Fiona Long Art

whispers

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

I continue to enjoy my residency at the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester. I’ve been looking at how image can transcend language and how it’s easier to see images in Chinese calligraphy when we don’t understand what it means. Everyone can appreciate its beauty but we read it in different ways. I’m focussing on characters that look, to me, like faces following my series of ‘Pareidolic Field Studies‘. I’m intrigued by the difference in the way that we draw when we understand something. The fluid and fluent style used in Chinese calligraphy is very different to the way that I draw it when studying the lines and how they correspond to each other as I can only see the shapes and not the meanings.

I’ve also had fun exploring the art scene in Manchester and getting some inspiration. On Thursday night I went to another private view at Rogue Artists’ Studios and met lots of lovely people including Mike Chavez-Dawson who curated an amazing exhibition called Unrealised Potential that’s on at the Cornerhouse right now. It’s a collaborative group exhibition which explores the creative potential of artists’ unrealied projects, blurring the lines between artist, curator, visitor and producer. You could spend hours in there. There’s an awful lot of unrealised (and realised) potential! It’s touring the country and possibly the world so I recommend a look-see if it comes near you.

On Friday I went to the Manchester Art Gallery, Castlefield Gallery, CUBE, The Cornerhouse, The Whitworth and then a private view at Victoria Baths. I particularly enjoyed The Perfect Gallery by Christian Jankowski where he exhibited the gallery itself and a particularly amusing film about his transformation of the Pump House Gallery in Battersea Park. I also loved the outsider art at the Whitworth and the video installation ‘Monument (Apollo Pavillion, Peterlee)’ by Jane and Louise Wilson. There was some good work at ‘Chew The Float’ at the Victoria Baths by Cottonopolis Collective but the building was so fantastic that the artworks had to do battle with their surroundings.