Sarah Fortes Mayer - developement

All the artists are in the progress of developing their pieces for the exhibition as it draws ever closer.

Sarah Fortes Mayer:

"I have decided to make lavender bags that I can give away on the night and maybe sell some in the shops. For me lavender evokes memories of my Grandmother and age."


It will be interesting to see how this ties in with the rest of her work and see the audience response.

This artist is going to show a combination of installation and performance work so the smaller pieces will add a personal touch and a token that the viewers can take home with them.

Artist: Jon Wilkes

Beautiful sketches and sketchbook development by this artist.

This artist has been working on sketches of women and angels - the intricate lines and colours make these pieces really unique and interesting. 

Below are images of the artist's designs, showing development of ideas.

Artist: Rose Hale

My proposal for this exhibition is to explore what the concept of death means to me, looking at the essences left behind, the traces that form fragments of memory. But drawing from my own Pagan roots I wish to look at the regenerative aspect, the renewal – much like the preservation of the museum itself and how the lives of the workers are remembered. 

I am exploring the typical sights and scenes of death but having my own take on the recreation of something from the decay and sorrow that surrounds this subject matter. How from decay there comes a new growth, from the death of someone there begins the life of another and also how from the despair that comes from loss there is also healing and the opportunity to use sublimation and create from the grief.

I propose to create some projections (using acetate imagery and OHPs). The OHPs are to be used as part of the piece itself, I am interested in them being involved as part of the work as they represent the idea of nostalgic materials/equipment, time passing and the inevitability of things ending/dying out to make way for newer things. The projections represent the trace of memory, the never-ending remembrance that is within the minds of those who knew those who passed. I want to show the beauty and triumph that comes from death - the chance to start anew. But also how the memories can remain, fiercely and alive in their own way. 

I also propose to create a small book (possibly more than one) of images and fragments of writings that I want to show in the museum space itself or possibly in the gallery, wherever it would be suitable. This book will represent the preserved memories of death and also referring to the lives of the workers - acting as a tribute to the "monument" that will be the projection.

Below are images of work, the beginning pieces that will either be used in the art book or projected in the space.

Artist: Sarah Fortes Mayer

Sarah Fortes Mayer has been looking at the way the linings  and shrouds for coffin's were made in the last century as Fortes Mayer is recreating a coffin to use in her performance P.S. When Fortes Mayer will be lying in the coffin. When Fortes Mayer dies her body is going to medical research so no coffin. This is her Post Script in advance of her death. The piece is made to confront the audience and to remind everyone that life is short. A Momento Mori.

Wooden coffin, felt, material, silk thread, Sarah Fortes Mayer

When there is no performance a replica body will be in the coffin.

Artist: Ian Andrews

I propose to examine the concept of death through the activities that we are predominantly engaged in during our lives.

Whilst I find the idea of apparitions that can move freely through our space difficult to accept, I find it easy to believe that the constant repetition of activities in a certain place leave behind vibrations of some description that can manifest themselves visually under certain conditions, particularly when those activities are curtailed suddenly as seems to have been the case at the Newman factory.

The workers involved in the manufacture of the coffin furniture were making items by hand, casting, polishing, stamping, staining and working with cloth for the shrouds, for the majority of their lives. Many devoted their lives to the company working past eighty years of age. Does this amount of continual, dedicated labour completely cease when we die or do we leave traces of the movements of our habitual activities in the spiritual realm?

I want to make a piece which expresses solidarity with the workers from the factory but which explores my own dedicated activity, the continual scratching of the charcoal on the paper, the continual caresses of the brush on the canvas.

What activities would symbolise an artist's life? Despite the wide range of processes and approaches that make up contemporary art practice, surely the “brushstroke” is the ultimate symbol of the “artist at work” and relates back to the workers at the factory who were making things by hand rather than mass production.

Therefore I propose to create work that shows the artist at work on the “other side”, having passed over, a ghostly presence making marks and brushstrokes in a desperate attempt to continue to communicate!

The most appropriate medium to explore these ghostly mark- making activities is surely film, when projected it disappears in strong light like the apparition and it's looped potential for repeat perfectly expresses the spiritual manifestations that are often repeated sequences of movement in the same locations.

I plan to explore these manifestations of spiritual mark- making by filming from the reverse side of various forms of material, involving projection of the finished film onto cloth, relating back to the shrouds that were made in the factory available in a range of colours and designs as appropriate to the deceased.

Ian Andrews   MA RCA

www.ianandrewsfineart.tumblr.com

Ianandrewsfineartyoutubechannel

Artists

The artists invited to offer some work for the exhibition are both diverse in practice as well as theology around the subject matter. However, the theme is such a common place aspect of everyday life that effects everyone in different ways; Death effects everyone at some point in their lives.

This is reflected in the artists' work, whether it be personal experiences of death, beliefs around death,  death reflected in the lives of workers of the factory or simply a explorative fascination with death.
Each artist is in the progress of producing work for the exhibition, developing their art and creating their own voyeur view of death for visitors to look into.

Before beginning creating pieces for the exhibition, the artists had tours of the building and had conversations with fellow artist and organiser Jon Wilkes and the employees of the Coffin Works factory. They were given an insight into the lives of the workers who had once worked long hours within the factory walls, surrounded by the morbid subject of producing a final resting place for those who had passed on. However, along with the quirks and anecdotes of the tour, it seemed that there was a different side to it all - stories of the workers and their own views on death and the significance of each process, as well as their light-hearted attitudes to such a delicate subject.

Photos from the factory:

The processes are often as important and interesting as the final result, an insight into the artist's mind and methods of developing the work to the finished product.

Project Thematic

Our exhibition will explore the history of the works, its workers and owners, its goods and services and its subject matter. Death holds a certain fascination, it is beautiful and tragic, sometimes horrific. It can be a real life experience, or something viewed and edited on a breaking newscast, or experienced in our interaction with games which thankfully only leads to our theorised demise. It exists in our imagination; in our very bones and to contemplate it and its inevitability is to consider our own place in this world.


In the exhibition entitled’ GAME ON’ each artist will offer up their own considerations, allowing the visitors to the museum a chance to join this collective narrative. We must be harmonious to the space and its thematic, yet bold and explorative. Together we get a chance to join in this potentially never ending search for answers, just like the factory workers must have pondered now and again whilst they crafted.

The Newman Brothers Coffin Furniture Factory

The Newman Brothers Coffin Furniture Factory operated between 1892 until 1999. During its operational times the factory made some of the finest coffin furniture in the world, used in the funerals of Sir Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain and Diana Princess of Wales. At its peak Newman Brothers employed one hundred people, creating a wealth of accoutrements illustrated in the companies beautifully composed brochures.

Transient-Art plan to hold an art exhibition at the museum, initially as part of the European wide ‘Museums at Night’ programme in May 2015, but we plan to continue the exhibition until July giving us maximum exposure. At the museum they are constructing a small gallery area which we will utilise, but we will be able to take over the whole museum for the three evenings of the ‘Museums at Night’. So I am looking for ideas for the three month exhibition in the gallery area, but also ideas for a potential take-over of the museum for the three days and evening’s of ‘Museums at Night’ which will be promoted nation-wide.