A real-life book!

My philosophy has always been: to be modest, humble and to work hard and when you have achieved something you are proud of, to enjoy it! And indeed one of those times has come! Just over a year ago I started working on a piece of writing for a book and last week it arrived in the world – my words in a tangible thing that you can pick up and leaf through its pages, a real-life book! And what a nice book it is!

 

I See What You’re Saying: The Materialisation of Words in Contemporary Art, is edited by Henry Rogers and includes writing about work featured at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham that either uses text or refers to text/ textuality/language. My essay Collisions, Slippages and Getting Lost explores the exhibition of work We They, We They by the artist Clare Rojas as a retrospective textual encounter with the work. It also includes fantastic writing and conversations by Sadie Plant, Jonathan Watkins, Jim Mooney, Henry Rogers and Pen Dalton.

Reading back through it, I still want to tweak my words, which I suppose every writer does, but it is such a good feeling to finally behold it in its physicality! Enjoy!

Footnotes

Some great artistic finds recently in Manchester. The first is an installation called Kindle by Nicola Dale in associated with Untitled Gallery* situated in the stunning John Rylands Library on Deansgate. The work consists of thousands of beautiful handmade candles made from the pages of unwanted books that are placed throughout the Old Map Room.

I also visited Sights from the other City which showcases loads of work from the Chapel Street area of Salford through open studios. I loved the work at Hot Bed Press including the 20:20 Print Exchange and being able to wander around the studio space at Cow Lane Studios.

The 20:20 Print Exchange at Hot Bed Press

* Speaking of Untitled Gallery, a footnote is perhaps required to digress and mention a great project I took part in during the Summer called The Reading. It was a writing residency that ran alongside the current exhibition Re-covering which consisted of around 70 writers/artists that contributed to a story, each carrying on from the previous chapter, examining writing as a performative practice. The gallery is in a really unique space; situated in the basement of the Friends' Meeting House on Bootle Street which is a listed buiding dating from 1828 and well worth a visit.

The Reading residency

Re-covering Exhiition

Painting-poems and Waffles

After working on a huge Textstallation in April this year, I've been focusing more recently on working on a much smaller scale; working into book pages and on paper using materials such as wax and layering text together.

 

I've really been enjoying this way of working. It seems a lot more natural at the moment as I can create the work on my desk - the space where I also write - and let the two processes happen simultaneously, allowing them to collide and develop in relation to each other.

Last week, I took part in a great exhibition curated by Vicky Atkinson called 'The Texture of Text' at the College of Art, BIAD where I exhibited a series of painting-poems which I developed from the smaller paper pieces above. It was really good to see the work outside of the studio space as it looked totally different in the gallery because of the lighting, the way my pieces were displayed in relation to each other and how they worked with the rest of the space, although my photos don't really do it and some of the other work justice! I thought that the exhibition looked really great and the pieces all worked really well in relation to each other!

My work

Jordan Aleph

Emma Lacken

Matthew Springer

Polly Saunders

Scott Chedzoy

Niall Singh

As you have also guessed if you have read my other posts, I love love love the work of Space Invader who is a French graffiti artist. I happened to stumble across an exhibition of his work in London this weekend at the Outsiders Gallery called Attack of the Space Waffles! There are free space invader shaped waffles being served (!) as well as some of his pieces of work and a really good video in the basement space called 'In Bed with Invader' - defo worth seeing if you happen to be in London!

Sometimes you just need a break

What better way to recharge your batteries than a quick trip to Barcelona! I really love Barcelona because the whole place is just absorbed by art (and it has nice Sangria) - Gaudi treasures dotted around the city, the architecture in general, the many many art galleries and theatres ... and the grafitti! Music, words, art everywhere! Joan Miro, Picasso, the Fundacio Antoni Tapies, the MACBA, I could go on. Oh, and it was 22 degrees, bonus!

Park Güell

Sagrada Familia

Casa Batllo and on the roof at Casa Milà

Nibbles at Mercat de la Boqueria

 Space Invader finds!

and grafitti finds from lurking around the narrow streets of the Gothic quarter.

Finally, you've got to check out my brother Loz Taylor smashing it on his bmx ... amazing!