20three » Art

Booth Museum of Natural History

Owen — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:41:58 +0000

The Booth museum is just down the road from were I live – it’s a Brighton institution – The collection housed in the museum is an extensive array of British birds from the 19th century, all housed in mini dioramas. Edward Booth built the museum in 1874 and bequeathed the museum and collection to the local authority in 1890. I took my Holga down there the other day and took these shots:

Booth Museum, Brighton

Eric Gill, a onetime Brighton resident, used to visit the museum when he was a child. Here is an exert from the biography ‘Eric Gill’ by Fiona MacCarthy:

There were many opportunities in Brighton for Ruskinian self-improvement. Just around the corner from the Gill’s, in Dyke road, stood the Booth Bird Museum (known in the Gill household as the birds’ museum, since the children imagined it belonging to the hundreds of stuffed birds displayed within it, Warbles and Buzzards and Bitterns).

The Booth museum was and still is an extraordinary monument to Victorian enthusiasm, the urge to collect and collate. Edward Booth, who formed the collection, was a wealthy man whose preoccupation with birds approached mania: he once kept a train under steam in Brighton station for a week waiting to rush him to the highlands as soon as his gillies had informed him that the white-tailed eagles were nesting.

(I had no idea what a ‘gillie’ was so I looked it up – here’s the definition from dictionary.com: ‘a male attendant or personal servant to a Highland chieftain.’)

I recently found out from the Brighton Prestonville blog the sad news that the opening hours were being reduced because of cuts in public spending, a situation that would be hard to revert. You can read more about the situation and find out how to help here.

FlashBrighton lecture: Typography and the modern

Owen — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:12:53 +0000

I was asked if I would like to talk to the Flash Brighton developer group, Flash Brighton about typography. The talk will be on the 19th January, the first Flash Brighton talk of 2010.

To keep my talk manageable I have decided to talk about the development of typographic design in relation to the birth and growth of Modernism, starting from the early 1900’s and up to the present day.

Details about were and when my talk is happening can be found here.

Find out about Flash Brighton here

Photographer’s stamp

Owen — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:08:17 +0000

Just before Christmas I designed a graphic for photographer Nhung Dang. She had a clear idea what she wanted, a homage to the Carte De Visit, popular in the 1800’s. In particular Nhung wanted me to produce a graphic that mimicked the photographers stamp usually placed on the back of the Carte De Visit. These stamps are a wonderful example of typographic execution in the decades before Modernism finally took hold of popular culture and revolutionized typographic design.

Here is the graphic I produced:

Here are some of the original designs I ripped off used as reference.

Blast Theory – Ulrike and Eamon Compliant

Owen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:45:57 +0000

Blast Theory’s work is interesting stuff – I especially relate to the level of immersive interaction and the integration of technology. I came across Blast Theory as my good friend Dan is their administrator, and I participated in the piece Day Of The Figurines when it came to Brighton.

From the Blast Theory website:

Blast Theory is renowned internationally as one of the most adventurous artists’ groups using interactive media, creating groundbreaking new forms of performance and interactive art that mixes audiences across the internet, live performance and digital broadcasting.

Anyhow, I was invited along to the ‘premier’ of the documentation of their latest work Ulrike and Eamon Compliant at Blast Theory’s quite swanky studios just outside Brighton. Having not experienced Ulrike and Eamon Compliant firsthand I can’t comment on it, but the short film and supporting book documenting the work was enough to make me want to experience it for myself. The wine was nice too.

The book is beautifully designed by John Hunter, simple two column grid with a swiss flavour. I particularly like the cover, no messing about:

Blast Theory

To read all about Ulrike and Eamon Compliant go here:

The DVD and book I am told should be on sale from the blast theory website soon – also check their website for information on upcoming projects.

The Glenkiln Sculptures

December sketchbook pages

Owen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:22:56 +0000

More sketchbook pages from my Moleskine sketchbooks. See more on my Flickr account.

Sketchbook page

Museum of Everything

Lamont — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:51:02 +0000

Took a trip to Chalk Farm on Saturday to have a look at the Museum of Everything, a wide collection of outsider art from the last 60 years, and I can honestly say it is the best collection of anything I have ever seen and urge you to visit. Yes you, we’ve not met but I’m sure we’d be friends, right?

The collection is housed in what used to be a recording studio and the location sits very well with the objects and images, small rooms linked by smaller corridors opening into a larger room, filled floor to ceiling with the most obsessive imagery I’ve ever seen. The collection is selected by artists, musicians and writers but don’t let that spoli it, you might like David Byrne. Each curator has written a small text explaining their choices. Some of these are very annoying, some are better. Nick Cave managed to get to the nub of it for me with the text ‘Louis Wain is my favourite painter ever’. Fair enough eh?

