Monday, 21 October 2013

MONUMENTAL. MFA, Glasgow School of Art. Term 1.

Here is a long overdue update on my practice activity.
Since taking my place on the MFA at Glasgow School of Art it has been a necessity to retreat and rework things. The course is intense and rigorous and is encouraging changes and shifts within my own work. This is a natural result of having 17 new peers with whom I practice alongside daily. Our studio is a hive of activity and we are all very dedicated. The combination of lecturers input is also having a positive effect on the way Ive been doing things. Access to an Art library is gold dust and is also helping me develop my approach.
Glasgow City is buzzing with artistic activity. There are many openings, discussions and events on throughout the week. Its becoming a full time practice in itself, but its so valuable to have all this on my doorstep.
I am working on a two new pieces, and am encouraging a strong sense of community by holding a weekly breakfast meeting. For me this kind of discussion group is at the heart of my studio practice. Over the past five years in Cardiff, UK, I have hosted similar things, but I intend to make it a more concrete aspect of my studio career.
I feel blessed to be studying alongside such dynamic artists from all corners of the globe who are all very committed to their practices.
GSA for life.

My new studio

studio 2013-2014

Popular Culture and Artistic Practice. Pulp- Common People

Mack Lecture Theatre


Breckie

Round Table Breakfast Club

Breckie

Monday, 15 July 2013

Overnight Sleepers, Three Major European Cities and Plenty of Art.

I was a fortunate recipient of the Venice Travel Award, a financial gift that enabled twenty Welsh artists to visit this year's Venice Biennale. Having worked for the Welsh pavilion in 2007 and 2009 I feel like the magical Island is a second home to me and was excited to have the opportunity to return.

PARIS

As I have been there on many occasions, I'd decided that I would take an alternative mode of travel and have an adventure on the way. We planned our train route through Europe, first a stop in Paris for the day on the Eurostar. Our planned activity in the city was to visit the Pompidou.
Here I saw one of the best exhibitions I’ve seen over the past year. Mike Kelley’s first retrospective since his death last year was an exhilarating show comprised of more than a hundred pieces of his work made between 1974 and 2011. Although the show was cram packed the curation allowed for space between the works and for dialogue between each piece. Kelley’s disturbing video work, Devil's Door, 2004-2005, shows a young boy going to a barbers and being monstrously treated by camp, and vile barbers who tell the blonde angelic boy that he has a furry vagina beard. Behind this video installation was another film featuring the golden haired angel boy, titled Nativity Play 2004-2005, see’s the artist use a found photograph of a school nativity as a starting point for the film. He creates a fictional score, script and set for the absurd school play and the children seem very awkward and disturbed. For me, the mesmerising part of this video was a complete stage backdrop with fake lambs and the Star of Bethlehem that was installed behind the film work. His drawings feature heavily in the show, made in pencil and ink, they are particularly relevant to my current body of work and were very inspiring. The show climaxed with an installation of his city scape series that depict the fictional city of Kandor where Superman came from. Here he is exploring the notion of an idealised world, a magical place where everyone is good. This piece is approached with the typical black humour that can be found throughout this retrospective.






VENICE

We travelled from Gare De Lyon station to Venice on the overnight sleeper, cutting through France, the Alps and into Italy through the dead of night. Our cabin slept four adults comfortably, and it was a romantic, old-fashioned way to travel. I was back in the jewelled city on the water, raring to sink my teeth into the international peacock pageant of contemporary artwork. This time however, I seemed time poor and missed an awful lot despite my best efforts to see as much as I could. Below are my Venice Biennale Highlights:

Belgian Pavilion
Berlinde De Bruyckere, Cripplewood, 2012-2013
As you walk into a dark space with peculiar sepia lighting the smell of wax hits you. This had a nostalgic quality for me and reminded me of making beeswax candles at Llanciach fawr in Wales. What is most striking about this pavilion is that the artist appointed a noted writer, J.M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, to serve as curator and artistic collaborator. His text lines the walls of entrance to the show and are an exciting read.

Danish Pavilion
Jesper Just
Firstly you had to weave your way through a concrete maze at the rear of the pavilion, to then be greeted by a large and immersive film installation that follows three men through a replica city of Paris. The film work was exquisite, but what excited me the most was the use of pink lighting and concrete brick that supported the films setting and made the work a complete installation, rather than a film in a space.



