Jersey Art Blogs

This post is a little late but I wanted to talk about the Red Dot Sale at The Grand Hotel on the 26th November. The art event was put together by a group of local artists including myself (Karen Le Roy Harris), Nick Romeril, Jason Butler, Ian Rolls, Theresa Robinson and keeping us on track and inspired our chairman Rod Bryans.

The event was a great way of meeting local artists and an opportunity for people to buy an original piece of good quality contemporary artwork. The group invited 10 other artists to take part and exhibit their work. In the end there was a really great mix of both well known and up and coming local artists and the work on show was diverse - from painting and drawing to sculpture, ceramics and illustration; each artist working with their own individual themes and influences, making this an interesting and exciting event. Also, on sta...

It is indeed half term and the welcome gap in my plans to get my new studio set up in my spare room. A whole uninterrupted week of drawing and image making, or so I thought. Instead I have house guests which initially made my nose twitch and my mouth to crinkle at the corners and head towards my toes. I am renound for not being abel to hide my emotions from my face which give live broadcasts when provoked.

"Fantastic!" I thought, "An art student, just the type of company I had been hoping to evade for just a few days." Full of passion, ambition, drive, aggression and unshakeable confidence which has seemingly seeped out of my veins and down the drain of late.  I wasn't looking forward to being grilled and cross-examined, I'd just wanted to potter about and make some work without any excuse for distractions. I like to sit and think a lot, read, sketch and then allow ideas to manifest and evolve with the hope of something visually delicious being born. Visitors were not part o...

The esplanade car park underpass has been white washed, turning once more into a bland and sterile concrete tunnel adjoining a large car park to the main road. For sometime the underpass attracted the attention of local graffiti artists who in turn transformed industrial concrete into something far greater.

Through the application of spray-paint we could see a vibrant and growing subculture of graffiti in Jersey, the beauty of the underpass was the fact that it was not in the public eye, it served no purpose other then adjoining a car park to a main road.  The artwork there was not simple vandalism, crude and degenerate tags but actual graffiti Art, ranging from murals, throw ups and stencil pieces, for a moment it would seem that art in Jersey extended beyond the gallery space and into the public domain, the fact that the states had not moved in and white washed the underpass from the very first tag was an amazement.

So will there be a resurface of graffiti art? Wel...

I had a run in with someone from school, not so long ago and proceeded to be offended by the conversation that followed. The person asked for advice about exhibiting work and how to promote yourself, reeling off lots of possibilities, it dawned on me how much as artists we do and just how proactive you must be; an entrepreneur in a sense. The conversation also revealed just how clueless some people can be.

We went on to talk about technique and university, in which she revealed that she didn’t feel the need to go
to university to study art as she had her own ‘unique’ strong sense of style and didn’t want others to interfere with it, but had wanted to continue with artwork in her spare time. I couldn’t believe my ears, for one did she not realise how offensive that may be to me, someone who has studied art for years and how can someone be that narrow minded that they feel there is nothing more to learn, when there’s always more to learn. As if she had perfected ...