Friday 2 February 2007

Centres of Resistance @ Bear Steps Feb 4-17

Well what's all that about - resistance?
Last summer I took on an allotment - partly, perhaps mostly for therapy to help get through one of the worst years in my whole life. Betsy Smith was actually responsible for the show's title. We were looking at my photos of the allotment sheds, and talking about the "oasis" character of allotments. Flicking over the snaps, she said "Each one's like a little centre of resistance". Too good to miss; and too many reverberations particularly for anyone with my kind of political background.

So the shed-based semi-abstracts have become the thematic centre of the show, carrying the feeling of an organic army under siege. But for me the real resistances are the external socialist one against the ethos of competetivism, fashion, profitability, pseudo-spirituality, corporate values; and the internal one against the effects of grief, against "realistically" starting to give up hope, against losing any sense of life still being an adventure.
And, pretentious though it may sound, being an artist feels like being part of the resistance to the blanketing crass business-led culture our political leaders obviously assume is beneficial (yes but the benficiaries are but the tiniest percentage of the whole).

So I'm showing fields, and people, and trees, and swamps, and colours and surfaces. AND Edgar - the famous plywood Edgar floating beautifully in Sue Challis's video.
See what you think.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good to see new authors contributing to the blog - I will certainly come and see how pretentious the art is!