview with Sasha Bowles

WHAT DOES YOUR SCREEN SMELL LIKE?

INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST SASHA BOWLES

In opposition to Sasha’s preference of all things in the flesh, we interviewed her by e-mail

A painting carries the suffix ing, denoting a verbal action that might propose a process of interpretation and understanding in the mind of the viewer. How then might this be compromised when documented on a computer screen? Does painting simply become paint?

I think it is worse than that. The paint doesn’t become anything. It loses all quality of being paint. You are just looking at an image. There is no scale, no medium and no presence of the artist. A barrier is formed between the viewer and the work.

What the computer and our digital age seems to produce is a constant changeability. Thousands of images can be stored, carried around and viewed on an ipad for example, but how can this be rivalled by the permanence of a single painting?

A single painting seen in the ‘flesh’, is much more powerful. It is real, you can feel the artist, you can see the marks they have made. A painting is not a flat back lit image; it is tactile and an object, it has its own entity. The idea that images can be seen anywhere at any time undermines the importance of a painting and dilutes its significance.

To exhibit in a garage space is a gesture that might suggest a desire to confront a sort of tangible, almost nonfictional reality. Might the art objects become absorbed into this realm as well?

I think where you exhibit does change how the work is interpreted. To exhibit in a garage without any of the usual white walls or pretences of a gallery space is very exciting and means that the work has to stand up for itself. You may find that the environment overwhelms or undermines the work, but it will also ground it of any pretensions.

What is the point in moving when one can travel so magnificently sitting in a chair? What would you like to say to all the sofa surfers out there?

Sofa surfers should find the time to get off their fat arses- come and smell the art.

I wonder if the painter’s desire for a live audience matches the sculptor’s. The screen presents a sculpture as a bite sized package, too small for a bodily exchange. The painting although condensed regardless of its size, is reproduced at the expense only of its object, not its image. Is painting’s exclusivity towards the surface an advantage in the mechanical age of reproduction?

Painting may have an advantage over sculpture in reproduction terms as usually only one view point is needed. However your term ‘bodily exchange’, is very poignant as I believe to be in the presence of the painting, to stand where the artist has stood is very important, if not essential. The images on a computer screen all begin to look the same, one after another flashing before our eyes, tweaked and edited for our ease.

It is almost better to have seen a reproduction printed in black and white than on a screen, because your expectation of the real painting is more obviously removed from the original.

What does your screen smell like?

I would have to say paracetamol as I feel a mild headache coming on.

www.sashabowlesart.blogspot.co.uk

The Speakers Profiles

WHAT DOES YOUR SCREEN SMELL LIKE?

THE SPEAKERS

JEFF DENNIS

Jeffrey Dennis was born in Colchester, England, 1958 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, 1976 - 80. He lives in London. His past paintings have embedded glimpses of contemporary urban life within landscapes, an organic matrix which seems to offer the potential for continual mutation and evolution.

He recently wrote about his paintings: My work is rooted in the daily experience of the city: how people move around, inhabit spaces and make sense of their daily routines. Of particular relevance to this and to the structure of my paintings are the ideas of proximity, contiguity and adjacency: these terms express the abrupt collisions of incident and thought, the habits nurtured by travellers and inhabitants to protect personal space and the interrupted narratives of encounters and conversations. The paintings themselves provide a fluid, mutable net to hold narrative fragments and connective elements in place; a landscape corresponding to the fragmentary mental maps which people construct in order to give their existence some measure of meaning.

He has been a tutor in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford (1991-7), and Chelsea College of Art and Design (1990-2012)


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THOMAS CUCKLE

Thomas Cuckle studied Curating at the Royal College of Art where he co-curated a major exhibition of film and video artist John Smith. He is Gallery Manager at IBID PROJECTS, a commercial gallery based in Hoxton Square.

In September 2012 Thomas will open Kunstraum, a project space with a focus on showing artists from Western Europe.

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ANNA BAKER

Anna Baker is a UK based artist. Her work examines the notion of the party. Amassing energy, collecting, grouping in order to improve, impress, alter, intimidate or overwhelm. Events devised by, with and for groups of people deal with the invitation as concept. The following rhetorical formula is tied up in the work: to achieve a celebration - to celebrate an achievement.

Anna graduated from Camberwell College of Art with an MA Fine Art degree in 2011. She previously studied at Goldsmiths and Cardiff School of art. Researching art education and the possibility of education as art, Anna has devised pedagogical events including the Joya participatory residency, led with Lois Farningham, The Breakfast Sessions at Camberwell College of Arts and The Sculptural Draw Off with Goldsmiths College and Havering Sixth Form College. Her work has recently been shown in Overview at Frans Masereel Centrum, Belgium and in Back-Drop for Monica Jaeger, Sic! Raum fur Kunst, Switzerland. She is currently a Graduate Fellow at CCW and is a manager at The Woodmill Gallery and Studios.