Irish Pavilion
Richard Mosse, The Enclave
A must see, the Irish artist presents a moving film and sound installation of life in war torn Congo. Filmed in the infrared that military use to spot camouflage creates a post apocalyptic scene of a chaotic place surrounded by death. The sound work is thrilling and is taken from field recordings and worked to make an eerie sound piece.



Wales
Bedwyr Williams, The Starry Eyed Messenger
The floor extends into a wall and you can see into it. It took a while for me to discover how I could get beyond the marble dashed gauze and into the next installation. A lone whimper comes from a loser in an observatory- maybe he missed the opportunity to see his favourite star. A coloured light from over yonder beckons you to leave his private observing behind and you enter a water cavern, beyond this is a big purple cave with stalactites that my tall companion had to dodge as he nearly got knocked out. I remembered trips to Dan Yr Ogof caves throughout my childhood where I was petrified of entering a dark, cold cavernous space with water trickling over me. Furthermore, the fake cavemen that the day trip site had hung from the roof of the cave and who appeared to be falling into a pool of water left me screaming as a girl.
William’s film, was equally disturbing- particularly the idea of turning into a smooth and bulbous pebble stuck in between a rock and a hard place. I was reminded of my joy at Mike Kelley’s work in Paris and his use of film, spectacle, black humour and lighting. I am a big theme park fan and love being guided by trickery through spaces and experience, much like when you cue for a ride at Alton Towers and they feed you a narrative. I can’t get enough of it, so this work was right up my street.

Slovenian Pavilion
Jasmina Cibic, For Our Economy and Culture
The highlight of the Biennale for me was the work by Slovenian artist Jasmina Cibic. For Our Economy and Culture explores the concept of national representation through film and installation. At the end of a narrow calle you face a window, which you can see contemporary and historical paintings behind, emblazoned across the window in iron is the statement:
For Our Economy and Culture.
You walk through a curtain into a wallpapered space with a video projection. The walls and curtains are covered in black insects, each curve and fold in the wallpaper highlighting the architectural details of the space.
The video work seemed like a retro staging of official conversations by Slovenian officials about the artist chosen to represent the pavilion. The film work was much like the work of Gerard Byrne’s; in visuals and in that it represents a historical narrative.




ROME

We end our trip with a few days in Rome to stay with Irish artist Cian Donnelly who has settled into life in this ancient city after going to the British School in Rome five years ago. Cian will be making work in Wales next November for Experimentica, Wales leading performance art festival. One of the main reasons for this visit, apart from hanging out with Cian, was to see the famous Trevi Fountain. I am planning on making a body of work sometime in the near future about water features and their relationships to cities.



I am very grateful to Wales Arts International for making this trip a reality. It reminds me of the importance of sending people to see, experience and represent. It is vital FOR OUR ECONOMY AND CULTURE.




Tuesday, 2 July 2013

MEANTIME Project Documentation

Fortune 1 Drawing
Fortune 1 Drawing detail
Installation image 1
Installation image 2
Tent close up

Installation with chinese rug

Me taking pics of the work

In conversation with Phil Owen, assistant researcher at Arnolfini, Bristol

Fortune Drawing series


'For Future Reference' project documentation from my project and residency at MEANTIME in Cheltenham. Over the four week residency I visited local psychics in order to gather a clearer picture of my future. The psychic predictions were used as material for drawings. During the closing event I delivers a spoken word performance where I tried to retell the readings in the way that they had been delivered. I was mainly trying to channel Whoopi Goldberg as the psychic in the film GHOST.

Whoopi Goldberg as Oda Mae Brown, Psychic in Ghost

Wednesday, 26 June 2013

MEANTIME Residency Concluding Event 28/06/2013. 7-9pm

RESIDENCY: KATHRYN ASHILL

CONCLUDING EVENT: FRIDAY 28th JUNE, 7-9pm
Performance 7:30pm
For Future Reference is an ongoing project exploring the relationship between our present and future lives. Kathryn Ashill has for a number of years been collecting and archiving predictions made about her future with visits to fortune tellers, psychics and clairvoyants.
During her residency at MEANTIME, these alternative futures have been tested and analysed, played out and presented, through drawing, writing and performance.

