people: Cortijada Los Gazquez - Spain Trip II

During my trip I spent some time with an MA Fine Art group over from Camberwell who were doing a week residency doing collaborative group work. The week consisted of researching and making work which culminated in a group presentation and crit. It was great fun and the groups' antics post art including poker games; table tennis tournament and a 'kidney bean' finding game using animal noises ( no one questioned this....very worrying!) were sorely missed when the group left to go home!

Back to the art, some photos of the work by the students:

Work by Cadi Froelich: Set of 14 copper bowls embedded into the landscape

Work by Philip Barnes: Varied coloured Fluorescent wools wound between the trees

Work by Jane Higginbotton: Documenting the Flora in the area

There was also some great video work including a time lapse experiential video of the night sky and a stop motion video of a moving stone which had a more comedic element to it. A varied range of ideas and approaches to working with the landscape and was really inspiring as I hope to integrate my love for the environment and outdoors with my own work. One particularly inspiring idea was a suggestion by one of the students that each student bring a a/some books which were laid out throughout the time they were there like a mini-library. Some lick smacking numbers which are now on my amazon wish list.

I also spent a week with a group of people from London doing a week of outdoor painting in oil/watercolour which reignited my love for painting and colour which is one of the main reasons I chose to engage in art but over time has faded into the background somewhat and 3D materials taking precedence.

I also wonder about the place of painting in contemporary art especially as within art education, painting as a discipline is not taught formally any more per se and I feel like it should.  Also with so many other mediums and methodologies what and how can painting offer? I also feel that painting is a discipline which requires a decent amount of time investment - although paint itself is immediate, to move it and manipulate together with colour and composition make it a lot harder to come out with a piece that 'works'.

Perhaps thats why I turned to other materials because of ease possibly especially with the conceptual underpinning. I hope to return to painting at some point as I do miss it - it'll have to be when I can deal with the blood sweat and tears! In the mean time I will gaze longingly at others waving their paint brushes around. 

Some work by the painting group:

by Katie - Thought the piece in the landscape was like a work in itself

Overall, met an inspiring and amazing set of people - asides the location, the people certainly made the place!