Here goes... a 5 point guide to replacing your webpage 'grey head'

First find an image (preferably a JPG) you want to use then Sign in with your username and password  (username is the last bit of the web address for your page and is usually based on your first name. You can also get a new password sent to your email if you've forgotten it)

1.  Click on 'MY PROFILE'  (to the right of Twitter, Facebook logos)

2. Click on 'EDIT PROFILE'  (to the right of your name)

3. Click on 'EDIT PROFILE ICON'  (on the left in blue)

4. Click on 'CHOOSE FILE', find your file/image in the menu & click 'Choose'

5. Click 'UPLOAD'

The rest is optional (eg. dragging a square across the image to make the small icon how you want it)

GOOD LUCK and thankyou for uploading Dotbiz!

Welcome to AA2A and to our networking site 'Dotbiz'.

As a few of you are already uploading images (thanks for that) we thought we'd include a few notes on uploading and editing albums.  Do let us know if you ever get stuck.  We're here to help.

Create an image album

1. Select ‘Create new album’ from side menu:

2.  ‘Add image album’, enter a Title, Description, etc. (You can also edit ‘access’ – to control who can see the album).

3.  ‘Save’ and you’ve now created the folder that the images will go in.

4.  Add images to album, ‘browse’ and select the images you want  (must be under 1mb and a .jpg .png .gif) select the image/s ‘upload’ and when you’ve finished - ‘Save’

5.  Edit image properties - add individual title, caption, tags - Also you need to select one of your images as the image album cover, finally ‘save’

To make changes to an existing album

1. Go to 'Your image albums'

2. click on the album

3.  You can then choose to ‘add images to album’, ‘edit album’ (where you can change 'access' to 'Public', 'Private', 'Logged in Users') or ‘delete album’

I have been developing works surrounding the genre of landscape. My work seeks to address the importance of landscape painting within the current nature of debate centring on the breadth of accepted contemporary practice that it remains to be a valid currency within the parenthesis of visual language. This subject is important to me because I spent my early childhood growing up in rural surroundings and so my relationship with landscape has formed an important role in my psyche and personal development. It is this relationship with the natural environment that governs the origins of my practice and that first drew me to the landscapes of Cyprus.

I have explored notions of human relationship with the environment to develop ideas within the context of ‘inscape’ of which the paintings entitled ‘Lunar landscape,’ ‘Lunar landscape II,’ ‘Last light,’ ‘Night flight’ ‘High horizon,’ ‘Emergence II,’ ‘Flight,’ ‘Arched sun,’ Fragments of flight II’ and ‘Big red’ are examples of. I have used the banana plantations of the Cypriot villages of Lemba and Kissonerga as a vehicle to communicate a psychological response to landscape. The banana plantations are of particular interest to me for a number of reasons, the first being that this agricultural landscape was completely new to me on arrival to Cyprus and as I discovered is a relatively new phenomenon to Cyprus too. My personal discovery of this landscape suggested concepts of the ‘uncanny’- a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange. The state was identified by Ernst Jentsch in 1906 who defined the ‘uncanny’ as:

“...being of a product of intellectual uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always, as it were, be something one does not know one’s way about in. The better orientated in his environment a person is, the less readily will he get the impression of something uncanny in regard to the objects and events in it.”

The work entitled ‘Dog hidden in the plantation’ plays on this state, as you will have noticed there is no dog in the image, but the title encourages the spectator to look for a dog, exploring a disjointed world of amorphous forms which ominously elude to landscape and evoke atmosphere. The spacial composition owes much to the work of Max Ernst highlighting the influence of the Surrealists on my work at large.

My investigation has been set with a focus on ‘real engagement’ with this particular landscape to explore the notion of ‘spirit of place.’ I have worked directly in the plantations producing studies and photographic works which were then brought back into the studio and developed further in the paintings. The effect of the light in the plantations and absence of it contribute to the sense of the ‘uncanny’ and greatly impacts the experience of being in this landscape at changing times of the day. I have therefore used light as a vehicle to traverse both concepts of the ‘uncanny’ and ‘inscape’ within the genre of landscape, anchoring my visual language concerns within a long standing history of painting.

