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

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

Print & Design Now Exhibition

An opportunity to see my work in the flesh, click here for more details...

Liminal?

Recently I came across a word, for some reason I had never come across it before. Now it seems to be everywhere.

Liminal ‘of or pertaining to the threshold or initial stage of a process’ OED

studio sketch 2010

Its practical application is rooted in anthropology and was expanded by Victor Turner in the 1960’s to talk of relationships to a ‘social structure’ (i.e. society, a community, a group). Initially liminality explained the status of an individual undergoing some sort of transition -usually through ritual. On that threshold or in that liminal territory there isn’t any status - some attributes of liminality: invisibility, ambiguity, instability...

‘Liminality represents the midpoint or transition in a status sequence between two positions…' Victor Turner 1974

As I’ve mentioned before nomadism has always intrigued me. It seemed a more appropriate way to describe being in-between two cultures (certainly more preferable to hybridity) it’s like being home and away simultaneously. Marginality seemed negative and also well rehearsed. Liminality is different, the expansion of the term makes the concept very slippery - nebulous even. It’s difficult to work out whether the word describes being inside or outside. One proposition placed liminal beings in-between the cracks of the social structure - which I like more...

The Black Series: Suedbalkon Hamburg

Hello again anyone who might have missed me! I've been busy making a show in Hamburg and writing another blog about it - check out the images below...

The Black Series an exhibition and conversation between two artists consumed by ‘blackness’ as a space, material and cultural construct. Both artists chart carefully through a dark terrain, constantly moving and searching ...

Amanda Francis’ practice is preoccupied with the identity, specifically how context (external conditions and circumstances) affect identity formation. Currently she is interested in probing the stability of ‘Blackness’ as a cultural construct. Acknowledging subjectivity, as an individual who inhabits it, each drawing emerges intuitively and organically on paper. Here ‘blackness’ is presented as nebulous entity, constantly in a state of flux.

Paul Jones’ work stems from questions of memory and imagination. All his work has this strong thread connecting them. Though the viewer may find a myriad of materials and media being used, his goal is to push concepts through the work, balancing the believable, observable world with the unbelievable, the unseen, the unhelmlich. Using state of the art digital resources, Jones has navigated his gaze within the dark dystopia of strange skull landscapes venting volcanoes, and dark space anomalies. Features of this dystopic ‘space’ encroach and appear as anomalies within our own space and time, like a walking dream.

1. Untitled Black Series

6. Untitled Black Animation

3. Blackstar Series Paul Jones

3. Blackstar Series (background)

5. Untitled Black Series (Foreground)

5. Untitled Black Series

2. Envelope drawings Paul Jones

4. Wallhill Blackstar Series (installation view)

untitled_Wall Hill_blackstar series 2009 from Paul Jones on Vimeo.

Numbers correspond to map below...

If you want to know more about the show visit www.theblackseries.blogspot.com