Not only are we able to bring DUST Rising’s Every Other Seat to Newcastle-under-Lyme, but we are also excited to bring more amazing seats to a second location in the town centre. The seats below can be found in the window of the old Lancaster Building until Sat 24 April.
‘Carry’
by Daby Obiechefu
‘Carry’ is a sculpture created in relation to the current situation of Covid-19 in which artists find themselves having to adapt to the new challenges of not being able to perform live or collaborate as usual. The sculpture, illustrating two performers creating a still portrayal of a seat with their bodies, touches on the notion of performance being placed ‘on hold’, and performers and their expression perhaps becoming dormant.
About the Artist
Daby Obiechefu is a multidisciplinary artist and recent Fine Art graduate at Staffordshire University. Her art travels through different forms such as: painting, drawing, sculptures, performance and installation. Her inspiration commonly derives from her journeys, thoughts, culture, experiences and emotions. Throughout her time at university, she was able to gain experience in curation and producing works to be presented in both solo and group exhibitions. Daby Obiechefu is also a member of Kwanzaa Collective UK, a group of talented artists from various backgrounds that come together to empower and celebrate heritage and more through art. This has also enabled her to be part of a recent 2020 exhibition at Arts Keele, “Strong, British and Black”.
Untitled
by David Bethell
The work examines the relationship between the seat, the viewer and the very materials that have been used to create the work. There is a synergy between them, they are entwined together, therefore the work only works when it is being viewed. This system breaks down once the viewer has stopped viewing and reading the text, thus highlighting the importance of audience, whilst simultaneously relating to notions, narratives and phrases from the theatre world. The mirror can relate to popular shows such as Snow White, and mythic characters such as Narcissus and our need to escape the everyday. The lines “Words within words” and “Brings you closer still” reference Terry Pratchett’s phrases “Humans had built a world inside the world” paying homage to him, and other playwrights, for their use of the creative word.
About the Artist
David Bethell is a UK artist based in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.
Bethell graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2017. His work can be associated with the construction of wooden sculptures that undertake an attempted journey beyond its own expectation and capabilities often resulting in failure.
He has had solo shows at Home in Manchester with ‘Fleeting Flights’, Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and various site specific commissions. Most recently including ‘The weight of things’ at Keele University. After Graduating in 2017 he was selected by Charlie Smith Gallery in London to be included in the Young Gods Exhibition. Other selected group shows include: Spheres 7 in Paris, Bluecoat Gallery with Poolside Emergency, and Synthetic Landscapes with Meadow Arts. He also won the Worcester open in 2013 with his short film ‘Stacked against all Odds’.
Learn more here.
Untitled
by Jayne Candlin
Jayne’s aim is to create a discussion on separation, loneliness and mental illness, with a hope for some form of normality. She chose to recreate Van Gogh’s painting ‘At Eternity’s Gate’. The painting has been selected as a celebration of the arts highlighting what society is missing due to restrictions triggered by Covid-19. She used Van Gogh’s style and history to evoke feelings of isolation and mental illness. Separation of the chair, attached by 2 metres of canvas symbolizes the void that we have come to know as a norm. The ripping and fraying explores a fragile connection, a life line and hope that we can restore our future.
About the Artist
Jayne Candlin, born Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire; studied at NULC 2008-2012, Staffordshire University 2012-2014.
Exhibitions; 2014 MMXIV at Staffs University. Gallery@12 Stoke on Trent. 2010 STARS at Victoria Mill, Cheshire.
Commissions 2010-Present. Online shop 2020-Present.
Jayne is a fine artist working in Stoke on Trent. She started as a self-taught artist before studying Fine Art in her 40’s as a mature student at Staffordshire University in 2014. Since then Candlin has taken on painting commissions, including commercial work, whilst experimenting with her own work. She works with mixed media, but favours oils.
‘Reclamation’
by Richard Redwin
‘Reclamation’ is an exploration of desperate creativity under weird conditions. In response to the new normal of a diminished cultural economy, 2020 saw artists continuing to work creatively, adapting and finding fresh methods to make art. This piece represents the resilience and pragmatism of the artistic community; our ability to create even under the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, with reduced resources and divorced from our usual audiences. The sculpture reflects and remembers in its form the ugliness of the objects that compose it; striving to find aesthetic value in those objects, and discover something beautiful in their accumulation.
About the Artist
I’m a self-trained artist. I attended Staffordshire University and graduated in 2013 with a BA in Creative Writing, having planned to be a writer in some form since I was a child.
I spent my spare time drawing, painting, making sculptures and coming up with ideas for video-games, right up till the day I completed my education as a writer and I realised I would never be happy just writing. So I decided to be an artist, and now I have no spare time at all!