The series of photographic works entitled ‘lunar eclipse’ were taken immediately after a lunar eclipse, at this moment the sun was setting and the moon was high in the sky. What effect does the absence of light have on our perceptions of a place or landscape? The feeling of being in this particular landscape during the eclipse was both unsettling and mysterious. In this instance I set about creating a body of photographic works which would be considered drawings, using light as a tool to draw with, to describe, manipulate and define forms and space, identifying the changing moods and interpretation of this landscape. The result is a collection of surreal images which describe something of this unique moment in time.

The work entitled ‘Lunar landscape’ demonstrates the influence of Asian art and calligraphic line with an emphasis on Zen painting. In 2002 I studied the art of calligraphic line under the direction of Yoshida (a Japanese monk and artist) the influence of which can be seen in subsequent works. As well as the influence of Zen style painting in this work it was my intention to visually depict a poetic statement about my experience of this landscape mirroring Zen ideals:

“Sometimes it seems that we should take a half an hour and just sit down and figure it all out and by that get some control and sense of place... And what does this have to do with Zen and painting? When things are going well there is no particular reason to figure it out. But, everyone finds that the world is not a place that is made just for their needs and desires. For many this is the beginning of the spiritual quest. The adversities of life force us to think about ourselves in terms of a larger perspective.” –Robin Buntins on Zen painting.

It is the ‘larger perspective’ that arouses an innate response in us towards landscape urging a sense of our own identity in reflection of our relationship with the environment. Landscape encourages us to think about where we belong which brings us back to the concept of inscape. The following statement by the Boyle family defines the relationship between inscape and the environment:

“Inscape is the inner essential nature of anything. It is anything perceived, or experienced, or felt, without the filters of conditioning... It is so sad when this most unique and wondrous state is presented as a series of smutty clichés and when we have a look in wonderment at a system in our world that requires that we look at this sublime condition as something disgusting. But this too is part of our amazing environment. And this word environment, which used to mean the things that surround us, has I am glad to say, gradually come to mean something completely global. So that everything we can think of is part of our environment. We ourselves, our art, our innermost thoughts and essential nature are all part of the environment. The environment is the inscape of everything.” – Feature on ‘inscape,’ Art and Design Magazine. 1994 edition.

The painting entitled ‘Lunar landscape II’ marks the influence of Abstract Surrealism painting in my work, particularly the works of Arshile Gorky. In my opinion landscape art lost its focus over the later part of the last century, having been superseded by the complexity and confusion of practice which could be construed as artistically introspective. It is apparent that a great deal of contemporary practice which parades as ‘landscape’ inspired work, has not addressed the real essence of the accessible history of landscape art, but instead has only fed on short term, often superficial or fashionable practice.

My imagery is an amalgamation of forms recorded through studies made directly in the plantation, looking at positive and negative shapes, organic forms and perspective as defined by the changing light, juxtaposed with amorphous forms which are derivative of microscopic and organic life, used as a metaphor for our existence, evoking both a sense of the real and the surreal. The ambiguous spaces suggest a psychological space as opposed to any view or vista found in the landscape, serving aesthetically to present a synthesis of natural holistic rhythm, suggesting a meditative state. The images are not just abstract but allude to a higher awareness of reality. There is a visual layering which requires navigation, the eye first takes in the over- all dynamism and then focuses on the details and intricacy of line, as well as referencing appropriated symbolism. A number of the paintings undergo a lengthy process of collaging mono printed imagery with tissue paper and over painting with acrylic, building the image in a system of layers which serves to present a process which I like to think is unique, engaging the aesthetic and the tactile through surface. There is an interesting tension between the scissor cut line of the collaged shapes and the painted line giving rise to a lyrical fusion of imagery.

I would reference Roberto Matta as a major influence in my work. Matta’s strange organic forms came straight from the subconscious, produced by a technique called ‘pure psychic automatism,’ whereby the artist produces spontaneous drawings directed by his inner being. This interest in the subconscious is typical of surrealism. Matta’s ‘inscapes’ are preoccupied with infinite, cosmic space. Matta’s works were to have a significant influence on the paintings of Gorky and the American Surrealists. My own investigation involved developing through drawing, a language that could communicate different types of narratives, to develop a family of marks and forms that are characteristically my own and remain open to interpretation.

