Meeting Geoff Diego Litherland

You may have read on the blog that in January we awarded a prize at the Nottingham open to the artist Geoff Diego Litherland: as part of this prize we asked if we could visit him at his studio, and chat to him about his art and career to gain an insight into the industry.

Geoff’s studio is located within the Nottingham Trent University campus (where he also teaches part time) in an old Victorian hospital – slightly creepy but full of history and beauty nonetheless. The studio itself is a bright white room full of interesting arty bits, and Geoff had even put one of his previously exhibited works on display for us to see. 

We chatted extensively to him about his career and practice. Starting with an art foundation at Loughborough, Geoff moved onto a fine art degree at Falmouth where, once he graduated, he took a few years out from painting before heading to Goldsmith’s for a Masters which he completed in 2012. It was great to hear that he continued his passion for art whilst working at a local gallery in Nottingham.

Because of the Open, we already knew that Geoff painted science fiction-esque pictures with twist of nature, a style that we were all drawn to and loved. Illuminate were also interested to hear that he painted portraits which also had a ‘space’ feel, and we were able to see these in a booklet kindly given to us which contained words and images of Geoff’s art.

 When questioning Geoff about his influences, we weren’t surprised to hear that he took inspiration from old science fiction films and literature – we even discovered that the ‘portal’ shape in some of his work was partially influenced by the windshield of the Millennium Falcon! Geoff informed us that films and TV such as Silent Running, Firefly, and of course, Star Wars, provided visual motivation, and some Illuminate members were even able to provide him with a little homework in the form of obscure French science fiction films.

Geoff also explained to us that nature and Romanticism have been big influences on him and we were intrigued to hear some of the history behind the art. The Romantic Era was a movement prompted by the Industrial Revolution, which saw artists and intellectuals emphasise nature, the imagination, and emotions in an attempt to escape the reality of industrialisation. Landscape art became popular as artists created ‘romantic’ versions of the England, rather than ‘real life’ topographical prints. On the other hand, Geoff told us that the modern abstract artists Peter Doig and Gerhard Richter have also interested him.

Illuminate all had a great time meeting Geoff, and seeing his studio and talking to him about his work was fascinating (even if we were a little gutted about not meeting his part-time studio friend, his dog). We are all looking forward to keeping in touch with him to keep track of his future projects, and will hopefully get to work with Geoff again in the future.

If you’re interested in seeing some of Geoff’s work the Lakeside gallery at the University of Nottingham has an exhibition on until Sunday 10th May 2015.

Nottingham Castle OPEN prize-giving

Illuminate attended the prize-giving evening for Nottingham Castle’s OPEN. Waiting outside the castle gates for 6pm to arrive and the doors to open, I had expectations of the evening. Who would win the most prestigious award of the evening? How would everyone react when they found out who we had awarded the prize to? Would we meet the artist who won our prize, or other artists involved in this year’s Open?

On entering the gates we were handed a drinks voucher for complimentary wine or orange juice to celebrate the evening. We headed upstairs to the galleries, browsing Andrew Bracey’s exhibition to see how the curation had developed and how his live paintings had progressed since we saw it mid-hang. We revisited the paintings we had judged for the Open, reminding ourselves of our favourites.

We headed to the cafe, where the evening was sponsored by Magpie brewery. We sat chatting, talking through our thoughts about the evening and the impending prize-giving. At half six an announcement informed us that the prize-giving was about to start, so we hurried upstairs and gathered around the large crowd that had formed around Tristram Aver.

He welcomed us all to the evening, explaining the main principles of the OPEN. We waited expectantly, feeling an excited buzz as we waited for the results to be announced.  The second result came in. ‘The prize presented by Illuminate goes to Geoff Diego Litherland!’ It felt so important to have helped make a decision as part of this group and part of this exhibition, that would actually impact somebody else and their art practice. It felt great to award a prize which would make someone feel good about themselves, to have the means to help to appreciate somebodies work and talent through meriting their achievement. We awarded £250 and a chance for the artist to welcome illuminate into his practice and studio. I felt lucky to have been a part of such an exciting decision and influential position. We felt the applause for Geoff was well deserved.

Straight after all the results were announced Geoff came over to us, explaining how pleased and grateful he was for us picking him as our winner. We found out a bit about him and his practice, and got chatting about the prize we had awarded him. It was great to actually meet the artist and see what our decision had done. I can’t wait to work with Geoff in the future when we visit his studio!

We took time to explore the exhibition further, chatting through the winners and retracing their artworks. We took some photographs of the Open and our group and documented our time here. We had great fun exploring Simon Raven’s performance art. Simon and Jim Brouwer had won the biggest prize of the evening. Quite a few of illuminate’s members helped themselves to a grape or sausage or two from his foil-wrapped head! 

It was fantastic for illuminate to have awarded a prize at this year’s open, and a brilliant learning curve. I can say that all my initial expectations were fulfilled. Our prize was greatly appreciated and highly regarded, we met and chat with the artist who won our prize and all the main winners were well-deserved. A brilliant evening and insightful experience.

