Stephen McKenna Mima Review

Our fine art class had visited the Mima art gallery in Middlesborough, and at the time the main exhibition was that of Stephen McKenna, renowned as a London born post modernist figurative artist. Once entering the gallery you notice the all walls covered in large paintings of both urban and rural landscapes. When moving in to other rooms you see some of his earlier work including pencil drawings of both people and figures.

In my opinion I felt that his paintings were painted extremely well, and did achieve an amazing grasp of perspective especially with the changing shades of buildings throughout distance in his work, but unfortunately because of the pale colours used it made the landscapes look more like a child's toy city and made the image look both flat and lifeless, in particular his urban landscape due to the monotone pastel colours used.

His pencil drawings and sketches I found to be better, grasping a lot of emotion within his mark making, I believe that his art work of people was better than his animals however as he captured emotions better within their faces. Whereas with the animals he just managed to grasp their basic image and motion. Perhaps if he focused more on their facial expressions and worked in a lot of powerful mark making to define their features it would give it an extra kick.

In conclusion, I believe that Stephen McKenna is a great artist, having the skill in both painting and perspectives and the talent of a great art, but his work lacks a certain amount of depth to making his images more life like and powerful with emotion and spirit.

Competition

I have entered the tiger print competition which is submitting a 500 x 500 pixel picture of a mark making design that I submitted on their website designcompetition.tigerprint.co.uk. The winner has their mark making design printed on marks and spencers products such as leaflets and canvas bags for sale to the general public in shops, the winner also gets a reward of £200.

Report

Being a Self Employed Practitioner located in Newcastle

I have looked throughout Newcastle Upon Tyne searching for places which may be of use to Fine Artists with creating work, looking for studio spaces, galleries which would show and sell work and affordable shops to buy supplies from, below will be a list of a few places which I believe will be of most help when taking the step from student to professional, I have excluded the larger and more famous gallery spaces because you would need some kind of reputation before the curators think about exhibiting work there, so I have wrote purely about galleries with a good chance of being useful and exhibiting our work.

Firstly, I will talk about studio spaces to rent, one which looked promising was Foundry Lane Studios which was renovated from an apartment block in 2006 into a big studio complex holding spaces for mainly artists to work in but also other practices such as architecture and graphics. Prices for these studios spaces differ, but however the average price seems to be about thirty pound for two hours and then paying fifteen pound for every additional hour, but after asking at reception they said they may be able to negotiate on the price when buying time slots in bulk. As for the studio spaces themselves go the rooms are of decent size, large enough to comfortable fill with all necessary artistry equipment and four or five A3 sized canvases side by side on easels. It is quite a long walk from the town centre so if you planned on getting there with minimal exercise you would have to search for specific but routes or alternative means of getting there, they also have a car park which is never full according to staff so driving there is always an option if possible, there are studios spaces on ground floor so disabled access is available but there is also an additional floor which is only entered through climbing stairs. You have to bring your own equipment so if you planned on photography based work be prepared to have everything ready in advance. Food and drink can be bought from a small cafe inside or there is a pub called The Clarendon just two streets away which sells at affordable prices.

Another studio space which can be rented out is Banana Studios, this specialises in photography, so when renting you are allowed to borrow all their lighting, cameras and props but must pay for damage after if anything gets broken which would be extremely expensive due to the high quality equipment they use. They rent out to anyone doing photography shoots which is usually either artists or fashion students and the cost is based on time spent there, the starting price is forty pound for two hours and then an additional twenty pound for every hour after. The studio itself is at the top floor of a large building which makes it ideal to allow natural light in which is useful depending on what type of image you are after. Banana studios are located within the town centre so car park space is not guaranteed but nearby buses are frequent and common but other means of transportation would be possible. The building itself is disabled access friendly and even though their is no elevator, the staff could put up a stair lift if necessary for customers. There isn't anywhere inside the building to purchase food or drink but being in the town centre there are numerous cafes, restaurants or fast food shops located around. The size of the spaces are very large, each with tables, large sofas, cabinets and the photography equipment fitting in comfortable with a lot of walking space left over. I would suggest if going here, split the cost and work with others to gain the most achievable at the most affordable budget.

There are a lot of galleries within Newcastle, however I ignored the large and famous ones such as the Baltic and Lazarides due to it not being for new and aspiring artists, but for already successful artists who have enough reputation to be scouted and shown. So the galleries I looked at are places with a reasonable chance of showing our work.

