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I’m this month’s featured artist at the lovely shop which is part of Edinburgh Printmakers… on until July21st. Pieces from my series of screenprints depicting learned animal performers are on the walls and my performance related mini-prints are also available.
For the past few weeks I’ve been quite pre-occupied with preparing to set up the exhibition at Artsdepot, but now that it’s up and the private view has happened I’m slowly getting my life in order again and starting to process all of the other stuff that’s been happening and is happening soon. The opening turned out to be a lot of fun, and despite not knowing that many people in London it was really great to have the support of a few good friends.
Exhibtion at Artsdepot: Images © Sharon Whyte 2010
I was fortunate enough to be in London at the same time as the Roundhouse CircusFest was on, so I was able to make it along to a couple of the events that were being presented by Professor Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield. One was a talk on ‘peculiar entertainments’ featuring many of my favourite types of acts from the history of performance (plus some very rare film footage) and the other event I was able to attend was a symposium on the tradition of the ‘showwoman’ which Professor Toulmin had organised along with Marisa Carnesky (currently Performing Arts Fellow at the NFA). The day featured presentations on the personal experiences of showwomen including Sandra Wright, Anna Carter, Carol Gandey, Rose English, Petra Massey, Lucifire and Miss Behave, as well as a performance by Empress Stah which I sadly had to miss so I could go to my own private view. It was a really valuable and rewarding event and provided some interesting insights for my research.
The rest of my time down there, when I wasn’t with friends, was spent wandering around the V&A – amazingly I had never before managed to get as far as the Theatre & Performance section so spent a good portion of my visit there.
Images from the Theatre & Performance section of the Victoria & Albert Museum
So now I’m back home and back at work on the new screenprints. I’ve been making a piece featuring the great Adelaide Herrmann using one of the images that I’ve kindly been given access to by The Magic Circle in order to produce this series on female magicians. It’s one of the most complicated prints I’ve done to date, as it consists of ten layers (I usually only work with between 4 and 6) which are quite intricately intertwined, meaning that technically it’s more of a challenge than previous pieces. I’m loving it so far, and will complete the final layer this week. I’ll also begin work on the third piece in the series this week too – so time to start thinking about getting those proposals in for exhibiting next year.
Some bits of news to finish with…
My current exhibition at Artsdepot finishes on May 30th, after which I’ll be exhibiting A Sage of the Stage for (I think) the final time at Edinburgh Printmakers from July 1st – 20th. I’ll also be showing four pieces in the upcoming Out of the Blue Studio Artists exhibition at the Drill Hall from May 28th – June 10th.
I’ve also started an Edinburgh non-fiction writers group with my friend Gillian of Harlots, Harpies and Harridans which will have its inaugural meeting on May 19th at The Meadow Bar – you can find out all about it at Stranger than Fiction.
The learned animals go on show again in May for my exhibition at ArtsDepot in London. The full series will be exhibited along a single wall in this busy theatre/arts space in North Finchley – it’s a great place, lots going on and some good entertainment on offer, so why not take in a play while you’re there! The opening is on Tuesday 4th May from 6pm – 8pm and I’ll be there, so come and say hello.
One of the prints, Extraordinary Story, made it into the magazine Artists & Illustrators this month too, in the Portfolio section (which translates to a full page showing the artwork with description).
This Saturday I have new exhibition opening in Glasgow, my first for the Mansfield Park Gallery who are now representing me on the west coast. Myself and two other female printmakers are featured, recent graduate Rebecca Scott uses linocut to document a year in the life of a fox through the changing seasons while Fiona Watson exhibits her Aviary Suite. I’m delighted to be featured along with these two other artists, where I’ll be showing prints from my Sage of the Stage, not a Beast in a Cage series depicting the spectacle of the Victorian entertainment of learned animal performers.
ONE, TWO, THREE …
AT THE MANSFIELD PARK GALLERY
6th – 20th March 2010
Image © Sharon Whyte 2010
“Three female printmakers, each with a very different vision and technique. Sharon Whyte presents us with the Victorian spectacle of ‘learned animal acts’, recent graduate Rebecca Scott uses linocut to document a foxes year through the changing seasons while Fiona Watson exhibits her ‘Aviary Suite’.”
I’ve been wondering how to donate to help the people of Haiti and trying to think of a way that I could auction a piece of artwork to raise money – and now thanks to the people over at Inky Goodness and artist Sarah Larnach (of Ladyhawke fame) I can.
