Curating experience

Some of my paintings hanging in the space

Before

After

This week I've been working on something called "The Big Empty Shop Experiment" with a group of people in Cardiff.
We've taken a space that's used as a halloween/christmas decoration shop in the winter and turned it into a gallery space running art cinema screenings, a swapshop and creative workshops.

Its involved a LOT of cleaning and just general tidying to make the space hospitable for artwork and the general public but my main job has been curating and hanging the work of local artists, most of whom are students.

I've never really enjoyed the actual hanging of an exhibition as much as I have this week, its been busy but not frantic which is what setting up in past exhibitions has been like. I think it's a combination of
1. Having to make decisions without consultation.
2. Being part of a REALLY good team.

It's strange though, because while I've been in curatorial mode I'm constantly looking at pieces of work but I'm not seeing them as I would normally. I'm surveying them more, I'm seeing them as dimensions and colour. I'm looking intently for relationship of form between the pieces and between the environment. Never thought I would say this but I love curating and hanging!