Interview with Matt Gee

WHAT DOES YOUR SCREEN SMELL LIKE?

INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST MATT GEE

We managed to catch Matt at a rare moment when he wasn’t lugging luminous plinths or great swathes of velvet across London on public transport.

Can you describe your practice please.

I’m interested in the dichotomy between nature and the man-made, synthetic materials juxtaposed with natural materials, and natural materials that look like fake materials. That transition between crafting something natural out of something natural or crafting something artificial out of something natural. Or just presenting something natural that looks artificial. My practice has something to do with capitalism – and I know that’s a big word – but in terms of desire and what society wants rather than what it actually needs, and taking natural resources but not really appreciating where it comes from, just seeing it in the shop window.

Have you shown your work in a space like this before? What other unconventional spaces have you shown work in before?

Yeah, in fact last month I was in this exhibition called On Fire in Vauxhall’s old fire station. That was kind of similar. It had been cleaned up, but it was an extremely vast space and on the private view there were quite a lot of people but it still felt quite empty because it was such a huge space. But the garage is kind of more grimy in a different way, and harder to work with, but that presents new opportunities I think.

How do you think your work fits into the wider cultural scene now, like from Youtube to television to… everything.

Well my work refers to this materialistic world, this kind of popular culture world, but it doesn’t come out in a visually explicit way in my work. If it was a spider diagram it would be two arrows rather than a direct arrow, you know… It’s very art object based, not really like ‘commercial-world-in-a-gallery-context’, it’s more like ‘commercial-world-to-art-object-to-gallery-space’.

Do you think your work looks better in photographs or real life?

It’s funny because a lot of people have said that, but most of them haven’t actually seen my work in a gallery context. I think it does, but I think a lot of sculptors are like that. I like work like Tim Head’s, cropping the viewer’s gaze into a photo format so they can’t be distracted by the things around them.

How much of your time is taken up by checking emails, facebook, twitter etc. compared to actually making work?

A lot, recently, because I’ve had quite a few shows on. I’d say about fifty percent of it is actually admin, fifty percent is procrastination. Like the fact that the internet is so vast, there’s so much on the internet, you can’t help but get distracted. I waste a lot of time online. It can give an artist the upper hand if they just submit themselves to the online sphere, using social networking and so on, but there’s so much it becomes a bit superficially spread out. But it’s important not to neglect. (Matt’s phone makes buzzes.) Because I mean even like fifteen years ago artists didn’t have that advantage.

But does that make it harder because you’re not the only one with that advantage? Everyone uses it, if you don’t you get left behind.

Yeah it’s true. It’s a shift in who the audience is because everyone’s a participant… (Distractedly looks at phone).

That’s fine, you can check your message.

Ha yeah, I’m actually texting about some images I’m getting printed. Yeah, if you don’t jump on the bandwagon you’re going to get left behind. I still think the most important way of promoting yourself is physically showing, as you can’t get the same message across digitally. Like this problem I’m having at the moment with DPI, getting the image big enough – the problem that I’m having today never really crossed my mind before. Digital hitches and glitches like that, where you’ve got this image online and you want to print it A0, but you can’t without losing the quality of image.

So what’s the future for art?

I don’t think it’s like online because I think that online exhibitions are not very substantial or meaty…

Or good either.

Yeah they’re not very good, but I think in the future there’s going to be a kind of flip side. Everyone’s a bit negative at the moment but I think in ten years time we’ll look back and see that we had something in 2012 that’s not there any more. A certain kind of freedom. Especially in an academic context, as tuition fees change and art education becomes more elitist, financially. I think there’s definitely something good going on at the moment. We just don’t know what it is because we’re so submerged in it.

And finally, what does your screen smell like?

I prefer to feel things rather than smell things. It’s a nice kind of velvet stone. I just want to stroke it.

I read that they are developing a touch screen that senses when your finger is on it and sends little impulses, like a little poke, so you can feel different textures.

Sounds great!

Yeah but as with all these things, it will probably just be used for practical jokes. Like: ‘here, have a go on my new app’ - spike through your thumb.

(Laughs loud) Yeah I liked the idea of smellovision, but touchovision would be great.

Interview with Phil Elbourne

WHAT DOES YOUR SCREEN SMELL LIKE?

INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST PHIL ELBOURNE

As I interview Phil, he is wrapping torn strips of canvas around books.

I have heard you say when asked to describe yourself; that you reply, ‘I am a painter’, and then apologise. Is this true?
It is, because, I think that’s where painting is at the moment. It’s that a painting is always about painting. It is always a painting of a painting. So it always has that self awareness. I think to be a painter you have to have that same self awareness, a self depreciation – to say I know that this is out moded, it is irrelevant but I am still going to do it.

