Andrew Miller

Graduating with a photography degree from Glasgow School of Art, Miller has become a successful working artist in his own right, creating installations for public spaces, galleries and homes. Like out other speaker this week, Miller also works a lot with found objects and explained how he often thinks in regards to his artwork in terms of entertainers Morecambe and Wise, “One without the other is not going to work”. This way of explaining his thought processes immediately made me feel at ease as he made light of important decision making to suit his plans.

Once finishing his education, Miller went on to work in a disused space with two other artists to show their work and get their styles recognised. This is where he discovered his enjoyment of public interaction whilst they responded to the architecture of the place. He began to take photographs of the reactions of people to everyday scenarios to release this interest. His consideration for the experiences of others seems a lot deeper than he may have let on.

Miller created an installation featuring a basketball which he bounced off the wall until physical evidence of the activity occurred, linking to childhood experiences of playing outside in the same place until damage is apparent. Much of this earlier work seems to have a much more personal concept, highlighting the vulnerability of people as a result of their surroundings.

When considering interactive artwork, Miller also developed a space for people to use. ‘Breakfast Bar’ was intended for people to come and eat together and respond accordingly as they dined within the artwork that he had built.

It is after this that we see Miller’s work becoming more constructive and being made for a purpose as opposed to a concept or idea. Using his skills in woodworking, Miller built a piece of furniture for a group exhibition that held all the papers of the other artists in the gallery, but stood alone as an individual piece.

He explained how part of his learning was about looking at the architecture and on a trip to the Caribbean for a group restoration project he was sure to consider the buildings and structures around the area. The run down hut-like buildings which were run down and unsustainable were in high contrast with newly built petrol stations adorned with bright lights and manmade materials. Miller was keen to bring this contrast of ideas together and to replicate the light of the surrounding buildings.

Mirrored Pavilion II, 2007

Miller discussed his graduation from art school and how after he was free to begin his career, he found that he was very unsure of what he really wanted to do. He explained how it was very beneficial to him to assist other artists in terms of networking as well as gaining experience with professionals to see the process of sale, exhibition and making. Miller was also part of many installation crews, which helped him to develop his skills for the work he now builds and displays. When creating his own work, he was sure to point out the importance of model making on smaller scales or with cheaper materials to allow the client or gallery to get a sense of his ambitions for the piece. Miller explained how working with models helps him to show the viewer how the space will be realised and to realise the scales for himself.

 

When winning a commission for MIMA it became evident to Miller that it isn’t always the most important aspect of the work to fill up the space, but to consider how his piece will be used, as they are so often interactive. He is able to breathe life into a space by incorporating new and exciting structures within it.

As well as all of his work with structures, Miller still makes time for photography where he captures found objects in the street and resituates them in gallery settings. Discarded items which may have been previously ignored get a sense of importance and given a purpose when displayed with significance in an exhibition.

Lost, 2014 (found object)

His love of working with found objects became more interesting to me when Miller began explaining his lighting commission works. As a maker and love of the crafts, I am only too familiar with rummaging through charity shops for interesting materials. Collecting old lampshades from second-hand shops and fixing them together in a column seems like such a simple idea, yet Miller’s results are breathtaking. Illuminated from within and standing at over 8 metres, such a simple object becomes a masterpiece. Each of his lampshade structures are given double-barrelled lady’s names and are often sold to clients.

 

Miller stated that is work is not about him and is about what other people have made and how he loves to explore both machine and handmade marks on objects. It appears important to bring people into the gallery setting for Miller. In 2012, he wanted to bring the public celebration of the Royal street parties into the gallery and explained how in reality it wasn’t really a celebration of anything and more of an excuse to come together. Using his skills from his time as part of an installation crew, Miller set up a gallery space with rows upon rows of bunting hanging from the ceiling to bring the atmosphere into the expectedly calm setting.

You, Me, Something Else, 2012

Miller often works with other artists and friends and likes to develop work based on community interaction, documenting conversations between people. Through these relationships he has been able to gain commissions and meet people raise his profile. He explained how he takes photographs constantly and has a deep interest in what he sees around him, particularly cases of human intervention.

 

Miller described himself as the messenger and not the maker and was happy to admit that outside of his experience with woodwork, he does seek help with others materials. By creating functional work, Miller is able to provide a platform for others to make use of the piece and yet many of his images features objects that are failing to carry out their designated functions.

Jonathan Lynch – ‘An Essay of Emptiness’

Jonathan Lynch did not begin his education studying art, as he states that his school did not perceive him as being artistically skilled, resulting in his connection with photography after he had left school aged 17.

