Some more images from our Ovada show

'Creating Terms' Philip Loersch

Hi Rachel,

Just been to see this show at Galerie Jette Rudolph. The work is described as 'drawings'. They really push the possibilities of what drawing can be. Weaving, and meshes of threads. The imagery is to do with themes of water and natural processes. The construction of the pieces is breathtakingly delicate and intricate. The press release says the pieces are made from spray paint layered on polystyrene, the surface must be extremely tough to hold together in such finely cut sections.

Sx

Isabelle Krieg show

Hi Rachel,

I've just seen a really magical show at Substitut Gallery in Berlin. 'Kompost' by Isabelle Krieg. The first room was a collection of household and kitchen items of furniture and utensils which were covered with compost and seeded, with grass sprouting up from a rich black soil. I've seen work using plant growth before, but it was the way it was happening on these everyday objects which made for an erie and slightly comic juxtaposition. As if you are looking at a situation with a time lag.

There was also a piece with piles of 'dirty' coffee cups on a tray. The stains and foamy residues formed faces who look like political figures or media images from newspapers. Such an everyday object, but the imagery is really clear. There feels like a humour again in the media.

And some dead leaves with what look like casual holes and on closer inspection are world maps.

SX

Lagalerie Installation

And some of our Paris show

Ovada Installation

Hi Rachel,

Here are some photos of the installation at OVADA.

Jerry-built construction

Hi Suzy,
Here are a couple of drawings for the construction.
I think that two of the decisions we need to make are how ordered and grid-like we want the construction to be and how dense or open the 'grid' will be. I collaged with various materials but i imagine the colour could be quite different and perhaps less dominant in the actual construction.

We talked about having the supports and beams visible as though we are inside the construction. On one of the drawings i've sketched in some cube-like shelving with objects on them. We need to think about how far we take the idea of this being an interior and using objects to suggest that it is a home.

The people living in the improvised housing you saw at the edge of Paris must be living very precarious lives and struggling for survival. The make-shift housing shows resourcefulness and an inventive way of avoiding the prohibitive rents in Paris, but the living conditions must be dire. Apart from the lack of hygiene facilities there is the incessant noise of the peripherique. I get the impression that these 'illegal' dwellings could be built because they are erected in neglected areas. But the people are also forgotten and overlooked by the rest of the city. I feel that these realities should be part of the piece of work we make.

Much earlier in our blog we talked about our relationship with social issues and although we've not interacted directly with people and politics I think the stories and issues we've stumbled across have shaped parts of this project.

catch-up

Hi Suzy,
I realise that I haven't been posting about the work that I've made/been making for a long time so will put up some images now.
The first image is a detail of the construction i've made with 332 pieces of mdf fixed together with hinges. This is closely related to the construction i made for 'sprawl/what gets carried by the river' as it uses a similar process and has a sense of order and randomness/chaos.
I am not quite sure why or how, but I became interested in the proportionate lengths of the A and B roads in Oxford in relation to the residential/un-classified roads in the city. I managed to get hold of data from the Oxfordshire highways agency about this and found that there are 272km of unclassified/c roads in Oxford as against 41km of A road and 19km of B road. I imagined the unclassified roads as a sprawling unruly mass and I think this feeling is coming over in the construction which has 272 grey blocks for unclassified roads, 41 red blocks for the a roads and 19 for the b road. I haven't seen it all together yet. It has been made in several parts.
We have talked a bit about the springs on previous posts, but here are images of the lasercut mdf.
R x