Is there a place for painting anymore?

Yeah. Well like I say....

We are interrupted by the loud ringing of someones mobile phone. Phil walks over to where the sound is coming from. A silence falls. He walks back. ‘ I smashed it’, he says.

I re-ask the question: Is there a place for painting anymore?
I think it is really interesting that when you look at the history of human civilization, there’s like painting. Painting is one of the oldest things that sort of like, when we became humans we started painting and it’s really interesting that at the same time we became humans when we discovered fire. I think there is a really interesting analogy to be made, because we still use fire and you know, but we use it in a more controlled way. So for example your gas fire, hob; to light it you turn on a switch. When you light it, it becomes fire, but it is controlled. And I think painting is something similar. Then there is this thing of sitting around the camp fire and it’s really beautiful to just watch the fire as fire. I think there is something about that in painting. It is so old; it is something that has been with us since we were aware of our situation as humans and it will never stop being relevant.

So you feel painting is much more controlled now. Are you a control freak?

Phil laughs, ‘Yeah’, laughs, ‘No’. It is about how much you control isn’t it? And it’s about how much you appear to be in control.

So do you switch it on and off like the hob?
Yeah? Yeah!

Is that how you feel when you are painting- that you are switching it on?

No, it is more like you know when you light a bonfire and you are in control of it, but it is raw and it’s like there, but you have put rocks around it to keep it in. It’s that sort of thing. But the real thing about painting or it can be; is it is all about control. Isn’t it?

For you it is.
It is about how much you give. But for me also –when you have made a painting, you don’t control it anymore. As soon as you step away from it you are no longer in control. It is the viewer who is in control.

I nod in agreement.
It’s like I was reading about icons, Catholic, Orthodox icons. The painter when they finish the painting, they’ve spend ages on it, months on it. It is beautiful, like gold leaf, all the pigments, everything is perfect. And then as soon as they finish it they put it on the wall and make sure they are the first person to worship it.

And it is that kind of thing as an artist, that you make a painting and then you are the first viewer of that painting.

It is really exciting I think.

Your practice also involves video and 3D work.....

Here the recording is accidently switched off, although our conversation carries on unrecorded...until finally I ask.

‘So what does your screen smell like?’

Phil takes his phone out of his trousers and gives a small sniff.

‘Pocket’, he says.

Interview with Ralph Anderson

WHAT DOES YOUR SCREEN SMELL LIKE?

INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST RALPH ANDERSON

 

We spoke to Ralph Anderson at his studio in Wimbledon. He was standing on a chair, attending to the top of a large painting while we spoke to him.

Can you describe your practice in a few words please.

Painting. Kind of abstract realism.

Have you shown your work in a space like this before? What other unconventional spaces have you shown work in before?

A bit like this, yeah, I’ve shown my work in lots of rough and ready spaces. The most unconventional space was probably an old cricket-training-run-shed on top of a school, that was quite odd.

Wow, did your work relate to cricket in any way at the time?

No.

How do you think your work fits into the wider cultural scene of today, the 21^st century, 2012?

There’s a lot in my work about painting that’s been and gone and painting that’s around now.

What about the wider sort of cultural thing that involves everything from X Factor to Youtube…?

In a wider sense, there’s a lot of science that influences my work, and the advancement of knowledge. Like the discovery of outer space, the Hubble telescope… I think that’s where my work fits into the wider contemporary culture. That’s kind of an inspiration for my work.

Are you talking about those sort of ‘popular science’ books, you know, the sort of novel-size paperback, and TV programmes with that bloke out of that band?

Brian Cox.

Yeah him. And I notice you were reading Dawkins…

Yeah, a bit of Richard Dawkins, magazines, current affairs. Not really any in depth journals… I don’t have time for that.

Do you think your work looks better in photographs or real life?

Half and half, that’s what interests me about the show’s title. For example this painting here (he points at Future Space Plains, 2012) comes across better online I think. There’s no reason for me to make this painting that way, specifically for online viewing, but your attention span online is very short, so getting something very bold and snappy is quite important. But that wasn’t really my reasoning. Black and white seems to come across a lot better than my coloured work online, I don’t know why. But I’m quite happy with that.

Staying on the internet for the next question: how much of your time is taken up by checking emails, Facebook, Twitter etc. compared to actually making work?

Not much compared to making work. If I’m in the studio I do at least 8 or 9 hours painting in a day, while I’ll only go online for about an hour, tops.

You’re not on Facebook are you?

No.

Twitter?

No.

Do you even have a computer?

