Each project I do is unique to the space its for. Gapfillers at Wasps Briggait spaces last year was a 5 day 40hr drawing performance that took the idiosyncrasies of the front of house project spaces as its starting point. It was an exhibition that united repetition, accumulation and endurance alongside specific references to the site.

Gapfillers, 2015

Gapfillers, 2015

I‘m keen to bridge the anomalies between the spaces organisation and the interrelation dynamics of moving in and around those same spaces. I worked out how many pairs of post it notes would fill the gap between the length of one space and the other. I would then apply this rule to making marks that occur across a regular gap between pairs of post-it notes in an accumulative act of repetition, I continue this until the post-its don’t stick and fall off. As an outcome the resulting wall drawings led by their rules and processes, in seeking to fill those anomalies within the site may in fact be renouncing itself in the very act of extolling its presence. In doing so Gapfillers may be less a ‘fullness of space ‘and instead a ‘fullness of emptiness’.

Scapelands at DrawingBox Belgium sought to extend and immerse the viewer in what exists between what Blanchot refers to as the ‘two spheres that didn’t know each other, two moments in time perhaps entirely foreign to each other and yet coming together within their shared foreignness’. This could be identified as the body meeting the site and how one activates it. The spaces were measured with A4 sheets that were numbered then were rolled up, the last sheet rolled up determined where the ‘rolled space’ would be placed. Alongside this, a system of drawing 1000’s of coloured squares (done in the order of the dryboard markers as they come in the packets). The rule was the first line of squares (which was based on the length of the doorway or pillar opposite etc.) would determine how many rows of squares should be made, that would determine the next block of squares until only one square was left. The result was two bodies of work, one extending an imploded space, the other an expanded activation of space.

Scapelands, 2015

Scapelands, 2015

Scapelands, 2015

Of late the performative element sees me interrogate the conceptual framework of drawing, from drawing as a means to cover, to a form of grafting of one space onto another through absurd acts measuring space.

This is best seen in the bad drawing/ paper cell for The Prison drawing project in March this year where I presented a film grafted onto the space that is the cell. It takes the notion of drawing as an act of covering and form of measurement, in an immersive act of attempted liberation. Measuring using rolls of paper, the film chronicles what could be seen as a bad day wallpapering a space, no assistants, paste or ladders just a desire to cover and negate the cell. Only stopping when exhausted, I’m offering up to the viewer a spectacle of endurance undaunted by a failure doomed from the start. In my attempts to be free of the cell, I’m potentially submerged in the paper as a result. The outcome is a film projected across the cell walls that unites the tension between the restricted, solid space with a fluidity and potential of the performative act. Consequently, the solid and static of the prison cell could be in doubt and liberation maybe indeed may be possible.

bad drawing/ paper cell, 2016

I only use office materials ranging from post-it notes to highlighter pens and photocopy paper alongside process led, rule based repetition, endurance, accumulation and duration. Taking anomalies of the space, I’m seeking to test or expand alternative body/site relations with regard to space and thinking. The results in the form of wall drawing, films, performances and installations, propose new dialogues and frameworks that aim to generate a condition of becoming, translation and flux instead of stasis; a site of experience rather than merely location.

bad drawing/ paper cell, 2016

 I’ve a bookwork coming out next month on my project/residency/ /exhibition WhiteNoise, which took place at The Centre for Recent Drawing in London last year, published by marmalade visual theory in London, I’m showing some performances in Concept  at Czong Institute of Contemporary Art (CICA) in South Korea next month, other projects this year include commissions for a walking drawing/ game in France and another for a cultural Centre in France where I’m working with a Brussels based dance company that will result in a series of wall drawing works and live performances where they wear the drawings quite literally albeit the ‘outfits’ so to speak will resemble nothing akin to clothing.

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Portfolio of works from 2012 by Italian graphic designer and illustrator, Alice Iuri.

Behance

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If you have a Flickr, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Behance or Cargo account connect with us.

1. Smart Shoes by Mark O’Brien

2. Monster Shoes by Andrew Denholm

3. Paper Shoes by Joanne B Kaar

4. Sun Bathers (Fernando Remix) by azurebumble

5. Custom Kicks V1: To Exiles by studioderm

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Michael Lomax is a Swansea based artist. He says that his focus in on illustration and graphic design, but we couldn’t help but notice his intricate paper cut work on Behance.

