I was very fortunate to have the chance to hold a solo exhibition of my photography in the foyer of the theatre. It was scheduled to run from 10th February to 9th April 2020, but unfortunately one of the lesser consequences of Covid was to leave the images hanging there until mid-September that year, but without an audience.
As chairman or secretary of Ballymoney Photographic Club I have also led a couple of exhibitions in pre-Covid times, and one for the Tech in Ballymoney.
Current work
Currently I am halfway through a MA in Fine Arts at the Open College of the Arts in the UK, and the basis of my work there is the slice of my life between September 1975 and March 1978 during my MSc in Physics at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada and how my memories of it were evoked and how they change with time and are filtered by life experiences.
Would it be possible at some stage to hold an exhibition of my current MA work?
Themes
The themes of my present work are:
- artefacts evoking and representing memories
- a collection of artefacts from a slice of time
- how memories change with the passage of time and life experience
- the close observation of ordinary artefacts (influenced by the work of Georges Perec)
My Practice
Composites
I scan and/or photograph the artefacts, so I have a digital representations of them and also some original analogue photos of that time. I make digital composites of chosen images, by taking selections of them, and the resulting composite represents a jumble of memories of that time period. Afterwards I may add acrylic paint, via a gel plate, and/or a collage of acrylic ink/paint on tissue paper.
Gel Plate work
I used acrylic paint or ink rolled on to a gel plate, some times added textures or more layers, to give a more organic appearance to my work.
Extraction Poetry
I use pages from my Brock MSc thesis, which is written in a formal scientific fashion, and try to extract new, interesting meanings from it. Again I use acrylic paint via a gel plate and collage paper to complete the image.
Cubism
I am also experimenting with a sort of cubism. Braque and Picasso sometimes combined views of a subject from different angles, or several scenes of a moving subject in one two-dimensional image. I’m trying to build on my composite work by bringing together several original composites into a single image, maybe representing how some parts of memories solidify, other parts are forgotten and others come into focus.
Origin of my MA work
At the beginning of my MA I was looking for something in my attic and found a shabby, old wallet inside a battered cardboard box.
I didn’t remember this slim wallet and at first I thought it was empty, but there were quite a few pieces of paper and other objects inside. I took out one piece of paper and casually looked at it. I didn’t initially recognise it, but then I saw the words “Glenridge Physics” and “Security Guard” and the memories came flooding back of my time doing the MSc in Canada. Late nights in a windowless laboratory, tuna and onion sandwiches (and Herschey bars) from a vending machine, preparing gold single crystals (shades of alchemy), days spent punching cards for the mainframe computer, followed by rugby training …
Pandora’s Box
The cardboard box, affectionately called ‘Pandora’s Box’, held a lot more artefacts from that slice of my life, 1975-78, with short tails from before and after, mainly letters from family girlfriends, university correspondence, etc. I have some other objects relevant to Brock too around my home; a large beer stein, a ‘most outstanding’ rugby trophy, photos a moustache cup, various photos, etc.
Archiving
In my MA Fine Art work I have documented some of these artefacts, mainly by scanning or photography, and am still contemplating appropriate ways to archive them. At present most of them reside in drawers of a chest.
Use of Artefacts
I have used some of these photos and scans to make composites and collages. These composites represent my jumbled memories of a slice of my life at Brock, and how the memories distort, collapse and reform over time. Currently I’m experimenting with Cubism with the view to combining it with my composite work, since the cubist technique also fragments and distorts conventional images to have multiple views of a subject in one image.
Request
I wonder if Riverside would be interested in my work and its relevance to artefacts which we hold dear because they evoke memories (Proust) and how memories change, fade or distort with time and maturity ? I would be very interested in discussing some form of an exhibition, if it were possible.
(email sent on 19th October 2023, and I got a reply on 20th:)
Hi David,
Nice to hear from you ā hope you are keeping well.
Yeah we could run an exhibition for you 4th ā 23rd March 2024?
Hanging around 28/ 29 Feb/ 1 March ā Take down after Easter w/c 8 April.
Would this work?
Best,
Rš
Roseanne Sturgeon
Theatre Manager | Riverside Theatre
Creating Thriving Campus Communities
Ulster University | Cromore Road | Coleraine | BT52 1SA
Woohoo!
Reaching my audience
My previous photography exhibitions have all been static, framed prints hanging on walls around the foyer. Can I find other ways of engaging the audience? Maybe online videos, to which I give links or QR codes from descriptions on the wall and I can describe my work ,even show the making process, that they can access while walking round the exhibition. I have some videos on Vimeo, but that site is limited. Must check this out further.
If I can do this method, I could probably make videos of the exhibition, perhaps even with some audience feedback, and put the exhibition online. This would be a chance to try out my video editing skills from the Berlin workshop in August .
