Lockdown Art #4: Spring Lockdown by Sarah Godsill

My lockdown art this week is by artist and illustrator Sarah Godsill.

As we all know when the first lockdown was announced on March 23rd, everything seemed to grind to a halt.

Sarah found it increasingly hard to concentrate on work and ignore news bulletins. So she decided to use the strange circumstances as a way to connect with friends and family by asking them for photographs of themselves in their most typical lockdown activity for a painting.

This is what she has to say about her painting shows people at work and play, round the table, cooking, reading, gardening, getting out for walks or stuck at computer screens. They come from all over the UK, Spain, USA, Canada, Chile, Venezuela and Singapore.

"I started to envisage a Zoom screen full of everyone’s images. I didn’t know how many photos there would be and I had originally planned to do individual paintings, but on a practical level it was easier to grid a canvas into 64 slots and add the images as they were sent to me.

As I worked on each individual image it was comforting to think about the people represented, whether they were far away geographically or just around the corner here in Frome. We couldn’t meet in person and hug - we still don’t know when that will be possible - so it was a lovely way to feel a bit of a connection with everyone.”

Spring Lockdown by Sarah Godsill

oil 100 x 120 cm

“It’s been a challenging year for most of us and especially difficult for those who have been affected by Covid19 or are shielding or caring for vulnerable people, but it’s also highlighted the most valuable things in life and all that we’re grateful for.

The incredible weather made it more manageable in the first few months and that really stood out in lots of the photos I received; I never used green in my paintings before this year.”

The resulting painting has now been accepted for hanging by 

• the Annual Open exhibition of Bath Society of Artists  at the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath, which opens online on November 2nd.
• the Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club - where you can see it on the wall. I'm thinking it must have been spotted back in November by Peter Brown who is also a member of the Bath Society of Artists

Her photo (below) of the mandatory "me and my painting" illustrates neatly how big it is.

Lockdown Art #1: 1000 Cranes by Liz Hanan at the Oxmarket Gallery in Chichester

I'm inviting people to highlight where we can currently see art with some sort of explicit link to lockdowns in current exhibitions - anywhere in the world.

If I like what I see, it will be featured on this blog with a link to the exhibition it's in and the relevant artist.

I'm doing this because I'm a big fan of art which records social history - and if this pandemic is not social history, I don't know what is! It's changed such a lot of our day-to-day lives and ongoing economies and how we will live and work in the future - forever!

 

[PS For those expecting to see the post about pricing and sales at the NEAC Exhibition, this will now be on Sunday - when I can update my Excel Spreadsheet with the sales since Tuesday.]

 

Lockdown Art #1: 1000 Cranes by Liz Hanan

 

My first example of lockdown art was sent to me by Sue England, who many of you may recall was one of the finalists in the Sky Arts Landscape Painter of the Year 2019 (at Battersea Power Station)

I saw you were asking about art created during lockdown. 

You may be interested in an installation piece of 1000 cranes, hanging in a one and a half metre globe, made from 7000 re purposed vaccination syringe wrappers. Liz Hanan a vaccinating nurse and also a professional artist created it.

1000 Cranes by Liz Hanan

The narrative on her website explains that:

• the 1000 cranes are created out of spent vaccination packages
• the ancient Japanese tradition of 千羽鶴, senbazuru (literally “1000 cranes”) involves the folding of 1000 cranes which are then hung by strings
• In doing this, your wish will come true
• They are also a a symbol of hope, health and longevity in difficult times.
• The vaccination programme across the world has brought hope to so many people
• her notion for the work was created in collaboration with the vaccination teams in the Chichester area.
• the teams collected the syringe packets after use, Liz joined them together and then they are folded and created cranes
• 1000 Cranes were created out of around 7000 vaccination packets
  
• the collaborative process was an important part of creating the piece - reflecting the collaboration of the vaccination programme
• they are now hung together to form a sphere - measuring 1.5 metres in diameter.
  

You can see a video of it on this link

It's certainly one of the most impressive pieces of lockdown art I've seen to date!

Exhibition: Artel

Title: Cranes

Location: Oxmarket Gallery St Andrew’s Court, off East Street, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1YH

Dates: Until 11th July 2021

Hours: 10am - 4.30pm

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artelgroup

Instagram: @chigroupartel

 

(Note: It's part of The Festival of Chichester)

 

Life Drawing Live on BBC4 tomorrow

I forgot to include Life Drawing Live when I did my compilation of Art On Demand during the Pandemic #1 - British TV

Drawing the Nation Together is a new episode of Life Drawing Live and will be broadcast at 8pm on BBC4. Unfortunately if it's like last time you will be unable to see it later (unlike the Sky Arts portrait video arrangement).

The groundbreaking Life Drawing Live! returns to BBC Four, drawing the UK’s four nations together in the biggest-ever live, life drawing class. There has never been a better time to collectively get those creative juices flowing, as presenter and artist Josie d’Arby is joined by experts Lachlan Goudie, Diana Ali and Nicky Philipps to share their passion and knowledge in this inspiring event.

Viewers will be able to watch live and draw along, as amateur artists at home and in our socially distanced studio, capture a series of life model poses, based on classical works of art. Class starts at 8.00pm and is open to everyone with artistic skills, and those who think they have none, to pick up a pencil and draw!

BBC4 tried out Life Drawing Live earlier this year.
READ my two blog posts - before and after - earlier this year

• Views about the Nude and Life Drawing Live - on BBC next week
• Live Drawing Live - my results and conclusions

This time it's going to be a bit different - as Lachlan Goudie explains below



However

• there's absolutely NO INFORMATION ON THE BBC4 WEBSITE about how to access the screen on which you can see the model continuously during the programme
• assuming that it works in a similar way to last time - but with social distancing due to the pandemic - this is what you will need to do (see video below). You'll be using the red button on your computer.

No need to be 2 metres from your screen though!



I recommend you watch the programme on one screen and have the model on the red button on another screen.

Art On Demand during the Pandemic #1 - British TV

I've been amazed at how much art has found it way on to television and screens generally during the pandemic - and how much of it is:

• complete innovation i.e. winging it via the internet
• videos we never saw on television before
• the resurrection of art programmes which were really worth repeating

I'm going to try and put together a compilation of what I know about below - starting with the UK TV contribution

Sky Arts

Sky Arts Portrait of the Week

This is possibly one of the most innovative programmes.

• A past winner of Portrait Artist of the Year painting a model in four hours of live video on Facebook Live
• People AROUND THE WORLD join in either watching the Facebook Live Video live from their homes or via the 'saved' Facebook Live Video during the week
• everybody submits their artwork to social media using #MYPAOTW



a compilation of portraits of Bernadine Evaristo on Instagram

• the Judges - Tai Shan Schierenberg, Kathleen Soriano, and Kate Bryan - choose their favourite three each week

I think maybe the value of the series is that we actually see how a sitting progresses from the sitter being quite tense and apprehensive and the artist needing quiet to focus while they get the painting going - to things becoming progressively more relaxed as the four hours unfolds.

PLUS we get to see very many responses from artists all over the world - just plug #MYPAOTW into Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to see what I mean.

PLUS - we get Tai's Top Tips about portraiture and input from Kathleen and Kate about portraiture

Tai's top Tips - this week focuses on measurements of the head and shapes

We've had two episodes so far and the videos are still available online - and third is taking place while I'm writing.