There are a few galleries which would be up for showing and/or putting work up for sale, one gallery in particular which looked particularly promising is 'North East Art Collective', which is based within Newcastle towns Eldon square. Within entry you will notice hundreds of different fine art work within twelve rooms, it is packed full of interesting work, mainly paintings but also including sculptures, jewelry, ceramics and prints. I asked the manager about details with whether or not he would be able to show our universities fine art work and he seemed enthusiastic and keen, but would first need to see the art work. The work itself however has to be based around the North East for paintings based on buildings and landscapes, but the gallery itself contains a lot of abstract and sculptural work which isn't based on anything northern in particular so there is a tolerance to some leeway on the significance behind the work. The gallery itself is top floor and in the corner of Eldon Square, which I believe makes it a bit hidden and hard to randomly stumble on to, so business for it may be slow and your work while being shown may take a while to get sold. It is possible to get to the gallery through elevators for disabled access and although there are some ramps inside some doors are a little narrow which may make it impossible for wheelchairs to get through. The work itself ranges from a variety of prices, bigger works have a price tag of thousands whereas the average painting is between eighty pound and three hundred pound, but there are small stuff which can be sold easily for less than ten pound depending on what the artist produces for retail. The manager gave me his his business card and e-mail and allowed me to get into contact with him if I needed any questions asked so the North east collective seems like an extremely promising gallery as long as work is based upon the North East or abstracted with at least some relevance.

The biscuit factory is a large warehouse styled building which specialises in contemporary designed art and holds work from hundreds of artists, they have a lot of paintings on canvases spread over walls throughout the entire building but a lot of the work is shown in a kind of gift shop appearance. You can contact them on their website and send images of your own work and they will decide if they would show it for sale in their building. Inside is a restaurant and a cafe so food and drink are available if you want to have a look just for a day out and browse some art works as well. Disabled access is available with ramps and elevators so it is wheelchair friendly and car parking is available outside so you can drive and park there for four hours. The work their show is generally paintings, ceramics and small sculptural art works, and due to them hosting a lot of  work they don't usually show very large work unless under special circumstances, so if your art is mainly large sculptural pieces or huge canvases it is worth inquiring but chances are they wont exhibit it.

Another gallery space is the Baltic 39, which is a little sister to the Baltic and shows exhibitions from upcoming and new artists and change their exhibitions on a weekly basis, the owner and curator of the Baltic 39 came to university and gave a seminar speaking about both the Baltic and also the Baltic 39, he said that on average every week there are around the figures of two hundred artists whom ask to show their work and only ten get given the opportunity,but every week they change the shows and a one in twenty chance of being given the opportunity is very good considering the prestigious name of Baltic in the north of England. The Baltic 39 is disabled access friendly with elevators allowing wheelchair users to move around and the work is shown in large white rooms with lighting and other equipment able to be borrowed for use of displaying work. Their exhibitions generally show sculptural work and installments rather than paintings on canvases, however Baltic 39 is partnered with Northumbria University of art so tend to be biased and favour showing their universities work rather than sharing the work around, so you would have to make your work stand out from their own to get exhibited.

Excluding basic craft shops such as WH Smiths and the works, Newcastle has an amazing arts and crafts store called 'Newcastle Arts Centre', which sells a wide variety of artistry equipment such as high quality paints, paper, pencils and easels and other materials along that sort of nature. They also have weekly workshops and courses including lessons and seminars with cultural art experts. I picked up a leaflet and the experiences range between painting in acrylic to Chinese brush painting with Dr Chun-Chao Chiu, who has a doctorate in art. The supplies which they sell are very affordable and also give out student discount, so may be a good place to buy products for work when going professional. They show a few pieces of art on their walls but aren't looking for more to show but however have a gift shop which has a range of small pieces of artwork such as postcards with paintings on and small sculptural pieces being sold by artists for on average ten each. When asking a manager if they could sell some of our work he gave me an e-mail address and said to contact and although they only seek out new work every once in a while they will hold onto sent pictures of artists work and if when they are looking to replenish their shelves they may e-mail back. The shop itself is on an inclined hill with not a lot of parking near and being inside the town centre may be a bit hectic for parking and difficult for wheelchair users, however the inside provides ramps and wide hallways so people in wheel chairs can get around easily once inside.

However, if you are a digital artist then you would need a shop more suitable for selling equipment such as high quality printing paper, inks and lighting for studios, for that I would recommend the Digital F Stop Gallery, which is both a contemporary photography gallery and also an photographic shop, where you can buy both equipment and work. You could also send e-mails to the managers at F stop gallery to possibly show and sell your digital image art, but however I found that the building itself seemed to be better in selling equipment and materials than actually being a gallery. I would recommend this for those whom seek out high quality professional digital art equipment but I wouldn't chose to exhibit my work here.

