I am currently volunteering over summer at Fabrica gallery during their July/August residency. What’s exciting about this exhibition is that its changing every two weeks, bringing in a new artist to takeover, thus allowing myself as a volunteer, and the public, to experience new art very often. the exhibition this year is named ‘Putting Ourselves in the Picture’ and revolves round inclusivity in the art world and trying to get everyone to partake and question who choses which art is deemed a masterpiece.
Exhibition statement from the gallery: “At the heart of this dynamic and highly experimental exhibition is the question ‘who gets to create art and whose work is selected and therefore validated for public view?’ We’re seeking to understand more about how access to creation spaces might shape the supply of art and artists in our society and to demystify the who, how and why of selecting work for public consumption.”
For my first session, artist Sara Dare who explores form and abstraction through painting was taking residency. Her piece had an air of performance, with a huge rotatable canvas enveloping half the space as she encouraged the public to come and use several tools to paint whatever they wished. The public were very engaged and i was surprised to see all age groups attending, from babies to the elderly, all excited by the chance to paint on a blank canvas. As the canvas filled people started to ask questions about painting over others work, about who is deserving of which space etc, all questions which I had never really broached but found so relevant in todays art world. It takes us back to the bigger question of the exhibition, who decides what work is deemed popular and worthy of the gallery platform?
I myself had a go with the paint and found it extremely freeing and fun, it felt different to drawing in a notebook or on a small canvas at home, there was no pressure for mistakes, it was simply a free for all. It has encouraged me to try and paint in my own time, even if it simply be a few dashes on a page.
This first session has made me excited for whats to come over the next month or so, and I’m looking forward to seeing the public reaction and what they create in the artistic space as well as what new questions they pose to the artists and themselves.
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