I make a lot of sculptural work using reclaimed materials, most often exploring biological/organic forms, folk archetypes and invented mythologies. I’ve exhibited in a number of shows in Stoke-on-Trent, including Lost Gardens Festival, Trading Love, Dust 2017, Burslem Light Night 2019 and Subversive Plasticity at Keele University.
My twelve-sculpture collaboration with artist Jodie Gibson, called ‘Essences’, has been on display in Stoke town centre for ten months.
Untitled
by Adam Boyd
Boyd’s seat centres on a hand-made fabric cover for the classic Director’s chair, a design that has become synonymous with Hollywood and the performing arts as a whole. He conceals this iconic chair in a tailored, chroma-key green jacket, suggesting an item in storage or an absent member of the cast/crew; whilst the green-screen colour denotes a prop that is destined for either reimagination or deletion in the post-production process. The chair is embellished with symbols commonly used as registration marks on film-sets to anchor computer-generated effects with an accurate sense of space. Matisse’s textiles, in particular his church vestments designed for the Vence Chapel in Alpes-Maritimes (France) have informed Boyd’s recent practice. These robes featured highly-saturated versions of the colours worn traditionally in religious services, with an intense, bright green representing redemption and hope.
About the Artist
Born 1993, Newcastle-under-Lyme (UK) Graduated Glasgow School of Art (Painting and Printmaking) 2016, Adam Boyd based himself in a WASPS studio facility in The Briggait in Glasgow’s city centre before beginning an MFA at The Slade School of Fine Art in September 2019.
Boyd generated solo exhibitions at prominent venues in Glasgow; Solaristics (2018) & Synthespians (2019). Individual works have also been exhibited in several group exhibitions in the UK and abroad (Hokkaido, New York).
Boyd was selected for the Euan Uglow Scholarship, George & Cordelia Oliver Drawing Scholarship, The RGI Open, Aon Community Art Awards, WASPS Time Being Programme and included in GY Arts Festival.
His work has been featured in a number of publications including Imago Mundi’s ‘Myth/Reality: Contemporary Artists from Scotland’, and has recently been acquired by the online curated platform Art Gazette. In 2021, Boyd was selected for PADA Studio’s Summer Residency Programme in Barreiro, Portugal.
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by Sam Mace
A pair of stacked metal chairs found abandoned on the pavement are combined with a builder’s dust sheet bringing to mind the closure of arts venues due to Covid-19 restrictions. Sam was also given costumes from cancelled shows and gigs by her family members due to the pandemic. Sam carefully and patiently wound torn dust sheet strips around the chairs and costumes to resemble bandages, offering a sentiment of gratitude and deep affection for the role that dance, theatre and musical performance play in people’s lives and relationships. The repetitive motions of weaving and binding become a ritualistic act of healing in difficult times. Bursts of coloured fabric, gold threads and tiny sparkles can be glimpsed emerging through the dust sheet alluding to the tenacity of those who persevere and find a way to shine despite constraints as artists have always done and always will.
About the Artist
BA in Fine Art, Staffordshire University ,2016. Mace works across a range of media including print, ceramics, photography and textiles.
Exhibitions; Stoke-on Trent at Print Works (2017), Paradise Now (2016), The Artist and the City (2015). Her work has been shown in Three Counties and Staffordshire Open Art exhibitions.
Recently she has collaborated with Deborah Rogers to form The Immaculate Sisters of Hartshill Park for an Urban Wilderness Winter Wastelands commission. This involved site specific performance exploring natural cycles and ritual for our times.
Sam is an artist educator for galleries in the West Midlands including The New Art Gallery Walsall. She also works as a participatory artist with The Cultural Sisters and during the summer is on a festival décor team.
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by Stuart Porter
During the pandemic, possibly the most increased form of exercise is walking. On these walks many would inevitably pass a bench often with a small plaque dedicated to a loved one who enjoyed the view. These benches offer the option to rest or a pleasant chat with a stranger, enjoying life as it is presented before them to share. Porter feels these bench opportunities mirror those that enjoy the arts, theatre and concerts, sharing and enjoying with others what plays out before them. As theatres and venues look to remove seats to enforce social distancing, what effect will this have on the shared enjoyment. Taken to the extreme, would park benches be subject to this approach?
About the Artist
Porter’s career began in 1975 as an apprentice at Michelin Tyre factory before progressing to become an engineer.
During 2003, seeking a complete vocational change, he undertook an art and design foundation course after meeting ceramic lecturer John Webber at Staffordshire University.
Porter graduated in Fine Art in 2007 and then completed an MA Fine Art in 2008. He has since exhibited in group shows in London and Liverpool, Cardiff and Stoke on Trent. Porter has also worked as a technician for the artist Phil Sayers on his exhibitions in Liverpool, Lincoln and Groningen, Holland gaining enormous insight and experience in curation and exhibition technical skills.
He has also worked as a technician on artist David Bethell’s film project ‘Fleeting Flights’ and in several of his installations.
