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The MA exhibition: An Artist's Perspective - The Open College of the Arts

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The MA exhibition: An Artist's Perspective thumb

The MA exhibition: An Artist's Perspective

The press release for our exhibition stated that: the postgraduate artists from Canada, the UK and Ireland have studied for their Masters degrees over the last four years on a part-time basis through online seminars, virtual tutorials and lectures, now coming together to exhibit in the real world. The real world element of the exhibition was a crash course in reality. Many MA exhibitions are made within the institution of study and use the very studios where the artists have worked throughout their course. As distance students, and some coming from a great distance, there is more that has to be anticipated and considered. Photographs and maps of the venue go so far – and some of us had visited it a couple of years before, but Bank Street Arts in Sheffield is what estate agents might describe as having a lot of character – another way of saying that there is barely a flat or straight wall there.

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What an interesting place to exhibit work – the building is a Georgian house in the old financial quarter of Sheffield, still with small rooms, cupboards, staircases and a basement giving a labyrinthine feel of discovery for the viewer. For the exhibiting artist it offers an intimate, almost domestic gallery with plenty of original features – in the case of my gallery, an enormous window I hadn’t really noticed in the photographs. It was such a splendid feature I didn’t want to block it out, and nor did I want people looking out at the view rather than at my work, so I spent a day and a half of the install in covering it with paper. It was so worthwhile to give the room a glow from daylight, and I happened to have a framed remade window to hang in just the right place.
Eleanor gallery window
It’s an added pressure to set up the final project work in an unfamiliar space – slight slants in the ceiling may make for a charming gallery, but it defies even a spirit level in attempting to line up work straight – in the end you have to go with an optical illusion enhanced by lighting. Some tasks may seem straightforward – hanging a tiny shelf to sit a speaker on – however, little did I know that I had chosen the very spot where the wall material underneath had the consistency of bread.
As one of our group put it – if it can go wrong it will go wrong, and in the end some of us took to the very last minute possible to complete the installation before it was tools down and clear the space for assessment, and then for visitors. One of us had every possible challenge – problems with an exploding laptop battery, trouble with lighting in the room, having to cut down work to fit in to the gallery – it just wasn’t fair! But everything did get done. Everyone was able to step away and feel they had done what could be done, and then the audience came.

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It’s part of the artist’s lot to bring work into the real world, with all it’s far from ideal circumstances and lack of straight lines. Perhaps in that sense all galleries should be irregular.
 
Image Credits: James Mitchell
Window Image: Eleanor MacFarlane
Featured image: The Nine facebook page


Posted by author: Eleanor MacFarlane

4 thoughts on “The MA exhibition: An Artist's Perspective

  • Eleanor I was really glad I went to this show and met with you and Bryan, the conversations I had with you both are really pertinent right at this point of my studies which are at a difficult stage (aren’t they always?). And I really enjoyed how you spoke about your work with the found photographs. Inspiring.

  • Great to have met you in person Eleanor & good to read this piece.. The work was inspiring and as you refer to the space… yes ‘interesting’… Well done to all in your group.. Brilliant!

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