Biennial '10.

All in all, the Biennial as a whole was a very positive and enjoyable experience, in all aspects. I enjoyed having to 'find' some pieces as they were all scattered all over the city.This also encourages locals to explore places that they might not have seen before as well as making an effort to get there, and take notice of buildings all around. I think the Biennial is the perfect way of injecting culture back into the city and reminding the people and tourists of all Liverpool has to give.It also brings recognition through the artist that all apply, and get to take part and produce work for it. This also gives us a chance to experience their work that's very unlikely we would come across otherwise. As there is so much going on in old hardware stores, in the streets and in the popular galleries, its difficult to not be able to engage or to be fond of anyone, as the range of work varies from sculptures to films to street art.

I used this to my advantage and made the most of everything that went on, and encouraged myself to maybe spend time thinking about pieces that i would normally dismiss as they were not to my taste. This made me open my eyes to art i never knew existed, some quite frightening. and although i may not be able to relate to the pieces, i did enjoy the experience and found some very intriguing and helpful towards developing my own ideas and work. I discovered allot of new exiting artist, ones that ill use to influence my work and to encourage me to be more ambitious with my work, the scale of it and how to exhibit.

Some of the artist had to adjust the way they wanted to exhibit their work due to the space and unexpected surroundings, this also made me think about how different things can completely change the whole meaning and give out different messages if i don't think things through. This could be to their advantage and also makes them re visit the reason behind the work.

I feel now that from the collection of memories and images i saw during my time exploring the Biennial, its given me confident to be more expressive within my work and has given me confident to try new techniques and explore different medias and places to exploit my work publicly.

Rapid.

Couple pictures of the pieced in rapid hardware store, for Liv biennial.

Lee Mingwei. And his 'mending project'

"I give you something in exchange for something you give me."

Fixing people's damaged clothing, whilst talking to them and 'mending they're minds' he doesn't fix the items like a tailored would, he uses bright, different coloured thread. A

s the damaged garments keep turning up, so do the story's, memories and conversations.

The garments are then considered as objects as they accumulate a pile on the table.

The way the room is set up i thought was pretty calm and colourful with all he thread rolls stuck spread across the wall.I didn't get to see the 'Mending'happening, but i thought it was a very nice and original idea with a sort of therapist edge to the whole experience.

Enjoying a lie down @ Rapid.

Pool Of Voices.

I particularly liked Phill's Biennial piece because of his use of Vinyl records, and like Andy Holden, bringing music involved in his work. The piece -'Pool of Voices' was a combination of old record players, savaged from junk shops, and using the turntables to represent actual musical instruments. Then, the 'music' which is a combination of spoken words, and synthetic sounds come together to create an unique original composition, and also visually interesting.

Different to Andy Holden, Phill still keeps on mind the turntables and

records original purpose in mind

with this piece, rather than trying to change them into diferent objects with different purpose, like Andy melting records to the shapes of bowls. I have also experimented with vinyl records in the past, but again in a different way to them both. I did play around with the melting, kept me occupied for a while, but then i started to want to work into the records. I experimented with paint, and scratcing into them, trying to make prints of them, then started sticking photographs on them. I ended up combining everything. I'd start by melting then rushing straight to my sewing machine and sew as much as i could before the record harden up again, it was a risky situation, and very quickly my sewing machine started making strange noises. But i couldn't get enough of the way the record would change its shape whils i was sewing into it, problem was, if i heated the same bit as i previously sewn with my heat-gun, all the thread would burn off. So it was kind of a loose-loose exercise. These are some of the vinyls that came out 'ok'.

In some way, they're representing some sort of 'photo frame' to the photographs in the middle. Working with the heat-gun and melting the vinyl was a very unpredictable process, since i couldn't really control what was going to happen since it was all new to me.

Andy Holden.

ww.youtube.com/user/LostToysRecords#p/u/19/nnq63u4FcLA

Victoria Gallery/museum Liverpool. We got to spend the afternoon in Andy Holden's company, a new artist for me to experience. I didn't have much idea of the sort of art that Andy produced, only what i had quickly read before attending this afternoon session, so when i walked into this beautiful room to see his performance, i was pleasantly surprised to see a string quartet sitting there in front of a bit projected screen, and also a pianist. The piece was called 'Three short works in time' It was a piece investigating the relationship between the music/noise and sculptural objects. There was also a camera set up recording the performance, this made the atmosphere a bit intense to begin with, i was a bit reluctant to sniff (as i had a horrendous cold) in case i 'spoilt

the footage and interrupt.

