Aly Helyer
Happy Family with Sheep (c)2007 watercolour and ink on paper 31 x 23 cm
Edd Pearman
Whilst I Breathe, I Hope (c)2011 pigment print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Satin 116 x 86 cm
Jane Boyer
Poof! (c)2010 graphite and acrylic binder on paper 50 x 65 cm
Darren Nixon
Untitled 30-5-11 (c)2011 oil on canvas 160 x 105 cm
Hayley Harrison
Her (c)2011 oil on canvas 40.6 x 30.5 cm
Melanie Titmuss
Woman with Cardigan (c)2010 oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm
Annabel Dover
Iris’ Stocking (c)2011 cyanotype 111.8 x 76.2 cm
Kate Murdoch
It’s The Little Things (c)2011 assemblage 50 x 60 cm
David Minton
Peripheral Vision (c)2010 oil on canvas 152.4 x 121.9 cm
Anthony Boswell
Time Box (c)2010 mixed media construction 20.3 x 27.9 x 20.3 cm
David Riley
Bar EP blues (kinetatic) (c)2011 a video presented in a digital photo frame as-if maybe static 54 x 38 x 30 cm duration 7 min 35 sec
A single video/sound component. For the real-world installation the display is rotated through 90 degrees to portrait. The display size can vary to suit the intended installation space.
Sandra Crisp
The Bigger Picture (c)2009 digital print 85 x 85 cm
Sarah Hervey
Purple Nude (c)2011 oil on panel 40.2 x 30 cm
Shireen Qureshi
Untitled Nude (c)2011 oil and charcoal on canvas 76 x 50.5 cm
Cathy Lomax
Glass Menagerie (c)2011 digital video and found glass animals dimensions variable duration 8 min 54 sec
Aly Helyer
Strange Fruit (c)2007 ink on paper 67 x 101 cm
David Riley
Twitter user names: coded and transcribed (c)2013 printed A4 office paper, printed on an office inkjet printer, connected into a continuous record using binding combs. Hung using a steel rod and steel eyelets. 300mm x 1800mm x 20mm (variable, will grow).
This 'Me' of Mine 
I love David Riley’s work! As a painter I am drawn to Melanie Titmuss’s work and David Minton’s work too. A really lovely collection.
Thank you very much Beverley! We appreciate you comments. Yes, both Melanie and David M. have a very sensitive, near fragile, touch in their work. And David R., even though he works with digital media mostly, has a very painterly aesthetic. His explorations sometime lead him into painting.
[…] Artworks […]
Each time I visit, I get drawn towards Kate Murdoch’s, ‘It’s The Little Things’. For me this piece defines This ‘Me’ of Mine perfectly.
Few of us would dare look in the mirror long enough to see the real ‘me’. We carefully choose what is reflected until we are content with the ‘me of mine’ mask on display. It’s the little things of ‘me’ one tries to discard, little more than blurred objects in peripheral vision, but clearly displayed for others to see. It’s the little things that makes the division between This ‘Me’ of Mine from ‘the me of yours’.
Thank you Gary for that lovely and insightful comment. I think you are very right in your summation of how we often see ourselves and what we choose to reveal. It’s curious and often fascinating to piece together the bits that others reveal to us, but it is a far more difficult challenge to look at our own selves face on, as you suggest. That’s the wonderful thing about art, it can reveal and mirror in ways that we cannot otherwise attempt.
I agree with Jane, a great comment from Gary, we all put forward different appearances depending on a particular audience, including online lives such as Twitter and social networking. I am also really attracted to this work by Kate Murdoch, the mirror in particular is extremely familiar and speaks clearly of a time and place in my own past. I grew up with one that looked very like this design so it evokes memories of a particular era for me too. It is interesting how mass produced objects can hold different personal meanings for each of us.
Thanks Sandra. One of the interesting things in this exhibition for me, is the use of objects as conveyors of emotion and personal meaning. We all imbue objects with meaning, but why we do it is a harder question. And why we should do it with mass produced objects which can have no particular qualities other than what is directly visible. I mean, it’s easy to see how a singular handmade or natural object could hold significant meaning but something that exists in the millions, all of identical production is harder to understand why we can become so attached. But we do and it’s fascinating!
Thanks, Gary, Sandra and Jane for your thought-provoking comments. ‘It’s The Little Things’ is a display of some of the objects I rescued from my Nana’s house when poor health caused her to have to leave her home after living there for over 70 years. The things I chose to display are representative of the relationship I had with her throughout my life and the activities we did together – sewing, cooking, conversations about royalty, war, etc. I’m conscious that the objects I’ve chosen to represent my Nana wouldn’t necessarily be what she herself might have chosen. So have I chosen well? Have I given an accurate or distorted version of the ‘real’ Nana? Does it represent ‘Her of Hers’ or is it ‘Her of Mine’? Whatever it is, the precious relationship it represents is definitely ‘Me of Mine’.