His main focus with his photography so far, has been to investigate and explore buildings with an aesthetic point of view. Lynch finds the process of taking photographs in  new places very therapeutic and likes to visit these spaces to think and respond to the environment. He explained the significance of light in the areas and how it can reanimate the whole space. Lynch is interested in the history of the building and how simply being there can make you consider the people who once were there and their memories within the site.  He likes to reflect upon the once lived-in rooms and how those people have moved on.

Lynch is fascinated by the idea that once people die, they are gone and how a picture can become precious. He explained that he only likes to take photographs of places when the light in perfect and that during the winter months the hue was the best. Yet he felt as though he did not have a real reason for taking these pictures and knew he needed to develop the meaning.

An Essay of Emptiness (Taken from series)

 

As the buildings no longer have a use or purpose, the surfaces never physically change and the lighting is the only inconsistency. After using a damaged camera, sections of his developed images were lost. This is when Lynch began experimenting with painting onto his photographs. This made himself and the viewer question the realness of the image and he was able to portray an image that was not true to the space.

An Essay of Emptiness (Taken from series)

 

Lynch has a passion for photography and explained how in the beginning it was important to his practice that his selected pictures were framed with care and attention, because he felt photography was about being beautiful and careful.

Through his visits to the spaces, Lynch became connected with the lost souls of the buildings and began to feel as though the light illuminated the absence. He began to collect old photos of people who had passed away from eBay, car boot sales and from friends and family. Lynch then began carefully cutting the people out of the photographs with a scalpel as well as removing them digitally, ensuring the shadows were left behind. This was when he realised that his title was beginning to make sense.

Through the extractions and enhancements of his images, Lynch liked to leave behind minor faults to leave clues that there was something missing, to provoke the truthful nature of the image. He discussed how through extracting the people from the photographs, light can then reactivate the characters.

Through a show in Edinburgh ‘Legacy’, he was able to produce two separate catalogues, one for his own photographs and another for his found ones. He explained how he saw these as separate chapters to the book of this idea.

Lynch seems a little unsure of what he wants to achieve and appears to have the luxury to take his time to decide what he requires from his artwork. When he began working for the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead, Lynch wanted to work with teenagers through youth projects to introduce his experiences to young artists. In 2011 when the gallery held the Turner Prize, Lynch worked with young people to respond to the works of the competition candidates. This is when he began discovering his love of teaching.

After some time away from studying he explained how he began to miss creating his own work and applied to do his Master’s Degree at the Royal College. Lynch then opened up about his personal dilemma with returning to studying and felt as though he was under pressure to be making art. As a result he turned down the offer to the Royal College and explained he did not feel ready to commit to the course. This is something I can relate to; having turned down offers myself in the past through not feeling like it was the right time in my life to return to education.

Lynch highlighted a need to explore and getaway after this event, which led to his move abroad to America to teach photography in Pennsylvania. He expressed his love of teaching and how pleased he was to have the experience of working in an educational environment, but how he soon felt like he needed to stop producing photographs for a while, so not to exhaust his ideas. Lynch then went on to talk about who he made a conscious decision not to make any more work for 4/5 years to focus on his educational work. He moved to Italy to continue this path and said he wanted to wait to develop his work because he was still unsure which way to take it.

Another year on, he returned back to the UK and moved to Newcastle to teach. At this point he stated he had made no new work since 2010, except for four rolls of film he had not developed from his time in America.

Lynch then restarted processing film and said he felt a sense of liberation when making prints without being so precious with the work. He decided not to think too much about the image itself and began embracing the mistakes. He was working in a school environment which was subject to error and learning and so incorporated the imperfect materials and damage. Lynch talked passionately about hoping to inspire his students to learn to use and love the dark room.

Finally he felt able to return to his work and began creating scenes for the extracted people from the old photographs. Lynch realised that the way people were positioned may have reminded him of things he had seen which were combining with his own memories, helping him to create characters for the scenes. This led to Lynch experimenting with his drawing abilities, where he created hand drawn scenes ensuring a gap was left for the missing people. This book of images was intended to have noticeable mistakes, where he could experiment with light through the removed figures.

Even though he wasn’t pleased with some of the outcomes of his processes, Lynch was eager to point out the importance of not denying any of your work, as it helps you to progress and learn.

Moving on in terms of materials, Lynch now wants to incorporate these images with clay and plaster, to experiment with destroying the picture. Through processing these photographs in plaster, the object itself is more fragile than it was and Lynch strives to get as much as he can from the images before they are gone. He hopes to recreate the existing picture through the emulsion left behind.  