EXHIBITION OPEN: SATURDAY 29th JUNE, 11am-4pm Attended by astrologer Rosemary Smith.

Read respondent Phil Owen's (artist and research assistant, Arnolfini) text here.


 

More information about current, forthcoming and past projects at http://meantime.org.uk/

MEANTIME blog at http://meantimespace.wordpress.com/

MEANTIME
Oxford Passage
Off St Margaret's Road
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GL50 4EF


Directions here.

MEANTIME aims to provide a platform for active engagement in current art practice and the representation of ideas. MEANTIME is supported by Arts Council England, the University of Gloucestershire and Arts Development at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum.

MEANTIME Residency text by Phil Owen (Reading Room research assistant at Arnolfini, Bristol)


Phil Owen responds to Kathryn Ashill’s project, June 2013

Let me share with you my experience of a recent performance by the artist Kathryn Ashill. I had arrived at the crowded basement gallery space some time before, and was waiting for an opportunity to get into a separate tented area, set out to resemble a fairground fortune teller’s tent. I was aware that I wasn’t entirely sure of how to approach the situation. Kathryn, who was inside the tent, is a very good friend of mine, whom I was looking forward to catching up with. She was also mid-way in to a piece devised for one audience member at a time. I didn’t want to disrespect the conventions that she had set up, but I didn’t want to pre-empt them either. Once I knew the tent was empty, I pushed through the purple curtain and made my greeting. We quickly established a ‘normal’ conversation, but quite soon she made it clear that we were going to shift our interaction into encompassing the pre-determined exchanges of the performance. I was very impressed by the way in which she did this – a subtle but firm switch in atmosphere. We read each other’s palms, using a printed palmistry guide sheet augmented by Kathryn’s own knowledge and experience. There was no pressure to accept the resulting guidance, in the same way that there was no pressure to follow a script. Rather, the piece seemed to exist as a relatively indefinable sense of delineated exchange. Some of what our palms apparently indicated had a certain poignancy, since they rang true, and since we both knew they rang true for each other. The experience was something between a conversation, a folkloristic ritual, and a confession.
Many of Kathryn’s past projects have focussed on the commemoration of historical characters or scenarios. Consequently, I do not find it surprising that she should have chosen fortune telling as her most recent subject of artistic enquiry – since what is fortune telling, but a mirroring of the way we continually tell ourselves stories about the past as a benchmark to understand ourselves within the present? I am particularly interested in the unlikely parallels between her work and the medieval Welsh bardic tradition: within this poets were employed by aristocratic patrons to praise their ancestral lineage, to justify claims to power through emphasising hereditary connections (however tenuous) to noble forbears; the transmission of prophetic poetry (canu brud) was another aspect of their role. While her commitment to the Welsh language is certainly very strong, her frame of reference is generally more cheap and cheerful than courtly (though she sees the dignity as well as the escapism in things often dismissed by cultural critics for being populist or sentimental). Nevertheless, Kathryn’s work resonates strongly with the bards’ function within a society that understood the cohesive power of narrative, whether it concerned the past or the future, to its identity.
Contemporary culture tends to devalue the role of myth, while insisting, unrealistically, on the inviolable truth of its own stories (news reporting, political rhetoric, advertising, not to mention the popular presentation of science). Instead, in this project, Kathryn Ashill highlights an on-going manifestation of the need for people to take solace in a predicted version of events, whether or not they really, truly, believe in them. The psychic readings she has commissioned are shared with us, their discrepancies and contradictions undermining their claims to accuracy. They are not discounted however, Kathryn’s interest goes beyond whether or not the predictions will come true, to encompass the reasons why people want to be told. The specialness of being spoken to in confidence and acceptance; the reassurance of being presented with a certainty – they are presented as a quite unique format for intimate exchange within an isolating society that Kathryn has drawn on, both as a precedent for one-one performances, and then as an informing quality that feeds out into the developing project more broadly.

AN article on The Centre is Here: Alternative Art Schools



Symposium report: alternative art schools

The Centre is Here symposium saw representatives of alternative art schools presenting their visions for art education. Kathryn Ashill, who starts an MA at Glasgow School of Art in September, found plenty to take on board as she prepares to embark on her course.   