Mary Strickson, Illuminate Member

Nottingham Castle OPEN, Choosing our winner

Hi, I’m Mary! I joined Illuminate in October, at the start of a brand new project. We worked towards choosing a winner out of those exhibiting at this year OPEN at Nottingham Castle. Our prize would include a monetary prize- but the rest was up to us! The next few weeks involved meetings and gallery visits to make sure we were fully informed to make such a decision!

We began finding out how local galleries operated, learning about their exhibitions and exploring their art collections. This taught us skills necessary for judging art. Our first visit was to Nottingham Contemporary where associate artist Sian Watson ran a workshop to teach us how to choose our favourite artworks, working on how we react emotionally and instinctively to art, helping us formulate opinions and ‘judge’ other artworks. 

We also visited Lakeside Arts’ Djangoly Gallery where curator Neil Walker talked to us about the exhibitions and their hang, informing us how he chose artists and how exhibitions were planned. We had a visit from Tristram Aver, who told about the Open, what it would involve, how it started and how it worked. He showed us all the artists exhibited at the Open explaining how decisions had been made over who to choose for the show. We also saw some of Tristram’s work at the Djangoly. 

We visited the Open when its hang was in process and artworks being put up. Most artworks were on the floor yet to be hung. We visited Andrew Bracey’s exhibition as it was being hung, talking to the artist and learning about his work and how exhibitions are hung and curated.

  

We revisited the Open once it was fully installed. We initially wondered around individually to get a feel for the exhibition. We noted four articles as our own favourites.  We got into pairs and selected three artworks between us; one each of our most favourite and one artist we agreed on. We put stickers on photographs of the artworks we picked. Any artworks not picked were removed from the group. 

We split into two teams, each team choosing four artists. This was hard to agree on but a brilliant exercise in learning to compromise and work together!  It was amazing how emotional and empathic we became about artists we didn’t know and how much we had our own choices in who we wanted to win! I was particularly passionate about Lois Wallace’s work. The artists chosen by each group became our shortlist. Amazingly, both teams had agreed on 3 choices, only differing by one choice! We now had our favourite 5.

At the next meeting we researched each artist, their background, their practice and their artworks. We decided that the prize for our winner should involve us working with the artist and learning how their practice operated. We each inputted our top two choices and tallied up who had won. At our first meeting back in January the results were in and the winner was…… Geoff Diego Litherland!

Read our next blog to find out about the prize-awarding ceremony and the fruits of our labour! It was really tough making our decisions but they were well informed and fairly executed. In the end the winner was a mutual decision, with nearly every person in illuminate voting for them! It was a great learning process and fantastic team working! It tested out our analytic and art-appreciation skills!

Visit to Nottingham Contemporary

Back in October we visited the Rapheal Hefti and Agnieszka Polska exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary.

I wanted the group to see and discuss some Contemporary Art work in order to give them the chance to articulate and debate their views and opinions on art in readiness for our judging of the Castle OPEN in December.

My hope was that by exposing the group to lots of different types of art and talking about it, we might come up with some interesting reasons for selecting our Prize.

Sian Taylor, one of the Associate Artists at Contemporary lead the group.

 

We had the chance to look round and then discuss the work. Polska's work "Future days" caused the most debate, some loved it and some hated it or just thought it was weird. Sian explained the ideas behind the piece which made it make alot more sense to us, although we would never had worked it out  ourselves from the video or interpretation. In the film a group of masked characters wander expressionless and aimlessly around an island, is it a strange zombie film? a weird crime drama? No, the characters are all dead artists living in an imagined heaven. Each artist is connected in that they all, at sometime, discredited their role as "artist" or disappeared from the art world, in the film, they live without purpose or creativity in this strange, imagined space.



Future Days: Polska

 A section of the film can be found here

http://vimeo.com/widok/futuredays

We then spent time planning our own piece of artwork, we were giving a genre ( photography/Installation etc) and choose a couple of the exhibitions themes as a starting point, we were given an imaginary endless budget to plan with.

We came up with all sorts of fantastical and ambitious ideas, a time based sand installation which filled an entire room, the recreation of a domestic room complete with coffee mugs. We came away excited and inspired and with a desire to find alot of funding to see our ideas come to fruition.

I know what I like : Learning about Contemporary Art

I know what I like?

Looking at Contemporary Art

October 22nd 2014 to Feb 2015

For our next project we will be looking at a range of Contemporary Art and awarding a prize for an Artwork in this years OPEN exhibition at Nottingham Castle (Exhibition dates: December 13th 2014 - Jan 18th 2015)

Through looking at Contemporary Art work from the Museum Collection and visits to exhibitions at Nottingham Contemporary and Lakeside Arts Centre we will explore what Art can mean to different people and what we, as individuals, value and like.

We will then use these ideas as a starting point to judge and award a prize at this years OPEN exhibition and to plan and run an event at Nottingham Museums in February 2015.

We will also be working towards our Silver Art Award.