The first piece was very beautiful with a sideshow of moving pictures projected with the musicians playing with it. The images we

re of a sculpture piece by Andy, set in different outdoor spaces, switching with footage of a barbecue.

This similar sculpture piece is also used as a sort of mini-venue

by Andy.

Music is very important to him, his art and passion for music are one. He very successfully combines the two, with the right balance and through. He had one piece during his performance where all the musicians read out different scripts/story's/list, this was my least favorite piece as

it somehow just got on my nerves and is something i feel that's been done too many times before, it didn't do the rest of his work justice and didn't seem to blend well within the performance. My favourite piece on the other hand, was a 8 minute video loop of , once again, the round sculpture placed on top of a building and two 'lads' put on a loop, so that they're hand movements were repeated in a motif with the music increasing depth and into minor notes creating some sort of strangely uncomfortable atmosphere, but it also got me laughing somehow.

Some of Andy's other work consist o textile pieces,videos, sculptures and paintings. He also produced bowls out of vinyl records, then painted decoratively . The way he hangs them from the ceiling turns them into a completely different object.

Touch and go.

Humerus film by Cristina Lucas featuring old men, women and family throwing stones at the building - smashing some of the glass Windows. In the film it seems as a bit of a random outburst of rebelling, but then in the end the message is revealed - 'Touch and Go'

Lars Laumann

Open eye gallery. Lars Laumann had 3 films there on show, none of them really grabbed me, although i did watch one twice, mainly because was shocked with how ridiculous it was. A film called 'Morrissey foretelling the death of Diana' It was somehow like some sort of collage of video clips, some of very poor quality and some that were bluntly off youtube, containing 'facts' about Diana's death, then Lars's voice -I'm assuming, explaining how a song by The Smiths predicted this..! At times it had a documentary structure, then would change to footage that was hard to say if it was utter piss take, or the guy just had way too much time on his hands and had taken Morrisey's lyrics far to serious. He is a great musician, but come on.. hes not psychic!

Before the open eye gallery, we visited a piece by Do Ho Sun, he had built a house between two buildings on Duke street i think. I liked the whole concept of it - invading space of another building, but i expected some sort of building that looked like it had been squashed in between two run-down Victorian buildings, rather it was a perfectly build- but tilted, traditional house in Saoul.

Biennial at Fact. Tehching Hsieh

A year long performance piece involving Tehching taking a picture of himself every hour, on the hour for an whole year. 1980-1981

He basically was a prisoner in his own life, in allot of the pictures he seems extremely tired, after thinking bout what he did you realise the commitment he had to

give. He didn't get a decent night sleep for a whole year - not a sort of performance i'd signe up for. When i walked into the room i couldn't help but think that there didn't seem to be enough strips of photos to ad up to be a year's worth... i actually started to count out where a month started and ended.

The way it was all set out was good. With a film made out of all the pictures so you could see the change in his look - hair mainly. He has participated in many 'year long' performances.

It was a piece that fascinated me but i took nothing from it, the sort of piece anyone could appreciate for the time and effort gone into it.

bluecoat. love it.

This piece by Nicholas Hlobo. i Absolutely LOVED. It was a sculptural piece made using leather and ribbon, general domestic found objects. What i first noticed was the stitching through- what i assume to be - a tyre, with colourful ribbons creating the most fascinating shapes and patterns. I think the fact that it somehow reminded me of my own work, or the scale of work and a similar style i would like to achieve when ill have access to better facilities enable me to produce large scale works, like Nicholas.

I don't rely on researching artist to feed my own personal work, what i find inspires me is the way work is put together, photographed or exhibited in a space more than what it actually is.

Nicholas had gone for a slightly playful way to show his work it seemed. The space in the bluecoat really made his work justice too, walking up the stairs to walk into a maze of ribbon was unexpected but quite exiting. I had dragged a couple of friend with me that don't really have anny interest in art, but the way everything was set up- having to walk round this maze of ribbon to find more of his leather/human sculptures turned us

all into children again. Everyone else who were there also seemed to be as exited from the whole experience to.

His piece also reminded me to Yinka Shonibare's work, an artist i have admired for many years now. I think both have an exquisite way with colour and materials. Yinka often produces work to tease or are quite playful and theatrical. Also has allot of mannequin's in his work.

