Happy Holidays!!!

Just here to wish you all a wonderful holidays and see you all in January!! xxx

Happy Holloween

Bernd and Hilla Becher

Since the end of the 1950s,Bernd and Hilla Becher have been traveling around Europe and North America. They photograph mines, winding towers, gas containers, blast furnaces, power stations, cooling towers, grain silos, warehouses. They have to this very day remained true to their project of an almost encyclopedic stocktaking of anonymous utility buildings from the age of industrialization. In doing so, they opt for a decidedly matter-of-fact and sober visual idiom that is appropriately expressed by black-and-white photography. This ensures that the steel edifices stand out particularly vividly. In the serial setting, the individual shots (which reveal basic shapes and deviations, similarities and differences) merge to form typologies.

Some commentators have discerned a likeness between this photographic series and Minimal or Concept Art; theBechers themselves first and foremost see their work as continuing the tradition of New Objectivity. In the early 20th century many artists (painters, writers, and directors) found their real issue in the depiction of social and economic realities. In the 1920s and 1930s photographers also devoted themselves increasingly to the everyday lives and working lives of people. The topics and aesthetic means of expression suppressed during the Third Reich are revitalized by the Bechers in their photographs of industrial and commercial premises.

Many of the industrial plants they photographed no longer exist. The buildings were already under threat of closure or of being torn down when the Bechers set about photographing them. Their photographs therefore have a major significance for cultural history, if only for historical documentary reasons. What is even more important is perhaps the fact that Bernd and Hilla Becher have succeeded in imbuing ostensibly trivial engineered buildings with a value hitherto only accorded great architecture if not sculpture: by eliminating of the customary everyday way of seeing, these functional objects receive a quality that tends to be overlooked in everyday life. In June 2007, Bernd Becher died at the age of 75 inRostock.

Echos of a Day

It was a wet, dark, dismal day, light was needed yet the corridors echoed to the darkness. Wondering from room to room. My breath loud in my ears, I strained for the sound of human contact. The total emptiness was foreboding, eerie and strange. Here where my footsteps returned to me empty and hollow, I was accustomed to the ringing of laughter, groans and rustling. But all was still.................................

Entering my usual domain I found human contact at last. A stooped figure, crouched over a table, their back to me worked feverishly upon their instrument of frustration.............. the head turned slowly in recognition of my entry and as our eyes met, you could see their joy at knowing that another living, breathing soul had entered the COLLEGE!

"Oh my God I thought I was going to be the only one here today!"

 this is where my ideas are springing from, notice the top cantre photograph. the way the pipe is constructed just fascinated me...

this is one of my favorite observational drawings, although sitting on pebbles did make the event rather painfull!

I started some pen and ink drawings based on the interlocking pipe, these evoled into almost an organic element

Anyway......................................

Here's an update of my work so far on the subject of Urban development, and my delving into the world of Industrial pipes and chimneys

Criticism sometimes achieves the condition of art!

Idris Khan (born 1978, Birminham UK) is an artist based in London

His work comprises digital photographs that superimpose iconic text or image sets into a single frame (for instance, every page of the Qur'an, every Beethoven sonata, every Whilliam Turner postcard from Tate Britain), or every Bernd & Hilla Becher spherical gasholder.

Khan received his BA from theUniversity of Derby in 2000 and his MA from theRoyal College of Art in 2004. He has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including those at the Taidehalli in Helsinki, Musée de l'Elysée in Switzerland, Victoria Miro in London and the Saatchi Gallery in London. He recently completed the cover art for Editors album An End Has A Start which utilises techniques he used in his Becher on Becher series of industrial buildings, in this case a gas-works.

He is represented by Galerie Thomas Schulte (Berlin), Victoria Miro Gallery (London), Yvon Lambert Gallery (Paris) and Fraenkel Gallery (San Francisco).

Industrial Pipes in Art

I just thought i would research Artists who were influenced with Industrial type pipes and chimneys. It turned into an exciting journey.......... as with most things, there is nothing new in the world and as with my Industrial Pipes and Chimneys idea it is well covered!

Kris Kuksi

My first find was Kris Kuksi. His art is so intricate, so delicate............ it reminds me of mechanical lace....... with hints of a mad hoarder. His models/sculptures are not that large considering the intricacies of the work........ I am blown away. You could spend a day with one piece and never see all of its hidden gems.

I found this image and spent an eternity trying to discover the artist, he/she seems to be Austrian and thats all I could find out! I do love it though!

Print and Pots

This week saw print and mud slinging, well lots of clay playing,and that took me back to my nursery and playing with plastersien! OH the look on the faces of my fellow students. You could see fingers twitching around the table, the glint of antisipation in their eyes. All wishing to be let loose with the clay!




After the initial tutorial, we were let loose. Creating textures and patterns in the clay, great fun was had by all. We minipulated, prodded, bashed, rolled and squished the clay into what we all hoped were interesting shapes. Now all we have to do is wait for them to dry and be fired!