I’ve donated one of my screenprints, Extraordinary Story (below), to the appeal and I really hope that other artists who see this will donate too. If you’d like to help then go to www.inkygoodness.com/art-for-haiti to find out how to join in.
Extraordinary Story © Sharon Whyte 2008
No, not a reference to songs by Lionel Ritchie or Ella Fitzgerald but rather the name of my latest print, which includes elements pertaining to an unusual type of performance from the 19th century – ceiling walking. This is the first of a new mini-series that I’m doing on an ongoing basis that will be smaller both in the scale of the series and in the size of the actual prints, making them more suited to selling through outlets such as the arts markets and in shops. This one will also be part of this year’s Edinburgh Printmakers Winter Exhibition which opens on 14th November and they will be for sale through the gallery there and also at the Christmas Arts Market at Out of the Blue on the 5th, 12th and 13th of December. Oh and on my website and etsy shop too (incidently I’ve set all shipping costs on my website to zero hence the higher price). I will be trying to produce as many new ones before the market as possible, as well as a new Christmas card design for this year and a re-print of last year’s design too. I’ll also be putting up simple instructions here soon on how to float mount these small prints, which is the best way to display them.
‘Dancing on the Ceiling‘ Screenprint, © Sharon Whyte 2009
All of this does not mean that work on the major new series has ceased, however. It is still in the development stage, and no actual printing will take place until early 2010 (other than the odd test print). Producing these smaller prints keeps me in the workshop though which is good, and with screenprinting I find that I learn something new with every print I produce – therefore it’s all preparation for ensuring that I keep producing better and better work. Indeed I am feeling extremely enthused about the new project and the book, especially since my recent visit to the home of magic historian Eddie Dawes and his wife Amy, who herself has done a lot of research and writing on the subject of female magicians. They have an incredible collection and their generosity in sharing it and in sharing their knowledge is truly inspiring and I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to spend that time with them.
My recent series of prints on the subject of learned animal performers are still touring the Highlands as part of the magic themed exhibition Now You See It, with the show in Inverness opening on the 14th of November at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. I’ll be going to the private view on the 13th armed with my camera to record this, the first showing of a full series of my work in a public art gallery, which I’m a little bit excited about! I’ll also be represented at the Edinburgh Art Fair this year for the first time by the Mansfield Park Gallery who will be at stand 16.
I’m very happy to report that two of the learned animal prints are now in the collection of Paintings in Hospitals for London and the Southern Regions. The Java Sparrows and Munito at Work were chosen by the curator and could now end up on display at any hospital in the region that they cover (there are different collections for each region). I do really think that having art in hospitals is of benefit to people, so I was really happy to donate to the collection.
That balanced out the rather negative experience of being involved in the fiasco that was the closing of the Artworks Galleries in Newcastle. I won’t go into too much detail because I’m trying to just forget about it all now, but basically I had work there when the bailiffs were sent in to seize everything due to the owner Matt Forster not paying his rent and sub-letting part of the property but keeping the money himself (he’s also angered a lot of artists by allegedly not giving them the money owed to them from work that he has sold of theirs – and he’s supposed to be an artist himself!) and it was a real pain trying to get my work back. I’m pleased to say that myself and two other artists I know who had work there Chantal Powell and Annabel De Vetten did all get our stuff back, but when I visited the auction house there was so much artwork there and I very much doubt that all of it made its way safely back to the artists who made it as we were not told about any of this happening and only discovered it by chance.
The fact that things like this can happen so easily makes it very hard to want to do the things that you have to do as an artist in order to have your work seen – ie: just hand over your work to people – especially since the insurance that’s available to artists is either prohibitively expensive or just not that good (often it doesn’t cover the full cost of the work, or it’s only for one off exhibitions, not usually for long term loan on a sale or return basis) but then again the vast majority of galleries are not in the business of ripping people off and provide a good service to the artists they represent. I just wish there was some way of knowing beforehand if the person you are dealing with has a bad reputation or not.