Mono-printing allows spontaneous mark making providing the opportunity to respond intuitively to the landscape, recording in the open air by a more intensive re-perceiving of the landscape at work, in movement with particular emphasis on changing light. Automatic mark making is mirrored in the work of artists of influence to me (including Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Graham Sutherland.) One of the most prominent issues in my investigation has been the identification of the word ‘landscape.’ This is not a new concern and is definitely one which will continue to change throughout history with ongoing influences of country, politics, media, art, literature, society, etc.  Aside from the ideas, thoughts and transformations and experiences of landscape that we collect, we must realise that our interpretation and understanding of ‘landscape’ is conditioned by what we bring to it. This is better described by J. B. Jackson in an extract from ‘Land and Environmental Art:’

“... If a child’s vision of nature can already be loaded with complicating memories, myths and meanings, how much more elaborately wrought is the frame through which our adult eyes survey the landscape?... Before it can ever be repose for the scenes, landscape is the work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock.”

The banana plantations can stir feelings of the unknown, hidden, forgotten, unusual, intimidating and overlooked; paralleled with distinguished features of beauty, intrigue, exotic and compelling interest, again presenting a dichotomy of the strange yet familiar. But this particular choice of landscape as a subject reflects the current contemporary portrayal of landscape art and consequential shift in the perception of ‘landscape’ to acknowledge what is the man- made, the strange, the mundane, the ugly, the functional and the commercial environment as landscape; owing more to mans relationship with the environment and consequently denoting notions of the picturesque, sublime and pastoral to encompass the urban, agricultural and every-day.

Decades on from the 1960’s and we are still searching for what is beyond the throw- away society, the obsolete and the dominance of technology. We should not just try to address social concerns, but question societies understanding of art today. I hope for a resurrection of artistic language which truly addresses issues of landscape, as history tells us that any language that is neglected will eventually fall into decay and die.

Copyright, Lorraine Cooke- September 2011.

The end of an era. (AA2A residency draws to a close)

What a great time it’s been.

This oughta be the last post I make. Signing out.

So here is my attempt to sum up the past month or so of whats been going on/off/on again/round and round/side to side/and every other way the wind blows. 

Post AA2A Show is now very much ON! Secured funding from the Uni. Secured a space courtesy of the kind folks at Newcastle Arts Centre.

Between working at the gallery, I spent the in between days getting into the ceramic studio and glazing/decaling new members of the dysfuktional ceramix family. New images to appear online soon.

Today is the first day in well over a month in which I have made found time to write the end of this blog. That’s how crazy things have been lately. The stress of it all has had my seriasis kick back in again, which is totally unfair given that I can’t even spell it!

Crazy neurotic weather.

I’ve been going thru those old haunting moments of wonders and thoughts that stalk the trouble and euphoric mind with delight and fear all at once. 

Artist interviews and chit-chat-art-chatting up - see www.infesting.net

I’ve been collecting found torn out pages along walks round the streets.

Aside from myself the BA students mounted a fabtastic Degree Show. Well done. Hats off to them. All the stops well and truly out. And Andrew won the AA2A Student vote! He did give an extremely awesome rallying performance in his lecture.

Nu friends. wine. beers. sitting on the grass in the sunshine.

It has been a rollercoaster. A snowplough. A jump around. A time of gr-eat development for my practice.

Change nothing.

I spent a good amount of time in the library, more than needs to be blogged about but as its the end I feel it deserves a little mention.

CHEERS !!

only once did i successfully insert a photo into my blog post. how did i do that?!

Did I achieve my proposal? I'm still kinda finding out what those became. But I guess that yes, some way towards achieving. and some failing. I'm keen to inherit failure in the works to maintain honesty. spunk. excitement.

POST AA2A SHOW - what condition our terms of condition are in

26th July - 13th August

Newcastle Arts Centre

67b Westgate Road

Here comes the end. Did I blink or was it a dream all along?!

Its been a great journey and now its winding down -  and this is starting to sound like folk tune!