In conclusion, I have found Newcastle town to be full of artistic opportunities, between studios to rent out to produce work, galleries to show and sell the work and high quality craft stores to buy the equipment, it is very possible to survive in Newcastle as an artist with a little luck and skill, and taking away the professional side it is full of huge galleries like the Baltic and Laing Art gallery which you need to have a renowned and famous name and reputation to get in but nothing to stop you getting influences just a few minutes' walk away. Newcastle is underrated when it comes to its art scene, but when you look around you find a lot of possibilities with work, artistic beauty in the location from the beautiful scenery to the intriquite buildings architecture and a way to live as a professional fine artist.

6 process art

Jackson Pollock







Jackson Pollock is one of the forerunners and most influential abstract expressionists artists, his work evokes a lot of emotion and is just generally appealing to look at, with his large scale work capturing and maintaining the audiences gaze.He works by knowing where he is going to put the lines but dances whilst doing it, giving a lot of his own emotion in with the work.

David Reed







David Reed paints canvases based on the galleries spaces so they fit with the walls, usually as a long landscape and occasionally portrait, he uses wet brush strokes of paint and captures the movement with his work and then uses an extremely contrasting colour which clashes and adds another element and makes the paint much more aesthetically pleasing to view.

Ian Davenport







Ian Davenport is an abstract artists whom uses glossy paint and sets up wires along a canvas, and by dripping it from the top of the wire it allows them to keep straight lines and allows the colours to merge at the bottom in a kind of rainbow looking image, the process used by Davenport is extremely interesting and unique amongst himself and creates a beautiful shined paint affect that stands out.

Steven Pippin







Steven Pippin uses a washing machine as a camera and takes and develops his images inside of it, creating a unique image unlike any other photographer, I like how Pippin managed to make his work look old fashioned with new technology. I also am intrigued with Pippin setting a motion sensor his washing machine which captures images when someone walks past, making it feel like an everyday object that is generally turned on and then ignored doesn't ignore others.

Martin Creed







Martin Creed uses humour, simplicity or irony within his art work installations, whether it is a thought provoking title and a simple idea or a cynical view on everyday politics and expressions, one of my favourite of his pieces is called 'what's the point of it?', and is a go at a lot of days art work which is worth a lot of money for very simple ideas and big artists trying to flog it as something special, and features nails hammered into walls at different lengths.

Gregg Simpson







Gregg Simpson is a process artist and tries to make his work replicate an abstract representation of what the ripples in waves look like whilst watching and ever changing, he explores the mediums of oil paints and spray paints.

6 artists consumerism

Gerhard Richter








Gerhard Richter is mainly an abstract artist whose work tends to use a vibrant green and yellow and is applied with a pallet knife, Richter experiments with using negative space by using masking tape over the paper which when taken off after being painted leaves a shape with straight lines and creates its own negative space. Richters work really interests me due to the use of vibrant colours which instantly gains my attention and how it contrasts with the dark colours which he uses as a background colour and is the negative space which the other colours are layered on top of.

Catherine Story







Catherine Story's art is very geometrical and her paintings involve painting models as lego stylized characters in shapes of blocks and straight lines, I found this style was extremely different and unique which is why it caught my attention, what else intrigued me was how she used multiple mediums and also made some ceramic 3-D sculptures of people.

Cornelia Parker







Cornelia Parker's work involves hanging objects with wire generally in a cubic shape, to me this gives the impression that it was one thing and exploded and it captures the moment of which the debris are flying away, each in its own separate direction. I find her work to be extremely interesting due to every single angle you look at it from is a brand new abstract picture in a way. Later in her work she experimented with the use of shadows with her dangling sculptures and I found that this added element gave extra depth to her work.

Guerra De La Paz







Guerra De La Paz are two cuban artists whom are uneasy with the amount of perfectly good clothes that end up in landfill sites daily so make art to speak out about that. They use clothes and express them in different ways, I find their art to be amazing due to the deepness and significance behind it, such as our self destructive ways being expressed by turning clothes into the shape of a nuclear bombs mushroom cloud, or making nooses out of ties.

David Mach







David Mach is a sculptor who explores an enormous range of materials with his work, however most find his best to be that which is made out of coat hangers, making huge work of animals and people to incredible detail simply by positioning coat hangers over one another and twisting abad cutting them when necessary.

