Since graduating we have been living and working together, converting our living room into a shared studio. This has given us the opportunity to collectively deal and converse about the issues of post-university life. Whilst doing so we thought that creating a more formal framework would allow us to address these common concerns in a more productive manner.

We aspired to make a space outside of the university, for conversations about current concerns with our practice, situation and the systems that follow after university- life as a practicing artist. Our main concern was that there was no environment to talk about work, and with people who are interested and engaged in a similar dialogue. We found that private views and exhibitions had become merely a social space where nobody would take the time to talk about the work in front of them, let alone their own practice. We were unhappy with the state of passivity that was now surrounding us and wanted to create a space where criticality and practice could exist.

From these concerns we decided that we needed to create the space and situation to talk about such problems and therefore try and resolve them. By running crits, reading groups and discussions we hoped to house some of these concerns and allow for a critical exchange between practicing artists.

We also found that one of our main drives for making work post university was for deadlines, exhibitions, residencies etc and we were no longer focused on experimentation and the development of our practice but with having finished, concise and chiseled portfolios that we could send off to varying opportunities in the free time we have outside of our payed jobs. With this in mind, we set up 3OWORKS3ODAYS (where artists would sign up and submit a work everyday for the month of April, the project concludes with a publication about the process of the project and notions of artistic production). The main objective for this project was to allow space for experimentation and mistakes; we wanted to cut out the rhetoric of competition by not having a selection process and thus exclude the drive to make the ‘best work’. The only rule was that you had to submit one work each day, in any medium or form, thus putting the responsibility on the artist, not the curator. To develop their own practices, decisions and criteria for what they consider a work, to commit to giving themselves the time each day to dedicate to their work and practice.

Once 30WORKS30DAYS concludes we are aiming to continue to launch projects with similar intentions, in relation to productivity, criticality and practice. These will take various forms from residencies to alternative forms of exhibition and publications. We are also open to collaboration, if anybody would like to get in touch please contact us on info@12ocollective.com.

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Tess Williams is a London based artist specialising in painting and painting installation. She is currently at Central Saint Martins where she will complete her MA Fine Art in June 2015. She has exhibited widely across London at galleries including The Griffin Gallery, Studio 1.1, Schwartz Gallery and recently had a solo show at Chelsea College of Art. In 2014 Tess was chosen to be part of UK Young Artists where she exhibited in Leicester at Two Queens Gallery. Here she delves into her work process…

M.M.B., 2015

At the moment my work exists within the boundaries of traditional / deconstructed painting, installation and large-scale collage; exploring where one discipline ends and the next begins.

I am first and foremost concerned with the sensual immediacy of paint and its interaction with the porous materials that I chose to apply it to. My work explores the unprimed materiality of these textiles and how they can be enhanced, altered or adapted by paint. I never prime my materials in order to leave as much amount of absorption as possible. Meaning that the material and the paint become one, rather than the paint just lying on top of a surface, as with many primed paintings. The materiality of the work as a whole is important to me, allowing its evocative power to resonate.

I am also engaging with how folds, creases and movement within the materials can act as a form of mark making, creating shadows, lines and shapes, whilst adding new tones to the colours of the paint. I also explore the way folds introduce both inside and outside, in front and behind, what this evokes, compared with the emphasis on surface alone of traditional painting. Much of my work is questioning the role of the wooden stretcher within my work and what importance it plays. It adds a familiar structure for me to work with but can also hinder my freedom when making.

Outside In, 2015

Now you see me, 2015

I prefer to be surrounded by rich and absorbent visual stimuli in order to add depth and balance to what I perceive to be a world saturated with screen-based imagery.  I tend to disconnect from flat shiny impenetrable metals/plastic surfaces, and highly photoshopped or screen-based imagery. It is also because I cannot sense the physical touch that I veer away from this type of work. For me, the physical link between artist and viewer is important.

My reason for making the work I do is my reaction to the constant desire I have to produce things that don’t already exist. It is my way of working through everything I see and experience in daily life. It is how I process my ‘thinking’ and get the inside out. I want to make things that feel ‘right’ to me, in order to counteract all the things I see around me every day that seem so aesthetically wrong. ‘Right’ meaning imperfectly perfect and visually satisfying, not just ‘correct’.

Pocket, 2015

T.T.W., 2014

Collections of my visual memories and imprints coalesce into single paintings. These visual memories are documented by my support work of collage, photography and print. This is becoming an increasingly important way of sustaining the visual input into my practice and solidifying the feed of information, which I then translate into the final pieces.

I aim to create work that engages with the space it is placed in. Creating a dialogue between the install space and the work; the wall and the materiality of the painting.
Total immersion in a space/artwork is enveloping and grounding, and I find this to be one of the most engaging physical experiences as a viewer.

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