I have got a computer. Which I do writing on, and emails, but that’s about it. I’m not an online socialite.

What’s the future for art?

You want me to predict the future?

Well why not, predict the future for us. Go on, have a go.

Well England are going to lose tonight. [It was England vs. Ukraine, and actually England won 1-0.] And what’s the future for art? Don’t know. Same as. More painting, more sculpture, more of the same. (Chuckles.)

And finally, what does your screen smell like?

Liquorice.

Interview with Alice Eikelpoth

WHAT DOES YOUR SCREEN SMELL LIKE?

INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST ALICE EIKELPOTH

We interviewed Artist Alice Eikelpoth on a bench in a sunny spot outside her studio in Wimbledon.

Can you describe your practice in a few words please?

My work is mainly collage work on paper, sometimes on canvas. I paint as well, working with images that are collaged together, mostly large-scale

What are your expectations for this exhibition?

I like the space! And I think it’s always interesting to see your work and other people’s work in a different space than your studio.

Have you shown your work in a space like this before?

I have shown work in a sort of industrial space before, in Lewes in Sussex. It was a foundry, which is obviously much bigger, but it had the same sort of feel to it, very unfinished and quite rough. But never a garage.

How was that for your work?

It was really good, it worked really well because my work has that sort of raw, unfinished quality to it and I think it works really well in a space like that.

How do you think your work fits into the wider cultural scene today?  Like, not just art but also kind of culture as a whole – Western culture I suppose, if we can still call it that.

I think you can’t help but have all these influences from everything around you, so my work takes bits from all sorts of places. And maybe that’s something that describes our time quite well. Things from everywhere – not only imagery but a lot of information, a lot of different influences coming to you as a single person.

And we receive it kind of osmotically, it soaks in somehow?

Yeah, like so many things you see every day, so many things you hear, so many things you read, and sometimes I ask myself what of that information actually flows into my work. More than you consciously know I think.

Do you think your work looks better in photographs or real life?

(Laughs.) I have had that before, photographing work changes it completely. It becomes something more finished… I mean my work is generally quite rough, and when I crop it and see it on the computer it looks… cleaner, in a way.

How much of your time is taken up by checking emails, Facebook, Twitter etc. compared to actually making work?

I have started taking my computer into the studio, which I refused in the beginning, because I knew that if you start looking at something – which might actually be quite interesting – that leads you to look at other things, even to do with art, you know, you look at talks and all sorts of things and in the end you feel like you’re this tiny little worm in a huge world.

I suppose that’s why we call it the web. But what’s interesting is that it functions in a radically different way to how art has been. You know, you see a painting and everything you need to know is in that painting.

Exactly, yeah. Well I realised that the less time I spend on the computer, the happier I am.

What’s the future for art?

(Laughs loud.) God, that’s a question. I think there’s always a future, since people will never stop making art. Even when we have all this technology, people still want to do things with their hands… but I don’t know what that means. I think we’ll probably see more art online, on screens, than anywhere else, but hopefully you’ll still be able to go somewhere and look at it in the flesh!

And finally, what does your screen smell like?

Er…

Do you want to go and smell it and let me know?

It’s probably a bit dirty (laughs)… Have you smelled yours?

(Sniffs screen.) Yeah it’s kind of plasticky.

Sometimes there’s a kind of warm, electronic smell, sometimes I have my laptop on my knees in bed and I think, it can’t possibly be good for you.

That smell, you know that kind of clean air smell, that’s something to do with electricity reacting with the oxygen in the air and producing ozone. Sometimes you can smell it after thunderstorms as well.

Ah, how interesting!

The Idea behind the Exhibition

WHAT DOES YOUR SCREEN SMELL LIKE?

The idea behind this exhibition is to see art in reality. In this post digital era, everything can be seen on-line, it is all available to everyone all the time. We can see everything ranging from the large institutions of The National Gallery to individual artists setting up their own web-page. This of course can be seen as a wonderful thing, however the real experience of seeing, hearing, feeling and smelling art is a different experience. To stand where the artist has stood and see the marks they have made, to get up close is to experience a connection that is not possible through a screen.

Most artists’ dream of huge gallery spaces, polished concrete floors and white walls, we have not attempted to go for this option. Instead we are exhibiting our work in an untraditional gallery. There are no white walls here. It is a very raw space of concrete, steel and breeze block.

For us to be able to exhibit our work here means it has to speak for itself and hold its own ground. It hasn’t been tweeked for a computer screen, there is no digital enhancement, manipulation or special lighting. You will be able to walk around the sculptures and put your nose close to the paintings.

As artists we want our work to be seen in the flesh, warts and all. We will not be putting up images of the exhibition before the opening. You are invited to come and experience the work in the raw.

After all, ‘What does your screen smell like?’