Also i see a similarity with Yinka's early paintings and textile pieces, Nicholas's work is very textile based in my eyes, maybe that because i see my work's structure similar and i mostly produce textile pieces. Either way, ill deffo' be keeping an eye out for exhibitions off both. Mabye a Yinka or Hlobo book in my Christmas stockings...!

A- Foundation. Liverpool.

A very original and unique performance by Sachiko Abe, a Japanese artist that started to create after leaving defence forces in Japan. She had no previous art experience or background, she just saw it as a very 'free' way to live life. Watching her perform was quite an intense experience, it was deadly silence except the exaggerated consistent snipping of scissor blades as she cut paper continuously for an hour at a time, a practice she had been doing for seven years, using the cut paper accumulated over them years to create a sculpture to work alongside her performances. It was a very delicate procedure she was doing, all her work that was displayed seemed to follow this pattern and explored repetition and attention to detail, even her drawings were extremely delicate and made to perfection. What i also liked as i watched the performance was how peaceful she seemed, and the paper falling down of her lap created something similar to a waterfall effect. The whole setting worker really well, i think she was sat on top of an old office, all the background bricks and windows colours complimented the purity of the white paper. Although you could feel a little bit like you were invading her privacy, it was still very amusing to watch in a sort of therapeutic way.

"Murmur" by Ray Lee. No Longer Empty at Liverpool Biennial of Contempora...

This piece was a real treat to see live. 'Murmur' is a site specific sound instillation exploring the empty space and electromagnetic fields. It began all dark with only red spinning lites to be seen, it was difficult to figure out what was going on at all and i assumed that was it. then a 'siren- like noise seemed to be coming from each pair of red lights, different sounds depending on speed of the spinning. What was nice bout this piece is that i found it very intriguing since i ccouldn't see what was going on, at one point i was close to flashing my phone's torch on the piece just to relieve me of my frustration, but then suddenly the light come on, and all is revealed. The noise seems to change pattern conveying some sort of subtle motif.

The piece was cleaver and discreet and was a very successful biennial piece.

Liverpool Biennial 2010.

First experience of the biennial for me this year was the exhibition i the old Rapid warehouse/ abandoned shop. There were many different pieces there and allot of installation for the public to participate in. The piece that seems to have stayed in mind from this exhibition is a video piece by Ryan Trecartin. It was a colour full, collage like layout layering clips of different scenes and situations featuring the strangest characters with manipulated voices, everything to begin with seemed all over the place, and i found it difficult to catch up and figure out some sort of 'link' between the fast changing theatrical characters and scenes. At times, the images were quite terrifying to watch with some scenes of violence with some sexual nature and references to tv programmes ( i think?!) with emerging images and manipulated voices, at times was a bit overwhelming. The characters all had exaggerated facial makeup and expressions and most of them seemed to be men playing female roles. I found it difficult to figure out what all of it was trying to tell me and maybe thought too much about it. Yet again i was stuck to my seat, even tho i found some parts difficult to watch. After researching into the piece, i found out that it was a piece about merging identity's and youth culture- which seems to make sense and explains the meaning behind some of the content of some scenes in the film. In a strange way i enjoyed it as an experience to whole different type of art film that i'd previously not been aware of.

1st project.1st year.

I work mainly in textiles but also have a heavy interest in photography, and blending both together. This is something i did last year using transferred photographs, stitch and paint.

Last year, my work was more paint based. this year I'm concentrating at the moment on fabric, although i would love to paint more..i don't think I'm good enough at it though. shame. Pierre Bonnard is one of my favourite artist, i would love to be able to paint like that....

At the moment, I'm working on my Detournement project. I started off with a picture of a painting by Sidney Cunrow Vosper -Salem.

The painting is based on the sin of vanity, the woman has purposely turned up late to ensure maximum audience for her arrival, some say that you can see face of the devil in the folds of her cloak, the artist said that this was not an intention of his when producing the piece.

Anyway. After changing my mind several times, iv ended up working up to making a cloak, hopefully the same kind of style- traditional shape, but made out of photos of a church/ surroundings i took back in wales, ill transfer them onto fabric then work into them with paint, pastels and of course - stitch. I wont to turn the photos of graves and sorts into something beautiful, so that at first glance, you wouldn't think that the cloak is made out of photos of these things because of the vibrant use of colour, and busy patterns.