BY: KATHRYN ASHILL

NEWS: 24 Jun 2013

  • Centre is Here
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    The Centre is Here: Alternative Art Schools, at g39, Cardiff.
It was with slight trepidation that I attended The Centre is Here symposium about alternative art schools, at Cardiff's g39. I am, after all, leaving Cardiff in September to embark on an MFA at Glasgow School of Art. Had I considered all the other options? Would the presentations by Pippa Koszerek (The Independent Art School), Maurice Carlin (Islington Mill Art Academy) and The School of the Damned cast a shadow over my decision to return to art school? 
First to present their ideas was Independent Art School founder Koszerek. The school became a curatorial project after she and fellow course mates created The New Hull Art School as a protest against the implementation of modularity on the course structure of fine art degrees.
Championing a free and progressive approach to education, they set up talks, crits, performances and presentations. Koszerek's powerpoint for this event included a series of drawings that humorously illustrated her point. A woman with a large rock on her back accompanied her statement: 'There were problems with being perceived as opposing a system, people would make assumptions about my political standpoint: I was seen as being a Marxist, anarchist, or anti establishment. This is a weighty responsibility that is imposed on your making process.' 
As a result of being questioned about her integrity, Koszerek went on to do an MA in order to research groups who were actively seeking a student-led experience. She met Department 21, who adopted a cross-disciplinary approach within the RCA and broke barriers between the rigid, separate courses by having a communal studio for printmakers, sculptors and painters. Her experience supports the main argument of her presentation – that we should fight for alternatives within the current art school system.
Underground resistance
The School of The Damned offered a counterpoint to working from within the established system. They are a London-based group of artists who have fully embraced the DIY approach to education. After graduating, 15 friends decided to create their own MA as a protest against high fees, being unable to get on a course, and the need to be accepted by art schools in the first place. They forcefully borrow the term MA in order to copy structures set in place by traditional art schools, describing themselves as ‘an underground Fine Art MA course run by its students.’
Set up in late 2012, The School of the Damned has a timetable and a meeting place and pays lecturers in kind through offering their skill sets, such as gardening or web design. Both Sara Nunes Fernades and Rachel Haines from the school used forceful language when explaining their ethos, describing themselves as being “criminalised” for not getting on/affording an MA. This sat uncomfortably with borrowed educational terms such as 'degree shows', 'lecturers' and 'course'.
Although the energy, commitment and enthusiasm the 'students' have for their new vocation and 'school' is commendable, it was hard to see what actually makes it a school; it seemed more like the dressing up or rebranding of an art collective.
Revolutionary approach
Maurice Carlin of The Islington Mill Art Academy, Salford, offered a more organic alternative to institutional art education. He explained that after doing a foundation and feeling deflated by the BA options, he opted – along with a large group of other foundation students – to create an academy that would gain practical knowledge for its students by exhibiting work and taking part in international art projects. 
This revolutionary approach to seeking out opportunities and receiving on the job experience had echoes of Koszerek's determination to champion freedom and student-centred experiences. The Art Academy is not an accredited course, but it could be argued that, as a result of its proactive ethos, students have much more depth in their approach to their own work and exhibiting than the average BA graduate.
I had one burning question for the panel: Where is the room for the individual, and fostering an individual practice, when their alternative schools are so collectively driven? There were three very different responses: The School of the Damned explained that focusing on their own work wasn’t an issue; Carlin has found that the academy has influenced the type of work he makes as he focuses on ideas about collectives and the public. Koszerek, meanwhile, clearly makes the distinction that The Independent Art School is a curatorial project rather than a collective. 
As I prepare to return to art school I am looking forward to focusing on aspects of my practice and having the critical response of fellow students and lecturers. And I intend to take on board some of the panel’s points: I will endeavour to be an active part of a community; I will make an act of protest by accepting my place at art school, ensuring that it’s not only the rich that study at MA level; and, if need be, I will fight for alternatives from within.
The Centre is Here: Alternative Art Schools took place on 22 June at g39, Cardiff, and was organised by g39/Warp and Chapter.
More on a-n.co.uk
Alternative art schools - Pippa Koszerek's Research paper.

