Artist Talks
This semester i've been to 3 talks, David Putnam who's a film director and Laura lancaster, and Jade from the Royal College of Art.
David Puttnam
Puttnam was born in Southgate, London, England, the son of Marie Beatrix, a homemaker of Jewish origin,and Leonard Arthur Puttnam, a photographer. Educated at Minchenden Grammar School in London, Puttnam had an early career in advertising, including five formative years at Collett Dickenson Pearce, and as agent acting for the photographers David Bailey and Brian Duffy.Puttnam was born in Southgate, London, England, the son of Marie Beatrix, a homemaker of Jewish origin, and Leonard Arthur Puttnam, a photographer. Educated at Minchenden Grammar School in London, Puttnam had an early career in advertising, including five formative years at Collett Dickenson Pearce, and as agent acting for the photographers David Bailey and Brian Duffy.In 1976, he set up his own production company, Enigma Productions,through which he produced a string of films, such as The Duellists (Ridley Scott's feature film debut), Chariots of Fire (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Local Hero, Memphis Belle, Meeting Venus and The Killing Fields and The Mission with Roland Joffé (which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986). Many of the Enigma films made in the 1980s were done in association with the financial backer Goldcrest Films. At the talk at St. Peter's Campus , David spoke about his film career, which was pretty interesting, everyone liked the talk and a lot of questions were asked by the students who attended the talk.
Laura Lancaster.
Some weeks ago , we had an artist talk in the Priestman Gallery by Laura Lancaster. Laura's works were one kind to look at. They were truly interesting to look at.Laura was Born 1979 Hartlepool, UK and she did her BA (Hons) Fine Art, in Northumbria University.The works that were put up were selected by Eric Bainbridge, however the works he chose had one common thing in them all. At the talk Laura spoke of her works, how she got the ideas to do them, how long it usually took her to finish a painting.She said that she never really bothered about how long it took her, some works took her weeks to complete. Laura Lancaster makes paintings from an ongoing archive of photographs and cine film found at thrift stores and flea markets, or bought on ebay. Her work transposes the discarded and forgotten snap-shots of anonymous strangers into an ambiguous and uncanny territory between abstraction and figuration. Divorcing her subjects from their specific context and time, Lancaster renders these images uncanny and strange. Shifting between the sentimental, the grotesque and the monstrous, she relocates them to a place of collective memory and subconscious experience.Lancaster's work confronts a male history of painting.
Jade
Jade is a student studying at the Royal College of Fine Art, London. Weeks ago she came in with fellow student from the same college to talk about their works. Jade's works immediately piqued my interest. She spoke about her influence on her works from Japanese art/culture. She studied in Japan for an exchange programme and she spoke of her experience while she was there. Her paintings and works were pretty satisfying and interesting to look at. She spoke about how often she was told that her paintings were cute mainly because of her choice in her color palette. I would agree with that too.I soon had decided to sign up for a tutorial with Jade to talk about her works and her experiences while she was at Japan. She was pretty nice to talk to and she told me things about my works as well.