Yong Ho Ji

Yong Ho Ji is a sculptor whom makes his art out of old car tires, the detail from it is amazing and impresses me with how scary and intimidating he can get them to look. Yong usually designs his work of fantasy creatures or exaggerated predators in the animal kingdom, which could be a significance of the dangers cars could have, both with crashes but also to the environment.

Top answers and why?

What are the most important art exhibitions you have seen?

- The louvre, this was possibly an amazing turning point for me as it wasn't until i explored the louvre as a young child and stared in amazement at the mona lisa, thinking how someones work could become so famous and how I could create something like this which in years to come could become a sought after treasure that other people could look up to.

- The baltic in newcastle, I have visited this on numerous occasions, most lately with my university and this allowed me to see things from a different perspective.

-The mima in middlesborough, I went on a trip with the university here and this was the first art gallery I visited after I started appreciating different and new things,  as I was never as interested in abstract and the idea that art can just be paint and not anything in particular, however seeing works of artists such as Jackson Polluck and others in person completely changed my opinion.

- Lazarides art gallery, this art gallery featured a lot of different street art with surreal twists which is a huge influence on my personal style, this was the first time I had witnessed a banksy piece in person which was a big deal for me at the time.

- The baltic 39 in newcastle, it is a smaller art gallery compared to that of the Baltic, but i much preferred the different exhibitions which was housed there at the time, and was my personal favourite and enjoyable that I have visited.

Which contemporary artists are most important to you?

-Guy Denning, I studied Guy in my 6th Form and found his work inspiring and affected my personal studies quite a lot.

- Allen Ruppersberg, to me he helped break the idealism of what is art.

-Keith Tyson, the way he blends colours and the way he chooses his composition means a lot to me.

-Ai Weiwei, his sculptures of shapes and repetition I found to be hypnotising and intriguing.

- Douglas Gordon, his work entails setting fire to famous images and making a different thing completely, showing that destruction is also art if done right.

Which historic artists do you like and respect most?

- Salvador Dali, surrealism is my favourite type of painting styles and he was the most well known that was associated with surrealism, that and his quirky personality traits I found to be amusing.

- Francis Bacon, to me his surrealist art was always dark and gothic which I thought was unique compared to others.

- Alberto Giacometti, his elongated skeletal figures were the first art work I recall attempting to recreate myself with wires. His work is extremely valuable to this day and he managed to make his work look both so simple and complex at the same time.

- Joan Miro, I could stare at a Miro art work for a long time, questioning what things are and what they represent, giving things a new outlook and appearance.

- Francisco Goya, Goya is my personal favourite artist at portraying different emotions and some almost in a sinister appearance.

What are films you have seen that you think are culturally significant?

-  Fight Club, it explores a lot of different atmospheres to current life, such as the mundaneness and repetitiveness to modern day living and the barbaric-ness to which we need excitement, and throw in a mental disorder it gives a lot of twisted and unique views online that leaves people questioning what is living.

-  Leon the Professional, it challenges the stereotypes of a hit man with that of a child like innocent man who hasn't lived and is socially inept, who gets a partner of that in a young girl which has shown him things and helped him to become alive through simple menial things such as having fun.

- Se7en, a murderer uses the seven deadly sins as his reason for killing people while leaving clues, and through the dark atmosphere and realisation that nearly all people are liable to the sins it brings   a lot of dark questions into the movie and it's significance.

-Watchmen, this isn't like the typical super hero movie as you find that most of the heroes are just as villainous as their enemies, which brings an uneasy feeling into if their is right and wrong, or just a conflict of needs.

- Train spotting, a film about the lives of different youths who attempt a friend going cold turkey on heroin so he can hope for a normal life.

Who are your favourite historic or contemporary heroes or heroines beyond the art world?

- Mahatma Gandhi, for the revolution of non violence movements throughout india and parts of the world.

- Keanu Reeves, a rich actor whom isn't money orientated and shares his wealth with the less fortunate but outside of the medias eye so not for attention or publicity.

- Abraham Lincoln, was a smart and self taught leader whom struggled through hard times but prevailed.

- Walt Whitman, a humanistic poet which was looked down on at the time due to his beliefs.

- Bob Geldof, raises a lot of awareness and money for charities without personal gain.

What books about art have you found most informative?

-Salvador Dali, his self titled book features many of his paintings and the thoughts that went behind him when finishing these, I found his thought process to be inspirational.

- When I was much younger my sister had bought me a learn how to draw book, which got me interested in skeletal structures of creatures and taught me the very basics of how to draw.

What novels have you found most enjoyable?( poetry/plays also)

- Tyler Knott Gregson is a poet who released the book, 'Chasers of Light' that is amongst my favourites One of my personal favourites of his pieces is from his typewriter series, number 996.