Lynch expressed a sense of regret for destroying the pictures, as it could be perceived as disrespectful. He was sure to highlight that his processes are not intended to be offensive and that he simply hopes to push the material to its limits. Lynch explained that he believes it can be a difficult process to look at images for some people and that there is a sense of irony that his current work won’t last longer than the original photograph.

Through is AA2A at the University of Sunderland, Lynch plans to work with imperfect materials, which is a huge leap from his original mind-set of precision and care. Using clay, he plans to experiment with pouring photo emulsion onto the unfired ceramic in the dark room to create sculptures of other people’s history. Lynch suggests that you must embrace your mistakes to help you to move forward.

It is apparent that Lynch is passionate about teaching and he was keen to express that he wants his students to see him as a working artist and not just a teacher. He believes that the work/life balance does not exist and they should not be separate from one other. Lynch explained that he used to think he could hide behind his pictures and now realises he can express himself through them and his processes. Unlike a lot of makers and artists, Lynch seems more focussed on making art for the materials and not for the industry.

Inge Panneels – Mapping

Having been taught by Inge for over a year, my knowledge of her work was much broader than that of Keiko Mukaide’s. Yet I had not anticipated the scale of work she has developed throughout her career outside of the National Glass Centre.

Beginning the presentation on her general academic background, Panneels drew attention to her roots in Belgium and her move to the UK for her studies, which echoed the path of Mukaide.

After her time as a foundation student at Brighton where she developed her second language of English, Panneels moved to Scotland to study further in Edinburgh where she became interested in glass as an art medium over five years. Today she works as a freelance artist and academic and works on commission in order to make a living and get her work more widely visible.

Panneels’ early career makes her seem more relatable as an artist, as she explains how she needed to get commissions in order to make money and began getting herself known for selling her work to commercial spaces. With her first project came trial and error, which I’m sure every aspiring artist is only too familiar with. She created glass panels to decorate the Glasgow based Pizza Express restaurant, where she was able to experiment with display techniques.

Inge Panneels is well known in the art world for her glass art, which is heavily influenced by her interest in mapping. Much of her work includes maps, or is conceptually based on the idea of place. Perhaps this began with her 1999 work, Sense. At the Edinburgh office for British Telecom, Panneels created an interactive lighting glass piece, which worked with the movement of the busy corridor, possibly the basis of her development through mapping with this early tracking idea.

The use of light in Panneels work is obvious. She seems to take inspiration from the way light moves through the glass to create more than just an object, giving it depth and dimension. Her 1995 work in Stornoway, Circle of Light was intended to encourage public performances by its placement on the ground in the middle of the town. Once again this piece was made from painted glass with interactive lighting, which became brighter and more colourful at night. The light and shape of the piece was in reference to the building it was next to and its Gaelic roots.

Another piece commissioned in 2005, for the Orthopaedic Hospital in Shropshire was developed with the intention of highlighting the profound physical changes the patients were experiencing, through the artworks involvement of light and movement to reflect the rhythm of breathing. Panneels created Chrysalis to adorn a boring space and to give the bored and lonely patients something to admire.

Chrysalis (NHS, Shropshire), 2005

 

It is evident from her portfolio that Panneels is not known for a particular technique in glass, as her more recent works explore a wide range of practices, with a wide range of glass types. Her work with Pate de Verre glass is enviable. Panneels is able to work with this type of glass mastering the kiln techniques needed to give her the desired outcomes. Using Pate de Verre and felting goat’s hair, Panneels was able to create the pieces, Egg and Sanctuary from the mixed media to represent forms of protection. As well as her experience with Pate de Verre, Panneels has also realised several artworks in cast glass.

Also experimenting with site specificity and installational work, Panneels worked with the Prestongrange Mining Museum to create, Souls in 2002. Working inside a Hoffman kiln, she echoed the loss of the industry by laying down over 400 candles inside to create an atmosphere of mourning and memory.

Panneels’ work with recycled glass could be considered another angle of mapping. She has reused glass to highlight the need to recycle materials in modern life to sustain the world around us. By gathering household glass jars and bottles, she was able to fill them with messages on luminescent paper for her piece, Message in a Bottle in 2006. Another artwork developed from this concept was 10 Green Bottles, using recycled glass bottles with recycling based facts engraved on them.

Panneels’ interest in mapping appears to be more of a recent realisation in her works. Focussing on genealogy as a concept she was able to research into the mapping of Scotland through DNA testing, incorporating both stories and the DNA into a map of a town. This is where we start to see the explosion of physical mapping.