MEANTIME Residency: Weeks 2&3 Discovering I was a Witch

Tarot Reading with Dayle Antonius
Print trials of drawings
Print trials of drawings

Psychic Toni Hunt's shop Spellbound in Gloucester
Spellbound
Gloucester Cathedral
Gloucester Catherdral
A gift from Elaine- a visitor to MEANTIME space

WEEKS 2&3 REPORT

Since my last update on the residency I have encountered three more psychics, and three new versions of my future. It is fair to say that having consulted these people on my future has made me lose my balance with the present- it leads to you reassessing everything around you.
My second visit was to a lady called Dayle Antonius, who doesn't normally take readings unless you have been passed on. Fortunately my previous psychic (Maureen) had put me in touch. As I arrived to her house on a quiet Cheltenham culdi-sac she was waiting at her door to flag me down. This made me less nervous. Entering a strangers living room for such an odd reason is very nerve wracking. It became obvious that Dayle too was very nervous, almost frightened of what she may predict, 'My mother didn't like me very much as I was her truthful child. I would make predictions about my family and it would frighten them'. Her deck of the Old Path tarot were placed in my hands and I was told to transmit energy to them. She began laying the cards out in a pattern. Dayle seemed really pleased with the hand Id been dealt- particularly the Queen of cups for a great love life, and the ace of cups for luck, spiritual journey. The images were used by Dayle to predict what was coming, and in terms of my upcoming move, current relationship and life, I must admit she was pretty accurate. Things turned strange when a spirit tried to get in touch with me: "Jack has a message for you from the other side: he says you must get in the boat, and row with the water- not against it." After Maureen's prediction of me having to put my oars in the boat and go with the flow, I was slightly shaken by this repetition. Could it be a familiar term used b psychics? Or is Jack always with me?
The third week was draining as I realised if I wanted to make large prints of the documentational drawings on time I would have to see two psychics in one week. I went to a witch shop in Gloucester. This olde worlde looking shop sat right beside the Cathedral. A pagan stand off- it seemed like a protest. Lesley was psychic number three, a blonde Aussie who seemed surprised that I wanted two readings in one week (probably as it costs so much!) "I work with the Angels", she said, "and I can tell you that your very angelic". Not only does Lesley work with the Angles, she also works with Aura's and Tarot. It felt as though I was bamboozled with pagan rituals. Our parting left me very confused: "Kathryn I feel that you need to sort your past life out, it is affecting your future... I feel that you were definitely a witch". It only felt right for me to cross the road and sit in the Cathedral a bit to gather my thoughts and write the session down before I forgot her predictions.
My final psychic experience took place two days later with Gloucester's famous psychic Toni Hunt. I was ushered into the familiar back 'psychic' room, and Toni began. Her face was covered in a dragon tattoo and she wore fake medieval clothes. She spoke too much about my past for my liking: "You are an old soul. You were an ancient Egyptian and you were present in medieval times". I am concerned with my future not my past. Once she got into my future it seemed optimistic, exciting and the kind of life I want. I was outed as a Witch again: 'You are psychic and you can perform readings. You're a witch, when we see one of our own kind we can sense it immediately". My knee jerk reaction was to run to the Cathedral.

Tuesday, 11 June 2013

MEANTIME Residency: WEEK 1

New office at Cheltenham
Crystal shop
Psychic 1 hand writing
Beginning of drawing
Discussion setup for opening event 
Reading material and drawing
Residency space and salt rock lamp

WEEK 1 REPORT

I could not have predicted (but then I'm no psychic!) how well my first week at Meantime residency space could have gone. The residency space is perfect for any artist working in any medium- it is homely, light and makes you feel that you can make anything. Its a very special space- bright and airy with large windows and plenty of wall space. I have settled in well. The first day was spent researching local psychics and booking myself a session. Everything was ready for me to visit my first fortune teller on the Tuesday. This was a nerve wracking experience- I have a strong Welsh accent and am not very good on the phone, then there is the unusual experience of going to a strangers home. I stood at the psychics front door full of trepidation. She answered and was miffed that Id arrived early as she was in the middle of another reading. I was handed the sun newspaper and told to relax on the white leather sofa's in the lounge. A young blonde woman leaves and thanks the psychic. It struck me that she too was nearly thirty, well dressed and normal looking. The psychic ushered me into her consultation room. She was very motherly and friendly and put me at ease. The reading began with a disclaimer:

"I am not God,
  I am not a Counsellor,
 This is for light entertainment only."