"Maybe I was a thing to be
dismantled,
pulled apart
one piece at a time,
all the parts spread out,
catalogued, photographed
and stored.
All I know is the dusty scent
of the box I'm kept in,
the lid I mistake
for night. "

- Another of my favourites poets is Christopher Pointdexter , this is an extract from his book, ' The universe and Her, and I' number 288.

"I am something new."
you must tell yourself.
"I am the beginning and
end
of a story that
will never be lived again.

I am new earth and new air
and new words.
I am as fresh
as birth.

I am significant."

- Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, later made into a film iconicity starring Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal  Lecter.

- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is a good novel that delves into characters and how events change them morally.

- Looking For Alaska by John Green, this was a very emotional and hard book for me to read as it shows how quickly life can go from normal to despair after someone closes death and leaving a lot of things to go unanswered that you have to live with.

What music albums do you regard as essential listening?

- Pink Floyd- wish you were here, I have never heard a band that resembles pink floyd in anyway, they have a magical atmosphere towards them and even the instrumentals seem to speak to the listeners.

http://vimeo.com/28208077

- John Frusciante- the empyrean, such a simple and beautiful album done by the guitarist from red hot chilli peppers, John is an artist who is independent on himself purely and in the past had a coke addiction which influenced his mentality and himself to what he has become now and he has shown the beauty of his talents in his work.

http://vimeo.com/2579381

- Isles and Glaciers- The hearts of lonely people

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzmi6uB2hmc

- Lynyrd Skynyrd- (pronounced leh-nerd skin-nerd)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHQ_aTjXObs

- Anberlin- New surrender

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdddceIqW2k

Which are your favourite historic or contemporary buildings?

-The sage building located in newcastle, living so close to it I seen it often whilst travelling, I also witnessed it slowly getting built throughout my childhood.

- Coach Omotesando flagship in Japan, from a far its intricate glass design looks amazing and confusing.

- The blue planet in Denmark, its spiral design looks extremely impressive, especially from a birds eye view.

- Mercat Encats in Barcelona, features an abstract roof of different angles which is complete mirror, so the sky view is that of the ground but in a twisted view point.

-SOGA in mexico, its an open air bridged walk through area which looks like an inside interior design and is extremely appealing and interesting to look at.


What are your favourite pieces of contemporary design?

- David Stanley- Wye Spring

- Jo Lewis - Riverscape

-Nenad Zilic- Genesis

- Slava Groshev- Melancholy

-Zachary Walsh- aTOMIC CHILD 6



What are the most significant national or international events that you have 'witnessed'?

- 9/11, I was a young child but I remember the news at the time and how it is still considered a monumental event of the 21st century.

- Barack Obama becoming the first black president, this was a huge step in the way of equality amongst races, changes is happening and people are gradually getting more and more rights when you look at how different races and genders were treated even just a few decades ago.

6 body artists

Pablo Picasso







Pablo Picasso paints using cubism, which may look very strange from first viewing but is much more visible when you see it as all the sides of a cube folded out, so instead of just seeing one angle of the face you can see all of the sides, which wouldnt even be visible from the original view point.

He used oil pastels to colour this piece in which I think worked well because it let the colours blend very easily with each other and gave a very bland colour which adds to the dreary atmopshere behind the image..

Joan Miro







Miros work is very abstract and surreal, he draws people like distorted stick men with different shapes intervening and colours in somewhat random places. In his work 'metamorphosis' he adds collage of mannequins dotted all over the image in circular and ovular shapes.

Charles Cohen







Charles Cohen is a photographer who cuts out the model from the background, and what youre left with is a white silhouette of where the model was which is very interesting when you see the persons shadow right behind them and his work is very original.

Salvador Dali







Dali is renowned as one of the most famous surreal artists, and this painting shows distorted limbs holding other limbs in the style of a king of building structure. I like Dali because each of his paintings could have intriquite hidden meanings behind themselves.

Lora Zombie







Lora Zombie uses water colours and mixes people with animals and generally has something 'exploding' out of something else, and she sticks to using a specific colour scheme for every picture, generally blue or black.She usually paints the water colours to be running down over the main image in multicolours too, allowing them to blend and create psychedelic patterns whilst the original background image stays visible.

Ron Mueck







Ron Mueck makes sulptures of people which from photographs look like normal people, however they are scaled on massive proportions and you only see the true impressiveness when you have something to compare them too. Mueck adds extraordinary details into his work so is extremely impressive even from up close.