Saturday 28 February 2015

Art Against The Housing Crisis

'0 Bed Flat. £285 Per Week'
'Alls Bills Included, Access to Unlimited Fibre Optic Broadband. Room in Shared Flat £500pcm'
'Bargain! Two Bedroom £400 Per Week'
'Contemporary Spacious First Floor Double Room. £575'
'Cool 2 Double Bedroom with Spacious Lounge'
'Double Glazing, Double Bedroom One Bed Flat! £400 Per Week'
'Four Bed Maisonette, £600 Per Week'
'Luxury Double Room in Houseshare. £750 Per Week'
Modern Studio Apartment, Neutral Deco and Laminated Floorboards Throughout. £170 Per Week'
'Nice and bright Double Room in Shared House, Laminate Flooring and Great Look.  £737 Per Month'
'No DSS'
'Stunning Two Bedrooms Apartment £475 Per Week'

A collection of studies from 2014.

Someone suggested that it would be a good idea to think of a hashtag for this project....  All I've come up with so far is #ArtAgainstThe HousingCrisis - it seems a bit long, but I think I will go with that for now.

I've been working on the Housing series for a couple of years now, and I still don't feel that I have a body of work which is ready to exhibit.  I'm still experimenting with different ideas and developing the paintings, and I think it's really important to give myself as much time as it takes.  I've often thought about starting to prepare for a solo exhibition to show all of this work, but I don't want to have the pressure of a deadline, I'm learning so much about painting at the moment, and I need the time to allow the paintings to develop, to make mistakes and throw paintings in the bin if necessary!

I recently had a tutorial with Rosalind Davis and Annabel Tilley of Zeitgeist Art Projects, they were very supportive and suggested that instead of a solo show perhaps I could curate an exhibition on the theme of the Housing Crisis.

So I'm starting to plan a group exhibition, I'm really looking forward to finding other artists who are responding to what's happening with housing in London at the moment.  The show is provisionally titled 'The Poor Door'.  More info about this coming soon.

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