Open House

I've finally got a first edit of my film and I'm gonna try out a test screening in mi studio at Lewisham Arthouse. Opening tonight from 6-9pm Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th 12-6pm. 

Come by theres plenty to see this weekend in sunny Deptford.

www.deptfordx.org

KnightCycle At number82

In the beginning was ‘Maurice’ an entity housed in a concrete structure, given metaphysical properties, a projection, an idea, which gave it life. It had a strong connection with its intended place of residence, if only for a month. The ‘thing’ was conflicted, not knowing what to offer to those encountered. It began to disintegrate under too much scrutiny.

Back at the site of it’s making, it becomes ordinary - a thing of labour, something man made waiting to regain its valour. Thrust upon a spike the object makes further sacrifice, a new ideal emerges, more rigid, practical and perhaps more attainable…

Amanda Francis is preoccupied with identity - specifically, how attempts to ‘define’ can be influenced by context - the when and where of encounter. Francis’ is particularly interested in ‘Black’ as a cultural construct, the evolution of a political and social identity within the occident. She employs sculpture, drawing and animation to realise her ideas. Beginning at the enlightenment, she speculates about a drop of dark matter forming and gathering mass in clinical conditions. But even beginnings are contentious - spiritual and empirical impressions vie for ascendancy demanding scrutiny and dissection.

At the heart of this show is the passage of an object, inspired by a saint with an identity crisis. The story goes that Maurice a leader of a Theban legion, refused to take arms against his fellow Christians as ordered by Rome - he and all his men were executed for their disobedience. Maurice (venerated widely across Europe and North Africa) embodies the consequences of being held between two poles, but he also points to the transformative potential of such circumstances.

Amanda Francis has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, exhibitions include; Product Placement (solo show) Space Station Sixty-Five, London; Print and Design now, The Bear Space London; Concretum, Dilston Grove London; Absorbency Retreat, University of East London; The Black Series, Südbalkon Hamburg; Gyumri International Biennial of contemporary Art, Armenia; The Scope, Purcell Room South Bank London and Campfire at Café Gallery London. Amanda holds a BA from the University of East London and MFA from Slade School of Art. She lives and works in London.

Open Friday and Saturday 12 - 6pm

Continues until 10th March

number82

82 Tanners Hill

Deptford

SE8 4PN

www.number82.org

Open Studio

What Black what?

I thought a lot about the wetness (featured object in progress 11.05.10), but I think I was scarred of mess. I don’t like mess really - I appreciate it as apart of process, but I’m a ‘neat’ person. I like things to hold together well and smoothly. Maybe that’s why the spot or circle appealed to me, that continuous smooth surface.

Thinking sculpturally though - through the object, surface wasn’t enough. I’ve made a few skins in the past, bags actually; but they were always filled with other objects, a collection of components.

B.I.T 2000

But what black? For a while there it was becoming a bit of a ‘black history’ lesson. Black: A history of a colour by Michel Pastoureau, was specifically located in the Western European story. I found the history of materials (dyes and inks) very informative, there were also other things I found intriguing...

Saint Maurice

But anyway coming back to this ‘wetness’ - got me thinking about liquidity. I’ve been reading some stuff by Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman over the last couple of years. I spent quite a bit of time with ‘Community: Seeking security in an insecure world’ while working on the Dandelion project. It was revelatory in terms of thinking more analytically about the subject generally, but also in relation to my own associations and relationships. Recently I picked up ‘Identity: conversations with Benedetto Vecchi’, Bauman uses the term ‘liquid modernity’ to explain a condition that keeps our socio political, cultural, professional and sexual identities continuously in a state of flux….