She held my hand throughout the reading and wrote in an automatic style, interrupting the writing to explain what she meant. I will divulge what she predicted through my work. At the end of my session I asked how I could get back to Cheltenham town centre. She exclaimed "come back in loviee I am driving in to get my hair cut, Ill take you." I was moved by this generous offer.
Back at the residency space I started to consider what would be the best mode of documenting this reading and experience. It struck me that the language she used had been so full of visual imagery that I should make drawings. The black Biro drawings are very illustrative and help form a narrative of the reading. This ties in with the advertising style a lot of psychics use, and also makes a nod to the aesthetics of carnival posters.
The opening event took place on that Tuesday evening. This was a chance to have an active dialogue about the work and was very beneficial as I was able to talk through the whole of the For Future Reference Project and explain in detail what I am trying to achieve now. Many interesting subjects arose such as why it is such a female tradition to see psychics, and why it is very common in the South Wales Valleys to do so. 
Drawing has become the main focus of this work, this is a fresh start and a new direction for my work to take. Using drawing as a way of mapping out performances has taken place throughout my work in the last few years, but I am looking forward to focusing and putting emphasis on this way of exploring my ideas.

Thursday, 23 May 2013

Meantime Residency June 2013

Psychic 8th Ave NYC, Oct 2012

I am currently preparing for my residency at Meantime in Cheltenham, UK, for the month of June.
During my residency at Meantime, I will be investigating Cheltenham's local Psychic scene, whilst also having my fortune read by various mediums throughout my time at the project space. Using Meantime as a Psychic hub, I will collect new narratives on my future and present them in a performance and installation at the end of the residency.

Three public events take place throughout the residency:

INTRODUCTORY PRESENTATION: TUESDAY 4th JUNE, 7.30-9pm

CONCLUDING EVENT: FRIDAY 28th JUNE, 7-9pm

EXHIBITION OPEN: SATURDAY 29th JUNE, 11am-4pm


This project has been funded by the Arts Council of Wales.

Here's a link to meantime:





There's No Time. We Made it Up


Tuesday, 23 April 2013

The Culture Acid Test writes about 'For Future Reference...'


Image
Kathryn Ashill is a Cardiff based performance artist who has been showing work in the public realm since 2006. Her work often makes interventions into the landscape drawing in spectators who frequently become participants. She then work’s with filmmakers and photographers to document the frequently site specific, personal action making, in an attempt to reinterpret and re-present the performance. Her current work focuses on the narrative of her personal history and future.
Next month she will be bringing a performance to Bristol for the exhibition ‘There’s No Time. We Made it Up’. This is part of her ongoing project ‘For Future Reference…’ which started in October 2007 when Kathryn visited a psychic in New York. The reading was unforgiving, the psychic told her she would never have children, and the experience intrigued and affected her so much that it was a catalyst for a body of work that is still in progress. On returning from NYC she began to visit psychics more regularly, a practice which became draining both financially and psychologically. However, she has continued to produce work exploring the complicated relationship between our present and future lives. She is fascinated by all aspects of the Fortune Teller’s trade, which differ widely depending which side of the Atlantic you are on. The American variety often draw in customers with neon lights touting their trade. The seemingly intimate spaces they work in are negated by the presence of small windows, which allow passers by to peer in and observe the readings. Ashill received a range of readings, most of which conflicted, however there were moments when their accuracy seemed uncanny. It was these moments and the Fortune Tellers easy confidence in predicting awful things, a confidence that draws you in and demands your belief, which forms their allure. Ashill is interested in this confidence and certainty of their intense statements which mingled with the desire of the customers to have insight into their future fates creates a complicated partnership. Recently whilst undertaking a residency at Flux Factory in Queens, NYC, she returned to the original psychic. “I don’t know if she recognised me but she opened the door to me when the place was shut. I cut my hair short, back to the length it was when I visited in 2007” said Ashill. The performance which will take place on the 10th May at the Looking Glass is the most recent part of this ongoing project. Her current work ‘Palm Project’ invites the audience to become a fortune teller for the day. They are invited in to her Fortune Teller’s booth to read her palm and predict her future. The event is open to the public and a short film will be made of the work and projected into the booth for the remainder of the exhibition.