vegetation

Chasing Shadows at Hackney WickED!

Chasing Shadows (multilayered silent film) will be showing at this year’s Hackney WickED festival, in the Lab Film Projects Cinema Lounge!

About Hackney WickED:

Hackney WickED is an annual arts festival taking place all around Hackney Wick, London from 1st August.

The festival is a dynamic force for promoting local culture – dedicated to providing a platform for artists to showcase their work alongside established and international names.

About the Lab Film Projects Cinema Lounge:

Screenings and performances of contemporary artist’s film and video, alongside live audio-visual performance and installation. Exciting, surprising, innovative and challenging, with appearances by directors and artists, the cinema is personal and engaging, and the place to see cutting-edge moving image works.

Times:

Chasing Shadows will be in the Experimental Film section of the main programme which also includes live performances halfway through.  The two programmes run from 12-7.30pm on Saturday 2nd August (experimental films towards the end) and 12-7.30pm on Sunday 3rd August (experimental films first).

Location:

Swan Wharf, 2nd Floor Cinema Lounge, 60 Dace Road, Hackney Wick, London, E3 2NQ

Chasing Shadows - steps

Chasing Shadows – steps

Chasing Shadows is a night journey, a peaceful sleepwalk through a silent world bereft of people.  As the evening light transforms the everyday into a dreamlike state, familiar urban landscapes disappear underneath resilient vegetation.

For this series I used long exposures on 35mm black and white film to record the contemplative stillness of the night, the only movement in the wind blowing through leaves. I hand printed the images with lith developer on old fibre based paper to create single edition prints with a tactile quality and degraded aesthetic reminiscent of illustrative drawing or etching.

Winning a 2013 Islington Exhibits Artists Award, I was commissioned to rework the images into a large-scale projection installation for solo exhibition, which I have since further refined using multiple exposure layering of the images. The projection paradoxically represents the frozen moments as transitory echoes of the original, each dissolving into the next in a slow, rhythmic loop.

Here is some documentation of the original projection installation:

Chasing Shadows - time based projection installation

Chasing Shadows – projection

Click here to see the film

Click here to see more of the series

…late additions (Alma Street Fair today!)

Today!!   Sunday 27th July, from 12-7pm at Alma Street and Inkerman Road, NW5, London

As well as 5 complete sets (and a handful of single images) of the Ophelia series, I’ve some teeny tiny prints of other photographic works – some new, some not so new, and a couple of my old favourites too.

The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal

The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal

Perfect for small budgets, prints include a selection of interesting trees and plants, a striking section of rock (which reminds me of the Boyle family), and an impressive bird – a new image from the series Heralds (faded glory).

Heralds (faded glory)

Heralds (faded glory)

Regents Park, spring 2014

Regents Park, spring 2014

There’ll also be 6 prints from my new series Cornish Roads (hedges) in Flow – more information on this work later but here’s an image from the series:

Cornish B Roads (hedgerows)

Cornish B Roads (hedgerows)

There are two stages, and lots of lovely food and goodies for sale on Alma Street.

Inkerman Road is also transformed into an outdoor art gallery filled with exhibitions, print sales and art workshops.  This is where you’ll find me from 12-7pm.

 

You can follow this year’s festival on twitter: @AlmaStreetFair

Or you can read more about it here: http://www.kentishtowner.co.uk/2014/07/23/alma-street-fair-back-back-back-plus-two-check/

Barbican Trust Open

This print from Chasing Shadows is exhibiting in the 2014 Barbican Trust Open!

Chasing Shadows - steps

Chasing Shadows – steps

 

Curated by David Kefford and Paul Johnson, the exhibition features  30 artists selected from all over the UK.

For more information go to www.barbicanartsgrouptrust.co.uk

 

ArtWorks Open 2014:  7th to 16th of June 2014, 12-6pm every day

Private View:  6th of June 2014, from 6:30pm to 9:00pm

ArtWorks Project Space
114 Blackhorse Lane
E17 6AA

 

 

Chasing Shadows – for projection

Chasing Shadows is a night journey, a peaceful sleepwalk through a silent world bereft of people.  As the evening light transforms the everyday into a dreamlike state, familiar urban landscapes disappear underneath resilient vegetation.

For this series I used long exposures on 35mm black and white film to record the contemplative stillness of the night, the only movement in the wind blowing through leaves. I hand printed the images with lith developer on old fibre based paper to create single edition prints with a tactile quality and degraded aesthetic reminiscent of illustrative drawing or etching.

Winning a 2013 Islington Exhibits Artists Award, I was commissioned to rework the images into a large-scale projection installation. The projection paradoxically represents the frozen moments as transitory echoes of the original, each dissolving into the next in a slow, rhythmic loop.