Anyway, on a more positive note to end with, please do come along to the Arts Market and the exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers if you live in Edinburgh and support local artists and crafts people by buying original Christmas presents – much better than 3 for 2 at a certain high street retailer! And if you come to my stall and tell me about 3 non-bog-standard presents that you’ll be giving people this year then I’ll give you a discount. For years I’ve been considering giving up on Christmas altogether – what with my being completely non-religious just for starters, but also because I can’t stand the ritual exchange of either absurdly expensive or absurdly crap commercial presents (especially since I can’t afford the absurdly expensive ones!) – but I’ve now decided that instead of giving up on it altogether, since there are aspects of it that I really like, that I’m going to produce a special print edition every year that will be exclusively for friends and family and won’t be sold anywhere and give those as gifts instead. If you were hoping for an unnervingly pink bubble bath gift set with matching eye mask you’re out of luck I’m afraid.
My exhibition is now up and running at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow until 5th September (open daily 10am – late). The private view took place on Monday night and was a really great night – thanks to everyone who made it along. Loads of people came through from Edinburgh which was nice!
A catalogue is available for the exhibition, with a 15 page introduction explaining what the project is all about. It’s available from www.blurb.com as a lovely full colour high quality perfect-bound book at £12.95 or as an e-book (no cover with the e-book) for £5 from www.lulu.com – in both cases just type in Sharon Whyte to find it (or use the link on the left for the blurb one).
Here are some images from after setting up and from the private view. You can see all of the images on my flickr photostream.
All images © Sharon Whyte 2009
So happily I can now reveal a couple of things that I’ve been keeping under my hat recently, one is that A Sage of the Stage, not a Beast in a Cage (I’m suddenly starting to regret choosing such a long title for this series since I’ve now had to type it so many times!) will go on tour from September as part of an exhibition organised by the Touring Exhibitions Unit of Highland Council called Now You See It! which will start off on 19th September at the Swanson Gallery in Thurso, moving on to Inverness Museum and Art Gallery on 14th November and then finally onto the St. Fergus Gallery in Wick on 16th January 2010. I’m really delighted to have been asked to take part in this magic themed exhibition – I think it’s going to be fantastic! I’ll be putting up more information about it as and when I get it.
The other thing is that I’m going to be doing a talk (eek) at the West Port Book Festival in Edinburgh on 14th August, along with my good friend, magician, musician and book collector, Gordon Bruce. I’m thrilled to be appearing at all but to get to do this talk along with Gordon is really quite amazing for me. Gordon is a legend in the magic world! So no pressure then *gulp*. I’ll be talking about the learned animals series and what went into creating it, as well as telling a little bit about the subject matter and the books that I used and that inspired me to do it in the first place. Some of the pieces will also be on show throughout the three days of the festival at various venues as part of the Magic Trail. Also appearing as part of the trail will be fabulous magicians in the form of Eireann Leverett, Neil Stirton and Paul Besly.
The programme is out now and should be available at all shops in the Grassmarket and the West Port and probably anywhere in Edinburgh where flyers and leaflets abound. You can also view all of the events on the website.
West Port Book Festival programme – front cover
Last week I had one of those ‘you wait and wait for a bus and then three come along at once’ moments but instead of buses it was in terms of having my work acknowledged in print. First of all I got a mention in the Magic Circular (the magazine of The Magic Circle) in a review of the recent Collectors Day event where I showed the series A Sage of the Stage, not a Beast in a Cage for the first time. The review was favourable thankfully, calling the exhibition “imaginitive and rewarding” which was nice. The next one is a slightly more tenuous link because I don’t actually know if it’s in *print* anywhere yet, but the press release for the Cut-Click exhibition has a paragraph about me in it, and the reason I’m including it is that for once I didn’t write it! It does say I’m London-based which of course I’m not, but it’s not a big deal, and as a friend of mine pointed out, I do occasionally don headwear that makes me look like I’m from London. The final bus, or instance of me in print this week if you prefer, was in Printmaking Today. Yay. Where I am delighted to have had an image of one of the prints from the series reproduced in the ‘forthcoming exhibitions’ section. It’s the yellow one second from the right…
Image from Printmaking Today, Summer 2009
Finally for today, here are some more pics from the Cut-Click exhibition. Here’s my print of The Learned Cats on the right, next to work by Julian Kimmings…
Image from Cut-Click exhibition at Abbey Walk Gallery © Caroline Twidle 2009
And here’s one of people on the opening night with my print in the background.
Image from Cut-Click exhibition at Abbey Walk Gallery © Caroline Twidle 2009
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