A moving and evocative description of your work Kate which has elicited memories of my father and more specifically his ‘flat cap’. Faded and worn and smelling of oil for me it became both synonymous and symbolic of our very special relationship. My one physical keepsake after his death. Thank you. The whole exhibition is full of intriguing, thought provoking art, a real joy.
Thanks so much for your comment, Jacqui. I have always been struck by the humbleness of the things we have as keepsakes of our loved ones and which hold so much power to recall their memory. In my case, a memory not of the person, but the story of their existence, recalled in the leather suitcase of my father who died when I was a baby.
Beautiful Kate. I happened to be writing a short story involving my Nan just last night. God the ‘me of hers’ was a World away from the ‘me of mine’.
Great theme and put together very well. It’s certainly made me think, then re-think… Just as good art should.
Thanks Gary and Kate. I agree with you Gary, your explanation Kate, is beautiful. It is such a question when we speak of or do something to represent someone important in our life – did we choose well, have we expressed what we mean, have we spoken true? When we see ourselves in them and them in us, that connection feeds our ‘me’ and sometimes is the very thing that sustains our lives, I know it has in my life.
In case you are speaking generally about the show when you say,’Great theme and put together well’, thanks very much indeed. And if that is meant for Kate’s theme for her artwork, I agree and am delighted it’s in the show!
I did mean the show as a whole. Have just been giving some of the artist a few mins of my time and going to their sites to see more of their work. Great choices.
I appreciate that very much Gary, thank you! And I’m glad you’ve had a chance to look into some of the artist’s other work – it is about them after all. Cheers!
While twitter user names: coded and transcribed is a fixed snapshot, taken at a single point in time, the twitter user names : coded continues to grow as new people follow @codedimages. This virtual outcome is regularly updated (at least once per week when there are new followers) and can be viewed as intended at any time anywhere in the world there is an internet connection. In this instance the real-world rendition is the facsimile and the virtual world outcome the original.
Click through to: http://virtual.codedimages.com/tun/ to view.
Thanks David. That is one of the fascinating aspects of twitter user names: coded – the virtual is the actual and the actual is a facsimile. Is this close to the mental images we have and the output we create? Now that’s an interesting question.
Jane, (as you know) I often find myself working in threes, and so I would say, the three spaces here are: my mental space, the virtual space of the internet, and some form of physical outcome space (intended here for This ‘Me’ of Mine).
I continue to be fascinated by the space between the three and where one space becomes another or where one space overlaps another. As I write, my mental space conjures up a Venn diagram which will manifest in the physical space of my journal and may appear in the virtual space of my codedimages blog in the near future (or maybe my a-n blog).
http://blog.codedimages.com
http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/1101647
Of course, then there must be the mental space of each and every viewer. For simplicity and convenience, we often think of this space as generic, but in reality each individual’s mental space is unique to them and they bring a highly individual set of experiences to viewing the work and their interpretation of meaning.
It’s interesting David, for the first time (at least that I am aware of), I came across the term Venn today in my research into self-identity. I don’t know what it is, how it works, or what it does, but I think I must find out as there have been two references now to it today! You are absolutely right in what you say, there are perhaps even more ‘spaces’ to consider, for example the space of time. But I’m convinced it’s not how many spaces but, as you suggest, the transition between or overlap of the spaces which is fascinating.
My history with Venn diagrams is in the area of logic. You could do worse than look at the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram
In logic we soon left the Venn diagram behind, due to it being cumbersome when handling more than three variables (spaces), but it was a very useful tool when teaching the basics of logical and (intersection) and logical or (union).
A visual tool was often the best way to get over the foundation of a complex idea.
Thank you David! I will read it. Logic fascinates me (well most things in the world fascinate me), I wish I had studied it in school, but I get a good dose of it when I read philosophy and is one of the reasons I like philosophy so much. An interesting discussion (as always).
Brilliant! Just looked it up and of course I’m familiar with this, just didn’t know it was called a Venn diagram – the things that expand your knowledge!
An update. The active on-line rendition of ‘twitter user names : coded’ has today received a significant update. From now on, the virtual connections that break will be low-lighted in dark grey.
Thanks David. That adds another fascinating level of time to the piece and gives an indication of identities which have been shed – so to speak. Good update.