April was a few weeks away - a much needed break from all things. I took myself to seemingly the edge of the world and spend a week walking the gorgeous West Wales coast line, going to the pub and playing Scrabble (I even won twice, which made for a memorable holiday!). And after giving my mind, body and soul a deep cleanse I returned to take on the final push at AA2A.

Last week I returned to Northumbria to my clean, lonely and longing desk of disfigurines and newly arrived Parian slip tubs. Yay! And since then it's been go, go, go. Catching up with the other AA2Aers and attempting to pin together a post AA2A expo. So its been phone calls and emails and I'm currently no nearer to achieving a space. Not one that suits everyone. But ain't that just the way. We've all got our own ideas. I hope we can just get it together to put on a good display of our successful residency. Soon to be successful anyways! I've been granted a little more time to finish off, as I'm not using studio space. This will allow me to glaze and decals (oh! when will Bill get the decals to me - that man has never once replied to my emails so I end up calling him). I shall call him tomorrow. And I shall also be following up on a contact I've been given for an expo space potential. This is I believe inevitable for having let it sneak up on us.

So this may not be my last blog post, although this is the dawn of the end. And in preparation for departing I have been putting wheels to motion. Still to finish my application for History of Art MA but have completed my application for the upcoming post of Sculpture Technician at Northumbria Uni, which I feel I tick the right boxes for. And last week I had an interview for a studio space at a scheme who I was told would contact me on Monday - and today is Thursday, so thats not feeling to confident but no email, no voicemail - strange. I'm leaving it until Monday coming and then asking for feedback. Perhaps they have the wrong number for me. Sometimes we never know the reasons why things happen the way they do. I can only keep doing what I can do.

See you soon -x-

After a fab weekend trip to London to see my new works on show at the Curwen Gallery last week was a return to the studio.

Finally got round to producing my colouring book. A series of what will hopefully be an edition of 50 featuring 12 fun filled pages of Topless Octopus action to colour or interpret in any way one wishes.

All screen printed by myself - next step is to get the cover printed and bind the books together for sale. And now it's back to thinking about the ceramics. But first its time for a holiday to Wales for some relaxation and walks in the countryside.

In other news - looking to find a space for a post AA2A expo and checking out a location today.

See a sneek peak of the colouring book before its bound @ http://aa2a.biz/pg/photos/view/8396/colouring-book-preview

I have a group exhibition running from 15th april-30th april at the We are open shop on linthorpe road, middlesbrough. please come along and check it out.

The theme is portraiture, the exhibition shows a group of local artists responses to portraiture.

opening 15th april at 6:00pm, wine and nibbles.

see you there lesley

The AA2A exhibition is coming to Teesside University next wednesday, it runs from 6th april - 15th april. In the Constantine gallery on the ground floor of the constantine building on the University site.

What:

An exhibition of Contemporary art works by tutors of Cyprus College of Art at the University of Northampton Art Gallery. The exhibiting artists will be Peter Bird, Margarita Drosopoulou, Andreas Efstathiou, Sarah Hoskins, Alexandrous Michaelides, Roderick Newlands, Margaret Paraskos and Stass Paraskos.

Where:

University of Northampton Art Gallery, Boughton Green Rd, Northampton, NN2 7AL.

Opening:

Thursday 5th May 2011 5-8 pm. For further details please contact Suzanne Stenning- Curator of Northampton Art Gallery. 01604 893046 suzanne.stenning@northampton.ac.uk

About the exhibition:

Romantic Cyprus: Artists of the Cyprus College of Art, by Dr. Michael Paraskos.

For anyone who knew the Cyprus College of Art in the 1970's the words 'Romantic Cyprus' will immediately produce a nostalgic memory of a ubiquitous guide book to the island, called Romantic Cyprus, written by the American Cypriot bookseller Kevok Keshishian.

Back then, in the days before the rough guides and Lonely Planet, Romantic Cyprus was almost the only substantial guidebook to Cyprus, which was not really regarded as a significant tourist destination. But it was also a guidebook that was, in many ways, deeply romantic, rooted in a love for the island and a desire to show the visitor what a wonderful place Cyprus was to visit. Of course we do see that in guide books today, but it is often hard not to think that the reason the authors are being so gushing about one tourist attraction or another is that they want to sell more copies of their book. You do not often get a sense that they really love the place. And when it comes to the Rough and Lonely Planet guides the writers seem under instruction to pepper their texts with dismissive comments, sarcasm and sometimes downright abuse. Presumably the asumption is that this gives their books a greater sense of honesty.

