VULGAR EARTH COLLECTIVE
As a member of the Vulgar Earth collective I will be performing and exhibiting at our forthcoming exhibition at the Andrew Lamont Gallery, Brecon (13th April – 20th May). http://www.brycheiniog.co.uk/en/about-us
VULGAR EARTH Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/7EarthArtists/photos/a.329455487474052.1073741826.329451737474427/329460080806926/?type=3
Last summer a group of seven artists formed a joint exhibition looking at humanities’ relationships with nature. As a result of the many positive, passionate and emotional responses from the viewing public and from other artists, we have become a formal collective and our membership has now expanded to 18 artists.
Vulgar Earth runs on a not for profit basis, promoting awareness, discussion and participation in Social, Political and Environmental issues. Through our exhibitions we aim to generate an emotional awareness, using art to question and discuss the direction humanity is going and the individuals place within it. In order to help steer the development of society in a more civilised, sustainable, fair and rewarding direction.
As a collective we support a diverse range of practices, each artist shows their own perspective on our world, with shared concerns, and a love for the positives of the human spirit and the beauty of nature. We currently include the fields of painting, sculpture, digital media and performance art, writing, installation, ceramics and textiles. We are keen to include any discipline that will add to our dialogue, and create as varied an experience as possible.
We believe that art should be for all and should reflect, inform and benefit society. We do not believe in exclusivity, and endeavour to make out exhibitions as accessible as possible. It is important that they are fully invigilated, and that our staff are knowledgeable about each artist, their work and the topics they engage in, and are sensitive in their judgement of when to approach visitors, to explain or discuss, or to stand back and leave people to their experiences. We have had good feedback from visitors as to the value of informed and sensitive staff.
We encourage our artists to offer written descriptions to go alongside their work, while believing that our art work should be of a high quality and speak volumes in it’s self, we recognise that if people are unfamiliar with the language, it is our responsibility to help them access the exhibition. We do not want viewers to feel intimidated or excluded in any way.
We are keen not to follow the typical style of exhibition, that can exclude those unfamiliar with it. We want people to linger, to converse, to spend time in quiet reflection. It is our intension to incorporate comfortable seating, to provide relevant reading materials and generally create a social atmosphere. We are also pursuing opportunities to exhibit outside the gallery setting altogether, in empty commercial, industrial or community buildings.
Today we face many complex and interrelated issues, often unspoken are the psychological effects on us, a growing social disassociation and a feeling of powerlessness and demoralisation. The information we try to provide, and discussion we actively encourage is we feel, an antidote to these, and being informed raises an individuals self esteem and confidence, and desire to engage socially. It is our belief that we all have a role to play in shaping our collective future, and that every decision we make, however small will influence that future.
Previous exhibition :
http://www.canwoodgallery.com/meet-the-artists-vulgar-earth-1st-july-13th-august/