 Enlisting the help of assistants with computer experience, she is able to accurately develop plans to cut glass maps. Micro Macro was created using a waterjet cutter for the neat, accurate shapes and then fused. These panels represent the similarity of scale between the River Mersey Estuary and a blood vessel, connecting humans to earth. This piece went on to influence a whole series, titled Estuary.

Micro Macro (2010)

Estuary

 

Utilising the skilled people around her, Panneels is able to achieve a wider range of results in glass with their expertise in other areas. Her connections through the NGC have helped her realise accuracy in cutting with the use of the waterjet cutter, as well as the skilled hot glass department who have assisted in the making of murini cane for her work. Combining this cutting edge technology and a traditional handcraft, Panneels was able to create Mercator: Micro Macro. Wokring with contrasting scales and projection, Panneels create a large waterjet cut map and a tiny murini cane version from transparent and opaque glass.

The murini cane was then set in a silver ring, where Panneels could explore the concept of world power. Magic Earth (Mercator Ring) is intended to become an object for discussion, with the topic exploring what people would do with thirty seconds of world power. My own interest in combining glass and silver to create jewellery is something I wish to explore and yet I was unaware that Inge had already been discovering the possibilities.

Magic Earth (Mercator Ring), 2015

 

Her marriage to an architect has been helpful to her mapping works, as she explains that her husband was able to assist her in plotting the floorplan of a site known only to her and not the viewer. The personal connection to Map of Someplace, Plan of Nowhere draws together her work in maps and her individual involvement in the concept.

Panneels’ most recent works focus on the landscape that is readily available to her in her home of Scotland. She is able to examine the important features of the setting, discovering the ruins left behind from the conflict of England and Scotland. Her 2015 research, Map-i, The Buchan Project was developed under her residency at the John Buchan Museum. Studying the novelist and his admiration of the Scottish Borders, Panneels is able to connect to the author and draw her own interpretations. To encourage people to the museum she was asked to create a paper map, which she executed on tracing paper to highlight the fact she would have loved to create interactive glass maps for the public.

Map-i is an ongoing body of work exploring the rich and vibrant community around her. She explains that her work is not about independent areas but a combination of glass, making, maps and the earth. It seems Panneels is currently endeavouring to create a body of work to draw attention to our surrounding and the earth that we live on and our modern lives in relation to mapping. Wanderers of the Earth; Walk, is a collaborative piece in response to a journey taken in the landscape. Physically connecting to the setting can often be very inspiring to make beautiful artwork and joining ideas with other artists can push your own ideas further than you imagined.

Wanderers of the Earth; Walk, 2014

Keiko Mukaide – Journey Follows the Flow

Working from her home in Edinburgh, Keiko Mukaide explores techniques using glass as her main art medium. Although she considers her home to be in Scotland, Mukaide still has strong nostalgic links to her birthplace in Tokyo, from where she moved at a young age to study. Mukaide studied glass and ceramics at the Royal College of Art in London, when she first arrived in the UK, before her move to Edinburgh where she was a research fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art.

Keiko Mukaide’s work does not appear to have a distinctive style, allowing her to explore various areas of concept as well as experimenting with a wide range of materials. Much of her work is site specific as a result of gaining commissions, which ultimately affects the outcome.

Her love of glass as a material for making art comes from the joy she finds in working with light. Mukaide describes the actual feeling she experiences from the aesthetics of glass as it alters the light around you; “Glass is wonderful to achieve”.

Mukaide asks, “Does the place you live affect your work?”

Discussing her past works chronologically, Mukaide begins by relaying a trip to Lybster in 1996, where she was moved by the light flowing across the beach landscape, which inspired her to recreate the feeling she experienced.

Lucid in the Sky (Fabrica Gallery, Brighton, 1999)

 In response to this emotional connection to the light in the landscape by the Scottish sunshine, Mukaide created ‘Lucid in the Sky’ from dichroic glass. This piece was part of the Domain exhibition at the Fabrica Gallery in Brighton.

Keiko Mukaide has made an amazing living from public commissions and her interest in working with the assets of a site has seen some outstanding installation work. Since 2000, Mukaide has successfully created several site specific works, focussing on the history of the places and the flow of light and space. Those she discussed in relation to site specificity include:

Elemental Traces in Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, 2000

Hydrosphere 2

Hydrosphere 3

Necurious Clouds Reflect Water

Miegakari, Hill House (Reflection from garden into house)

Curved Glass Walls (Inspired by Japanese paper screens) 

Mist Trees (sound by John Cobban), 2002

Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (mapping of underground streams and energies of site)

 

By using influences from her Japanese heritage to inspire her projects, Keiko was able to put a part of herself into her works commissioned specifically for a place, leaving behind her artistic mark. In a busy gallery setting she was able to create a space for calm and reflection with her piece ‘Spirit of Place’ which she describes as a “positive energy vortex”.  Pieces of spiralling, hanging, coloured glass allowing the viewer to literally reflect themselves and the light around them.

