On July 5th myself and Tinsel Edwards are opening an exhibition at the brand new A-Side B-Side gallery in Hackney. The joint exhibition is a mini retrospective of both of our works from the last 6 years and is set to have a look at the process we have both been through and where we are at now.
Alongside the exhibition we are also staging an interactive art piece based on a 'Kidnapped Banker'. We went to the RBS building in Liverpool St to photograph us as we waited for a banker to emerge from inside and as you can see were heavily and successfully disguised!
The whole idea of kidnapping a banker is intended as a tongue in cheek way to create a space within our exhibition for people to tell us and each other their own personal feelings and opinions and ideas about the current financial situation we are in.
At the private view we will be handing out Twinkle and Tinsel bank notes upon which we want people to write their thoughts. These bank notes will then be pinned around the banker creating a visual display which both plays up to the general current opinion on bankers which is very much the standpoint of the media and hopefully in some ways will also challenge it too. We want to know about individual opinions to see how we can all move forward and all take part in making it better.
We will also be showing documentation and memorabilia from previous public art stunts such as our Traffic Wardens piece where we fined cars with parking ticket bags, but inside the bag was free art, and our Opinionated Objects where we asked people to bring us their unwanted objects which through the use of text and paint up-cycled into pieces of art.
Both myself and Tinsel have a lot of ideas in our works which are social and political issues, and so it is through a mini retrospective that we want to see how these ideas have progressed and changed over the years both in how we approach them and create the works.
I will be showing some older pieces like 'Twinkle Troughton My Life Story So Far Part 1' and ending with my newest piece 'Dove with a Gnarled Foot'. I think an artist's journey is a fascinating subject no matter how established artists are. If you constantly push yourself to move forwards then the overall affect can take years to become evident. The changes in my work are now more evident though and would look very in-cohesive alongside one another:
And I hope the filled in gaps in between the two alongside Tinsel's work will create an insightful display of how an artist develops as well as create a new chapter for me to move into in the future.
Below I have included some of the text from a recent interview with West London gallery Debut Contemporary who asked us all about the upcoming exhibition and the Banker Kidnap plan!
Debut Contemporary: Can you tell a bit more about the mini retrospective (and kidnapped banker!)
Tinsel: We are kidnapping a banker (not because we have a vendetta against bankers!), but because we want to find out what people really think and feel about the global economic crisis..... At the exhibition opening we will be handing out Tinsel & Twinkle banknotes, asking visitors to write their thoughts, solutions and opinions onto them, the notes will then be pinned around the banker forming a visual display. The media update us daily, but we want to know how people REALLY feel, and if they think there is a solution. Decisions are made by politicians, debate is fuelled by the media reports, instead this is an artistic response to the issue of the economic crisis.
Twinkle: As Tinsel said we don't have a vendetta against bankers, our choice of the kidnapped banker is based on how bankers are rightly or wrongly being portrayed in the press. The image or idea of a banker speaks a lot of words at the moment. What we ultimately want to create at our exhibition is a space where people tell their own feelings and ideas on the current financial struggles which isn't being asked from them in a political environment. We do however intend to invite Dianne Abbott the local MP along to the show so she can have a chance to see what people are saying and feeling in this ongoing problem. Whether she will be able to come along or not is not yet known.
This will be alongside a collection of works by us which spans over the last 6 years. Our works nearly always have social commentary or social issues at the heart of it, so the kidnapped banker and Tinsel and Twinkle money should work together as a whole as well as individual pieces.
Alongside the exhibition we are also staging an interactive art piece based on a 'Kidnapped Banker'. We went to the RBS building in Liverpool St to photograph us as we waited for a banker to emerge from inside and as you can see were heavily and successfully disguised!
The whole idea of kidnapping a banker is intended as a tongue in cheek way to create a space within our exhibition for people to tell us and each other their own personal feelings and opinions and ideas about the current financial situation we are in.
At the private view we will be handing out Twinkle and Tinsel bank notes upon which we want people to write their thoughts. These bank notes will then be pinned around the banker creating a visual display which both plays up to the general current opinion on bankers which is very much the standpoint of the media and hopefully in some ways will also challenge it too. We want to know about individual opinions to see how we can all move forward and all take part in making it better.
We will also be showing documentation and memorabilia from previous public art stunts such as our Traffic Wardens piece where we fined cars with parking ticket bags, but inside the bag was free art, and our Opinionated Objects where we asked people to bring us their unwanted objects which through the use of text and paint up-cycled into pieces of art.
Both myself and Tinsel have a lot of ideas in our works which are social and political issues, and so it is through a mini retrospective that we want to see how these ideas have progressed and changed over the years both in how we approach them and create the works.
