Exhibition at Forte Sangallo di Nettuno, Rome

My coming exhibition

Shingle22j. Biennale d’Arte Contemporanea di Anzio e Nettuno presenta  : esposizione di Sally Payen

L’Associazione culturale “00042” è lieta di presentare l’esposizione di Sally Payen, vincitrice del secondo premio di Shingle22j Biennale d’Arte Contemporanea di Anzio e di Nettuno, finalmente resa possibile grazie al patrocino della Regione Lazio, della Provincia di Roma, dei Comuni di Nettuno e di Anzio e alla grande collaborazione dell’Assessorato alla Cultura del comune ospitante.
L’evento sarà inaugurato il 6 novembre presso il Forte Sangallo. Sarà possibile ammirare i lavori dell’artista inglese fino al 15 novembre prossimo.
Artista inglese, la Payen – con la sua apparente semplicità del segno, della tecnica (olio, pigmenti e penna su carta) e dello stile – evoca quasi graffiti rappresentanti lottatori, pugili, marciatori, vittime, tra griglie, gabbie e blocchi di linee azzurre, evidenziando le debolezze e i timori della nostra società: la paura, la rabbia, la violenza, la guerra, la morte.
Il senso di minaccia e di angoscia è rappresentato dalle piccole e grandi sagome nere, impersonali e bidimensionali. Nelle tele predomina lo spazio bianco e non vi sono né un inizio né una fine.
L’artista indaga singoli fenomeni di quel molteplice universo di forme che è la realtà e nel farlo riannoda i fili della sua personalissima ricerca eseguendo campiture sfumate con rigoroso impegno.
Argomento dominante della Payen è lo sgomento, derivato dal vivere in un mondo che una civiltà superficiale ha reso insensibile ai suoi veri valori.
Sono tutti quadri di grandi dimensioni, in cui la linea raggiunge potenza descrittiva e denota un’inconfondibile capacità grafica.
I ricorrenti lottatori, l’evidenza delle immagini, suggeriscono un emozionante dato reale che conferisce ai dipinti una forza che rapisce l’osservatore: i suoi lavori, infatti, comunicano un’immagine interiore che lascia trasparire sofferenze e necessità di condivisione e suscita, in chi li osserva, risonanze profonde.
E’ in queste opere che si ritrova un universo di silenzio dove ogni grido è compresso e trattenuto per farsi un termine nel succedersi delle forme.
Eventi come questo rendono onore alla nostra città e rappresentano un momento di crescita artistica e sociale del nostro Paese, e creano grandi e importanti occasioni di collaborazioni artistiche internazionali, allargando i nostri confini, la nostra conoscenza, le nostre culture.
Proseguono intanto i lavori dell’Associazione “00042” per la realizzazione della III edizione della Biennale d’Arte Shingle22j: tema per gli artisti sarà quello dell’ecologia.
Per info: www.shingle22j.com da marzo 2010 sarà possibile scaricare il nuovo bando di adesione.
inscriviti al nostro gruppo su Facebook “shingle22j” ed al nostro Myspace “www.myspace.com/shingle22j

Falling Cities

‘Falling Cities’ is a new project I’m working on. The premise stems from ideas about the falling man, to quote de Man ‘a thing in the grip of gravity, the end point of all gravity being the grave’. In the ‘Falling Cities’ we open up the possibility of experiencing places as a ‘a thing in the grip of gravity’ to witness places as in the throws of fissure, cracking and falling apart; an aspect here could be to witness the current climate of recession and insecurity – ‘between cities, countries and continents we are going to crash’ (Altermodern); but more importantly to explore cultural shifts as ever circular and returning; here is the possibility  of exploring through image and text different points in history and places in the world as well as exploring cities seen from a vast map like distance or inspired by a more intimate close-up tangled and messy human view.

I like the idea of a kind of ‘place-gravity in motion’- art works that operate like a unfolding, sometimes almost slowness – moments of falling and disharmony as almost flickering cinematic, painterly passion yet despair. This is probably going to be a long project in terms of bringing it to fruition, here I have introduced some key starting ideas, although in reality my ideas always start in my painting – here is ‘Democratic Grid’

Artists Meeting

I’ve just joined Artists Meeting predominately a group of New York based artists, I shall be the second UK member. What is Artists Meeting by Artist Meeting members –

Brought together by chance, circumstance, and a common purpose, Artists Meeting members gather in person and via technology. Free of commercial influence, participants draw on each other’s expertise to refine concepts, further experimentation and engage each other in collaboration.  
– Eliza Fernbach

‘In the context of an art group sometimes the work is simply defining what we are doing and why we are doing it. There are spheres of meaning that start from the entirely personal to the global media mythos created by electronic networks. It is clear that small social networks that depend on personal contact are nodes that hook into the larger information sphere. Interpersonal meaning, creative energy and realization that issue from a group are shared within the group members and extended into the media sphere. When focusing on a task, group members combine and share their skills. They also carry on where others leave off’.– G.H. Hovagimyan

This panoply of fact, opinion, words and emotions involve not only objects of art, but also how we interact, create, and learn about ourselves as patterns in the process. From raw clay, clean slates, and blank media, our views, thoughts, and even market forces shape what we make as much as what we make shapes us. – Lara Start Martini & James Andrews (Nsumi)

In the process, we would like to challenge cushioned academic and institutional taste-makers, as well as hedonistic spenders who dictate form and content to an irrational market. Our objective is to create, once again, an opportunity for community, critical exchange and mutual support. The collaborative process is as important as the final work. We want to destroy the myth that collective work is a compromise of ideas rather than the effective combination of multiple minds and experiences. We re-instate social, democratic and political processes — in small — within a society that slowly drifts apart through omnipresent market forces. If we succeed, even if only in part and temporarily, we demonstrate that another world is possible. We would overcome the obstacles in one of the most capitalist segments of our society, the “art world”. 
– Daniel Blochwitz

This is an on-going project –

Closure

A thought to begin the day, the week  – Lawson on Rembrandt – ‘the image is more than an image’;

‘…Rembrandt’s late self-portraits. These portraits can be seen as not merely providing a copy of the individual’s appearance but as seeking to move beyond the appearance to the experience of the individual and perhaps of all individuals. We are not being asked to look at an image of an old man as if to comment on the paintings likeness to the individual appearance, but are encouraged to ask what the paintings tells us about what it is to be old. The painting suggests a lifetime of events and a response to those events. Yet we cannot complete the closure as if we could read off unambiguously what was meant or intended here. We are left with the image and the sense that the image is more than an image. We can weave many tales about this character and it is in the complexity and variety of those tales, and the assumption that the image was intended to generate them, that closure is avoided. The image although itself not ambiguous cannot rest, for it is caught in a web of metaphors of its own making. The image thus stands for something which is itself open.’