With her use of glass as a metaphor for the elusive forces of nature, Mukaide began working on a piece for Tate St Ives, in 2006. She explains how the site had a beautiful sea view of a Cornish beach, which inspired her to create a lighthouse based object. Using a lighthouse lens from Scotland (connecting to her adopted home), each of the twenty-four panels were set at an accurate point of longitude and latitude. This piece connected Mukaide herself to the site of the work and encouraged the viewer to encounter the landscape on a deeper level than just visually.

Light of the North (Tate St Ives, 2006)

Mukaide went on to talk about how her personal life began affecting her practice after the death of her father in 2004. She spoke of how she hoped to transform her grief into a positive outcome, in terms of her creativity.  After losing her father, whom she had left behind in Japan to pursue her career, Mukaide expressed her guilt of not spending more time with her family and her need to honour the life of her father through her work. Her commission for St Mary’s Church in York in 2007, allowed her to develop a site specific, interactive, honouring piece for her father.

The fountain bed, with flowing water from West to East, highlighted the distance between her birthplace and her current home and the distance between Mukaide herself and her family. Visitors were encouraged to release a candle into the water, watching it flow with the current in honour of a deceased loved one, to share their grief and to reflect. ‘Memory of Place’ was created with a glass pillar above it to represent the spirit and the journey to a higher level.  The use of water in the artwork was intended to unite people together through their loss, as water is cleansing and purifying and seen through all religions often as a way of sharing.

Memory of Place (St Mary’s Church, York, 2007)

By connecting to her audience in her work, Mukaide discussed her desire to bring people together through their heritage after considering her own. At the Pittenweem Art Festival in Scotland, she was able to use the history of the fishing village to set up an installation to celebrate the past, present and future of the area. Placed in the Old Men’s Club in the town, Mukaide focussed on the inhabitants as her source of inspiration, exploring their trades and the projection of local people in resemblance to their ancestors. Her goal was to unite individuals as a community to explore their past and leave messages for the future.

Going back to her own heritage, Mukaide explained her distress when finding out about the devastating earthquake in Japan in 2010. As a way of reconnecting to her own country she began gathering information from survivors.  ‘I have not heard from you, are you alright?’ was the installation based in a tent at the Pittenweem Art Festival, which brought her cultural heritage to the site. It included twelve stories from survivors of the tsunami, as well as postcards to appeal for help. The installation included water damaged photographs. As part of the grieving process for the loss of people and land, a campaign was set up to wash the images and clean the photos which would then be returned to their owners. Mukiade highlighted the comparison to the washing of a body and the significance of this after the death of a loved one.

‘I Have Not Heard From You, Are You Alright?’ (Pittenweem Festival, 2011)

Mukaide’s personal connections to her work were much stronger than I originally anticipated. Her understanding of how individual experiences can alter your judgement in terms of your own artwork was fascinating. Culturally, her birthplace and her current home couldn’t be more different and yet her ability to consider how they have developed her as a person radiates from her work.

‘Thread Across the Sea’ created using Japanese to English dictionaries highlights the flexibility that Mukaide has in terms of artistic mediums. To explore the language of communication between cultures (ie Mukaide’s Japanese roots and her Scottish home), she creates this piece using 1500 orgami boats made in Scotland and 3000 orgami planes from Japan and displayed them as upcycled book art in the Scottish Fisheries Museum, connecting both of her homes.

Keiko was very forthcoming when discussing her private life and happily explained how important her family are to her. She talked about how she visits her mother regularly in Japan to take care of her now her father is gone and to re-experience traditions of her ancestors. Mukaide went on to talk of how cluttered her family home has become and how she insists on helping her mother make space. Yet her mother sees the possessions not as rubbish, but as memories.

The concepts she then began exploring were interesting, in regard to the loss of ownership of objects and how the memories fade away as people pass on with them. Mukaide used this idea to create a kimono shaped piece, from a dictionary. She explained how a kimono is traditionally passed down from mother to daughter, over generations and how this piece was symbolic for her own mother. Along with this was a stitched map, representing her mother’s destiny.

Keiko appears to be focussing more heavily on her heritage with her art and those who are the most important and influential in her life. She ended her presentation by stating that living in another country for a long time, makes you think about how you are different.