Materiality Opening
'Materiality, The Quality of Being composed of Matter’ had a fantastic launch at Larne Museum and Arts Centre.
We even had an official opening with red ribbon cutting by Alderman Maureen Morrow, it was all very fancy pants...you'd never have guessed that just half an hour before we were eating chips on the steps outside the building, nattering away!
The idea for this exhibition came about through a random chat like this - we all decided that we needed a way of balancing making a living from art, and making art for a full living.
A subtle but important difference.
You see, when you or your art becomes a business, it can be a balancing act to continue to carve time to support your own creativity, to make art for yourself, purely for art's sake.
Materiality, a touring exhibition was set up to facilitate this balance.
Made up of myself and 3 of my closest colleagues, we each make a living from Art and are actively involved in working with various communities, hospitals, schools and groups, connecting with a wide variety of people daily.
One aspect of this exhibition touches on how this feeds into and impacts our artwork, both consciously & subconsciously - through the people we meet, the time we spend and the ways of working we implement.
It combines the common themes that run through each of our art practices asking who we are physically and mentally.
Emma Hawthorne
A keen slant on sociology, her work leans heavily on research, especially in regards to clusters of people, animals, and botany.
Me!
I am an interdisciplinary figurative artist who works with both 2-d and 3-d work concerning the human condition. Although all aspects of my practice inform and complement each other, I am foremost a maker of things.
Sally Young
Sally is a painter and mixed media artist, with an interest in the human psyche and mental health. She is a member of Conway Mill Studios, and her work has been shown across Northern Ireland, in venues such as The Waterfront, Queen Street Studios and Island Art Centre.
Creative Visual Storytelling documented this conversation about ways we each find this balance between making a living creatively and making art.
This video project follows the development of the work of four artists preparing for Materiality exhibition as the practitioners seek to balance their artistic practice with creative livelihood. Filmed on location at Conway Mill Studios, Blackstaff Studios and Larne Museum and Arts Centre.
"I think there is this line between either becoming a starving artist, doing it for the sake of it. Or you have to become a creative entrepreneur and create your own product, or services that fund the time in the studio. You have to define your own success."
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ForM is by far my favourite group exhibition of the year to visit and I am honoured to have been one of artists involved in it this year.
If you missed the exhibition, here’s a round up.