Romantic Cyprus was not like that. It possessed a kind of innocence. This was not innocence in terms of lack of knowledge. Indeed, there are some very erudite sections to the book. Rather it was an innocence based on an extreme optimism. The first edition of Romantic Cyprus was published in 1964 during the period of British rule, and even then there were plenty of British colonists and native Cypriots who thought the future of Cyprus was rosy. There would be agricultural improvement, industrial development and tourism, and all of those things would lead to a golden future. Sadly the optimism was misplaced, but as a guiding spirit it remained in every edition of the book, even during the violent liberation struggle against British colonial rule in the 1950's, the civil war of the 1960's and even the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. It was optimism in spite of experience, and that always has a charm even if it can sometimes be infuriating. It is the charm of romantic love, not in this case for a person, but for a place. It is a kind of geographical romantic love that is almost difficult to imagine in the modern world.

The exhibition Romantic Cyprus is part nostalgia for a book that featured so prominently in the early life of the Cyprus College of Art, and part homage to the spirit of Romantic Cyprus . At the College we have always encouraged students to engage with Cyprus, to get to know it and feel able to respond to the aesthetic experience of this place at this time through their work. This has led to a philosophical outlook that the best art, from any time or place , is always rooted in the spirit of that place, a sort of love affair with a genius loci. Or perhaps we should acknowledge the location of Cyprus in the Middle East and say it is a love affair with a genie, the genie of Cyprus. Either way, without that engagement with a place, art becomes flaccid, and no amount of justification that someone is painting 'from their imagination' can redeem it. Art can be imaginative, should be creative and can even cope with an excess of emotion or spirituality. But the most important element is that it always emerges from a direct physical and sensual engagement with the real world around us. To call the transformation of this experience into a work of art an act of love might seem sentimental, but love is not a synonym for sentimentality. It can be hard edged. And we can use the word love in this context, it does not seem too much of an extension to say that art emerges from a romantic engagement with the real world.

The artists in this exhibition, Peter Bird, Margarita Drosopoulou, Andreas Efstathiou, Sarah Hoskins, Alexandrous Michaelides, Roderick Newlands, Margaret Paraskos and Stass Paraskos, are all tutors at the Cyprus College of Art whose artworks subscribe to this principle. Like the College as a whole they come from different places, including Cyprus, England, Greece and Scotland. But while they are in Cyprus they seek to engage with the genie of our island. Each of them does this in their own way, as their sensory awareness of Cyprus passes through the alembic of their individual identities and experiences, producing very different kinds of work.

That spirit always underpinned the book Romantic Cyprus with the result it was not really a tourist guide written for people passing through the island in search of a short cut to information on the fashionable bars, the cheapest hotels or the sandiest beaches. It was simply a guide embedded in a love affair of a particular place at a particular time. And that, I would argue, is a description that fits equally with our tutors and our College.

http://www.artcyprus.org

I am not a ceramicist!

That said I offered a mould making workshop which took place last Thursday,

Thirteen students signed up, three made apologies, four turned up, others presumed MIA.

Those who did attend experienced how (and how not) to make a two part plaster mould.

Each brought there own object except one who made a mould of my work for me, and properly better than some of my efforts!

We made moulds of tiny figures, figurines, a money box and an alarm clock. The latter proving most difficult - becoming stuck in the mould at one point due to slight oversight. Alas. My fault I feel, we were in a hurry for lunch and it was St Patrick's Day - pint of the black stuff and some hula-hoops. mmm....

But we have managed to successfully make casts of all objects, although the clock doesn't look quite like its original. Next step is to fire them in the next batch to inhabit the now working kiln which had its inaugural ceremony giving life to some of the parian cast work i produced over a month ago. I'll get some images uploaded soon.

And as well as plaster mould making I also showed the group alginate and with great results we produced some replica hands and toes. A fab, quick and easy mould making/casting technique that always amazes first time users. They're all telling me there gonna get more of the stuff now. Pretty positive response :)