The Seven Ravens is a work based on the Brother’s Grimm fairy tale of the same name. Click on his links below to see more from this artist. You won’t be disappointed.

See more from The Seven Ravens project here.
See more work from Michael Lomax on Behance.

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If you have a Flickr, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Behance or Cargo account connect with us.

It was difficult to choose just one image from Nicola Watson’s “Artist Book” set on flickr. We strongly recommend browsing through them all here.

This is what Nicola says about herself:
“my work is generally created through ideas of anti establishment as well as exploring themes of identity, through the examination of electronic forms of identity including barcodes and binary, along with more aesthetic manmade methods of identity such as graffiti and the use of language and poetry.”

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Curated is a new online store, championing British, eco friendly and fabulous design.

Click here to see more from Curated’s Baglight collection.

They are always keen to meet new designers, so if you design/make furniture and want to be noticed by Curated, get in touch.

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Typographic Illustration Books by annabodaliker

Ways of arranging books by amelia_bywater

Book Skirt by Kylaa

Bird Book Covers by Hanna_Tuulikki

Uni photos 004 by Curtain

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See more of our Top 5 selections here.

Projection Mapped Cityscape by Lumen

N T R E by kheesiong

Ireland, Europe & Middle East Dot Circle Map by Louweasley

The Shippinthingy by Robertsworld

Map Paper Garlands by Milomade

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Introducing a social media strategy is an easy win for arts marketeers. Do away with print – save time, hassle and the environment, with the added bonus of being the revolutionary who drags everyone into the 21st Century.

In theory, it sounds great. As black and white as a halftone dot. Except this whole trade-off between design and print, and social media, is a bit of a misnomer. But let’s compare them for a moment:

Print has been around for a long, long time. For the sake of argument lets pick out a landmark year – 1450 – when Gutenburg started getting his fingers inky doing some nice brochures for the Lord. That’s 560 years. Twitter? 4 years. [I’m aware social media was around a bit before that, but then I’m not counting back to The Dead Sea Scrolls, God’s innovative but ill-fated roll-folded direct marketing campaign].

Right now there’s a lot of ‘what’s next?’ questions and prophesizing, and Web 3.0 chin stroking, but no-one really knows for sure where this is all heading. We can see some platforms are already dying (Bebo is the latest casualty, MySpace a hollow Murdoch shell of it’s innovative heyday). Point being, just because this new stuff is great – and we should all embrace it – we shouldn’t chuck out all the brilliant old stuff. So, here’s my 4 part plea to the design/print naysayers…
First off, adopting Social Media shouldn’t be about giving design a bodyswerve. Effective social media marketing is designed – it’s a nuanced combination of images and text just like anything you put on paper, and needs to be considered in the same way.

Secondly, Social Media shouldn’t be thought of as a cheap alternative to design for print – if anything social media takes more time – once you’ve created something it’s only the beginning of a journey that requires constant feeding, monitoring and interaction.

Third, if we’re talking solely about arts marketing, then surely we’re still appealing at core to a visual culture that places intricates values on form, content and aesthetics? Rather than killing off printed material, social media essentially presents an opportunity to focus on making smaller runs of better print. As a designer I take little joy in squeezing on more and more information that could be communicated on a website, or sending out large runs of cheap, digitally printed flyers. I’m a fully paid-up stock sniffing, type fetishising, paper grammage nerd, so I’m biased… but when you are communicating something as potentially complex as artists’s work, combined with the values of a gallery, isn’t it worth the effort to attempt to represent that properly?

Most importantly, design and print is a hugely important part of visual culture, and works in tandem with visual art. A great example of this is Neil McGuire’spiece I wrote about a few weeks ago that was produced for theECA Masters show and in itself became part of the exhibition.

There must be more examples, and better arguments. Am I preaching to the converted, or is print pulped?

Image: Invite for Baldvin Ringsted, +44 141 Gallery by The Press – Emlyn Firth/Edwin Pickstone 

In shreds // Paramparça by Sera Marshall.

“A year’s worth of photographic prints shredded placed on descriptions of the actually images in English and Turkish. People got on their hands and knees and moved about the pieces to read and make out what they may have been looking at. Some just brushed away the shredded material with their feet.”

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