Muddy Arts: Collective
On December 1st last year the Muddy Arts Collective opened the doors on our first major exhibition. More than twenty artists filled the walls of Space4 with over 200 works of art, 1500 photographs, two pieces of video art, and one massive group produced installation. Not bad for a first show. With over 4500 visitors to the show over the two months of December and January it was one of the Space4's biggest shows for the time of year.
For the theme of the show we took the idea of 'collective'. It was a chance to look at ourselves and to think about how the collective was formed and the relationships that structure it. It was very interesting to see that there is not a simple structure, it is a quite complex and interwoven community with no easy chronology. Beautifully awkward in fact.
The feedback we have had from visitors to the show has been fantastic with the two most talked about parts of the show being the installation piece and the slide show of 2000 photographs. These photographs date from summer 2005 reminding us of the very early days of the Glass Onion right the way through to a week or so before the exhibition opened. The 2000 strong slide show projected images taken by many photographers, but the bulk of the images were taken, naturally, by Mike Hat ( cheers Mike! ) These photographs were a chance to celebrate the many thousands of beautiful and precious moments we have all shared since the decision to put on GrassRoots Festival and the birth of Muddy Promotions. Looking back to the the glorious days of the festival was a wonderful experience, the projected photographs were at an amazing size of 4 metres wide by 3 metres high, making the views of the sun-setting behind the main stage as your friends are captured frozen in time spinning, stomping and blissed out to the music, or the geo-dome going up at midnight on Friday, all the more entrancing. These giant photographs hooked us in as we sat in the back room of the gallery and stared at the illuminated wall. The colours, the smiles, the silly faces, and the incredible views absorbing us and reminding us of how many people have made all this happen. Knowing you would have to sit there for nearly two hours to see all 2000 of them only served to heighten the experience.
The installation as an idea was tugged and pulled, sketched and re-sketched, bounced around and slowly, slowly pulled out of the collective psyche. Photographs were taken upstairs in the art studio of The Glass Onion throughout September and November, this was great fun and allowed the project to involve more people in the creative
process, increasing the element of collaboration. The photographs were then printed using an A0 banner printer, taken to the gallery, trimmed and pasted to the wall. This process was undertaken by at least ten artists working long hours and late nights throughout November. It was a really great sight to see both studios at the Onion so busy for so long and for so much creative interaction taking place by dedicated individuals.
Both these pieces, the installation and the slideshow, reveal the essence of the collective. Both in execution and in the finished result you can clearly see the hands and souls of many wildly individual artists pouring their creative energies into the melting pot.
The work on show displayed a wide range of mediums & styles, from traditional painting styles and subjects to futuristic 3D computer modelling & graphics, photography & mixed media. The quality of work was very high and the overall effect walking around the gallery was impressive and professional. There was a lot of work on show, yet the walls did not feel cluttered but spacious and fresh. Many of the artists had not exhibited their work before, hopefully there will be many more opportunities in the future.
If you would like to become involved with the Muddy Arts Collective then please contact me below, or pop into the Glass Onion, we are very open and are looking for more artists to come and get muddy!!!
to view a 360° panoramic photograph of the installation visit
http://www.chopperchoons.com/art.htm
Luke Payn
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