There are some truly startling paintings, illustrations and installations on view here, the product of a persons obsessions and compulsions. This is not art made for the consideration by others, this is true art, made because the artist has no other choice but to get it out of their head. Highlights for me were the Aleksander P Lobanov collection and the Henry Darger panels, a twisted Norman Rockwell of adolescence and fear.

Get up there and see it, don’t think it’s going to be on for much longer.

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Degree Show: University of Brighton

Owen — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:47:15 +0000

BA(Hons) Graphic Design & BA(Hons) Illustration: University of Brighton.

Well, I am a little late posting this, last chance to see it is the 11th June. The standard of work is pleasingly high and I expect the degree show website will be live for a little longer. Good luck to the graduates.

Here are a couple of images that I thought were particularly interesting.

Chris Smith: BA(Hons) Illustration

Saly Troughton: BA(Hons) Graphic Design

Joe Wood: BA(Hons) Illustration

Lizzie Wylson: BA(Hons) Graphic Design

Photographer: Nhung Dang

The Glenkiln Sculptures

Owen — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:22:51 +0000

In between 1951 and 1976 landowner William Keswick dotted several sculptures around the glen of Glenkiln. There are a couple of small abstract numbers on the main road, an impressive John the Baptist by Auguste Rodin (a version of which is in the Musee d’Orsay, Paris), overlooking the Glen, five by Henry Moore and a Jacob Epstien. (Visitation). One of the Henry Moore’s (Two Pieces Standing) is a fiber glass replica, the original being only a loan and after 14 years was called back by the estate of the artist.

The Glenkiln Cross by Moore is at the top of a raggy steep sheep shit strewn field and gives an amazing view across the Glen, the cross is interesting in itself as from afar it looks like a christian cross but once you have made your way up the field, close up the cross resembles more a totem pole, certainly something much more pagan and ancient. The Sculptures are now a popular walk which I took recently. Here are some photos of the pieces that I found interesting and a google map with their location:

John the Baptist By Rodin

The Glenkiln Cross by Henry Moore

The Glenkiln Cross by Moore

Visitation by Jakob Epstein

The Sculptures are listed in a couple of books on walks around Dumfries and Galloway and a google search throws up a few results for further reference.

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Photographer: Nhung Dang

Owen — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:00:00 +0000

I have always been an acolyte of handmade tools, deliberate restrictions, dogmas and other self imposed limitations that can stimulate the creative process. This might sound contradictory but a self imposed restrictive methodology can produce interesting results that could have never come about any other way. The manifesto of Dogme 95 and the cut-up technique (also called fishbowling for some weird reason) used by Bowie and William Burroughs are two examples of a self imposed set of rules or a tightly defined working process used for creative purposes.

..So all this brings me onto the photography of Nhung Dang. Nhung is a prolific photographer, but I am particularly inspired by her pinhole photography. There is something nostalgic and timeless to her photography, in both subject matter and appearance, almost like looking at an alternative past through the warm fug of memory.

Nhung makes her own cameras and her obvious skill with them has produced some amazing atmospheric imagery. There is something of the outsider (art-brut) in the idea of handmade implements, whether this is my romantic notion of the ideal of ‘craft’ or a celebration of the rejection of technology, who knows, but when I look at Nhung’s photos I want to make cameras out of biscuit tins and take photos of butchers…

I have chosen a couple of images for this post but please check out the following links to see more of Nhung’s work.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nhungsta/

Nhung’s ‘The Lost Promenade’ project – “Starting with the pieces around the edges…”

A short interview with Nhung Dang

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Stanley Donwood: Brighton exhibition

Owen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:14:30 +0000

Designer, Illustrator, printmaker, writer and all round visual artist Stanley Donwood, Probably best known for his work for Radiohead & Thom York, is exhibiting in Brighton at Ink_d from the 20th March to 10th April. His exhibition is titled Printed Papers.

The work Donwood produces is diverse, his process and approach I really admire – he is an accomplished printmaker, his woodcut work for Thom York’s solo album Eraser (see below) a great example of his expertise in printmaking. I also appreciate his use of type – the In Raindows and Hail to the Thief album artwork both utilise type to great effect.

Donwood has produced a exclusive print for the show; find out about this cynical marketing ploy and more about the exhibition here.

The Eraser Thom Yorke

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