Here is a lo-res version of the film for projection:

Documentation of the projection installation:

Chasing Shadows - large scale projection

Chasing Shadows – large scale projection

To find out more about Chasing Shadows:

click here to find out about exhibitions or related work
or take a look at my website to see the full images (print and projection)

Happy Birthday Rowan Arts!

In celebration of the 10 year birthday of Rowan Arts,  colleagues past and present, friends and supporters were invited to contribute artwork for a fun, vibrant and eclectic group show inspired by the Dr Seuss poem. ‘Oh the places you’ll go!’.

The exhibition was launched at their party on 10th January, with patron Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North speaking in testament to their work over the last decade.

Thanks to Rowan Arts continued support for my work, my two test images from ‘…and then I was the wind’ have been included in this exhibition, which means one last chance to view them before they go to their new owners.

...and then I was the wind - II (early sketch)

…and then I was the wind – II (early sketch)

...and then I was the wind - I

…and then I was the wind – I

The exhibition is the latest in their series at Resource for London, 356 Holloway Road, London, N7 6PA, and runs from Friday 10 January – Monday 24 February 2014, open Monday – Friday 9.00 – 5.00pm.

For more information on their exhibition and 10th birthday celebrations click here and here.

To find out more about Rowan Arts go to their website.

Chasing Shadows – rear projection tests

Here is my first test shot of Chasing Shadows rear-projected into a window space, so that it can be viewed by passers by from the street outside.  Although very rough around the edges still, I especially like how the reflection of the lit window interacts with the piece, creating another (colourful, live) layer within the otherwise frozen monotone narrative.

Fingers crossed it’ll still work when I scale it up!

Chasing Shadows street level projection - test 01

Chasing Shadows street level projection – test 01

This great article by The Mixed Reality Laboratory, Nottingham, UK was really helpful in working out suitable medium to project onto – I’d recommend it to anyone exploring with projection based installation.

A lovely review of ‘…and then I was the wind’!

In her great review of the exhibition ‘Off the Ground’ at Resource for London Lilia Prier Tisdall has this to say about my work:

“The upstairs room is dominated by painters yet it is Nicola Maskrey’s digital prints that stand out for me. Titled ‘…and then I was the wind’ they use long exposure photography to record the ‘movement of air and tidal currents through vegetation’. The effect is painterly in itself, and they really do convey the sense of what it would be like to be the wind rushing through the trees.”

You can read the full review here – http://www.rowanarts.net/off-the-ground-review/

The exhibition is showing at Resource For London, 356 Holloway Road, N7;  from 4th November – now extended until 8th January (Monday-Friday 10am-5pm)

Here’s one of the images:

...and then I was the wind - II (early sketch)
…and then I was the wind – II (early sketch)

Me and my photos – ‘…and then I was the wind’ at Off the Ground

For ‘Off the Ground’, artists Grace Aza-Selinger and Catherine Hall have curated a great exhibition full of a diverse range of work based in nature.

Here’s me with my work, taken at the private view by photographer Sheryl Tait.

'...and the I was the wind' at the Off the Ground exhibition - private view

Off the Ground – private view. (photograph by Sheryl Tait)

Off The Ground is the latest show at Resource for London in collaboration with Rowan Arts.  It is running until 4th December, opening hours 10am – 5pm Monday – Friday, at 356 Holloway Rd  London N7 6PA.

Early sketches from ‘…and then I was the wind’ in Off the Ground!

My latest project still in development – ‘…and then I was the wind’ – will be in ‘Off the Ground’ – a group exhibition of artists whose work has a basis in nature.

Hosted by Resource for London in collaboration with Rowan Arts, the exhibition opens on 4th November 2013.  It also includes  the amazingly talented Ruth Parker who’s work has been featured all over the place.

Here’s a flyer with more info about the exhibition:

OFF THE GROUND PROMO

And here are a couple of images from the series:

...and then I was the wind - I

…and then I was the wind – I

...and then I was the wind - II (early sketch)

…and then I was the wind – II (early sketch)

For more information about the project, or the exhibition please get in touch.

‘…and then I was the wind’ (early sketches)

Here are some  of the first images from an experimental piece ‘…and then I was the wind’.

...and then I was the wind - I

…and then I was the wind – I (early sketch)

Comprising 3 series of images, I am studying the movement of air and tidal currents through vegetation and attempting to recreate the experience in the first person.

...and then I was the wind - II (early sketch)

…and then I was the wind – II (early sketch)

At times these long exposure digital photographs lose all suggestion of the subject as they give themselves over to the speed and force of the energy passing through them.

...and then I was the wind - part III (early sketch)

…and then I was the wind – part III (early sketch)

If you would like to find out more about this work please contact me.