I will be showing some older pieces like 'Twinkle Troughton My Life Story So Far Part 1' and ending with my newest piece 'Dove with a Gnarled Foot'. I think an artist's journey is a fascinating subject no matter how established artists are. If you constantly push yourself to move forwards then the overall affect can take years to become evident. The changes in my work are now more evident though and would look very in-cohesive alongside one another:
And I hope the filled in gaps in between the two alongside Tinsel's work will create an insightful display of how an artist develops as well as create a new chapter for me to move into in the future.
Below I have included some of the text from a recent interview with West London gallery Debut Contemporary who asked us all about the upcoming exhibition and the Banker Kidnap plan!
Debut Contemporary: Can you tell a bit more about the mini retrospective (and kidnapped banker!)
Tinsel: We are kidnapping a banker (not because we have a vendetta against bankers!), but because we want to find out what people really think and feel about the global economic crisis..... At the exhibition opening we will be handing out Tinsel & Twinkle banknotes, asking visitors to write their thoughts, solutions and opinions onto them, the notes will then be pinned around the banker forming a visual display. The media update us daily, but we want to know how people REALLY feel, and if they think there is a solution. Decisions are made by politicians, debate is fuelled by the media reports, instead this is an artistic response to the issue of the economic crisis.
Twinkle: As Tinsel said we don't have a vendetta against bankers, our choice of the kidnapped banker is based on how bankers are rightly or wrongly being portrayed in the press. The image or idea of a banker speaks a lot of words at the moment. What we ultimately want to create at our exhibition is a space where people tell their own feelings and ideas on the current financial struggles which isn't being asked from them in a political environment. We do however intend to invite Dianne Abbott the local MP along to the show so she can have a chance to see what people are saying and feeling in this ongoing problem. Whether she will be able to come along or not is not yet known.
This will be alongside a collection of works by us which spans over the last 6 years. Our works nearly always have social commentary or social issues at the heart of it, so the kidnapped banker and Tinsel and Twinkle money should work together as a whole as well as individual pieces.
DC: Why did you decide on the retrospective this early on?
Tinsel: To really understand an artists motivations its crucial to see a large cross section of their work, we hope that this retrospective show will give people the opportunity to see the development and overview of our artistic interests spanning 6 years. We called it 'mini' because its not like we are in our 70s and we are looking back on years and years worth of paintings! but it is a good few years worth, and these works as a collection tell the story of our journeys as artists.
Twinkle: There isn't too much more I can add to what Tinsel has said here as she has put our reasons for a mini-retrospective in a nutshell. However I do also think that artists don't have to be established or be an institution before they have a history of their own worth looking at, all artists have a journey they have travelled and I think that can be fascinating at any level.
DC: What are you hoping to achieve from the show?
Tinsel: On a personal note I hope that seeing the works together as a collection will give me an overview of all the hard work I've put in over the last decade! Working on an individual painting and being obsessed by it, neurotic and passionate about it is one thing, but being able to step back and see it within a context will hopefully feel rewarding. My work has been undergoing a massive transformation in recent years, and putting this show together feels like letting go of older concerns and moving forward with new ones.
Twinkle: It's definitely marking a full stop for me and helping me to create a new chapter. I am also really looking forward to seeing an overview as it can sometimes feel like a long process from having an idea for a piece of work, turning that into a piece of work, exhibiting it, and then moving forward in both content and technique. I think seeing a collection of works spanning over a few years will give a really good idea of how progress has occurred rather than seeing all new works within one space. I also think that even though me and Tinsel work individually we do also work closely on talking through ideas and inspiration and agonising over problems, so we have both helped each other move forward and it will be great to see how the story of both of our artworks have evolved together.
Tinsel: On a personal note I hope that seeing the works together as a collection will give me an overview of all the hard work I've put in over the last decade! Working on an individual painting and being obsessed by it, neurotic and passionate about it is one thing, but being able to step back and see it within a context will hopefully feel rewarding. My work has been undergoing a massive transformation in recent years, and putting this show together feels like letting go of older concerns and moving forward with new ones.
Twinkle: It's definitely marking a full stop for me and helping me to create a new chapter. I am also really looking forward to seeing an overview as it can sometimes feel like a long process from having an idea for a piece of work, turning that into a piece of work, exhibiting it, and then moving forward in both content and technique. I think seeing a collection of works spanning over a few years will give a really good idea of how progress has occurred rather than seeing all new works within one space. I also think that even though me and Tinsel work individually we do also work closely on talking through ideas and inspiration and agonising over problems, so we have both helped each other move forward and it will be great to see how the story of both of our artworks have evolved together.
You can read the full interview here: http://www.debutcontemporary.com/blog/2012/6/6/tinsel-twinkle-kidnap-banker.html
