Contemporary Art – Delphian Gallery

Articles Tagged with: contemporary art

Trying not to Breathe – Benjamin Murphy and Taylor A White

Trying not to Breathe – A Conversation between Artists Benjamin Murphy and Taylor A White

Taylor White is an artist who’s paintings are a visual record of his violently-unique character. Sitting somewhere in between gestural abstraction and hard-edged formalism (with the odd bit of representation), his works are an overload of perfectly-ordered chaos. His online persona feeds into this entropic aura that surrounds his works, and it is impossible not to see the joy he has both in his work and life. I decided to have a little chat with him about his work, because scrolling through his Instagram was such an entertaining, and inspiring experience, that I couldn’t help but try to find out more.

The statement that he has about his work on his website is a perfect example of what I have tried to elucidate above, and for this reason I have decided to include it verbatim.

My work gives form to fleeting memories and the dormant mania crawling beneath the carpet of the western home. These images recount crisis and triumph, momentum and confinement, lust and low-altitude bombing. Finding stillness in the recording of arguments within the process of painting and drawing, I return to my childhood freezer filled with popsicles and secret passageways.

Fake Zoo

Benjamin Murphy – Firstly, why are you an artist? Taylor A White – I don’t think I could enjoy my life if I wasn’t making art on a near constant basis. It’s something I seriously have to do to be able to sleep at night. I didn’t get really serious with it until I was 35 (I’m 40 now) and it totally took over my life. It was something that I returned to after spending my 20’s in the military, and it sort of transported me to a place I remember from my childhood. Making art kind of re-wired me after the military, and it seriously changed my worldview and how I viewed myself. BM – Was it that you felt like you needed rewiring post-military service, and it was art that did that job, or was the rewiring an unexpected thing that happened because you’d started painting? TAW – The shift in my thinking (or re-wiring) really happened unexpectedly. I started going to college for Psychology (mainly because I didn’t know what to go to college for, and it sounded responsible, lol) and I eventually took an elective art class which was the intro class you had to take before you could take the other classes. I was immediately hooked, as soon as I smelled the inside of the art department, I knew I’d found the place I was supposed to be. BM – Wow. I actually went to art school because I didn’t know what else to do, so it’s funny that you came to the same destination from the opposite direction. So do you think that painting is something you could have very easily not discovered? TAW – Oh definitely. I actually almost quit the first painting class because I became so annoyed with my inability to do basic things painting things like creating a gradation between two colors. I was frustrated that it did not have the directness and speed of drawing, I was just pushing this hard to control goop around and it wasn’t satisfying. I had a great painting professor that really encouraged me to just draw with paint, and stop thinking about painting in such a rigid conventional way.

Taylor A White in his studio

BM – Do you think you could still quit now, or has painting become a part of who you are? TAW – Hahahaha no I could never quit, it would be like trying not to breathe. BM – That’s interesting, as you almost never found it. TAW – That’s true. I kinda stumbled into it and it immediately transported me back to my childhood. BM – Do you think you needed that? TAW – No, I didn’t realize I needed it at first, it kinda snuck up on me. Taylor A White

BM – What is your work about? TAW – I don’t ever intentionally make work about a specific subject, or try to direct viewers to see it in a certain way. Often I can overhear a segment of a conversation or something like that, and it sort of becomes a point of departure in a painting. I’m always interested in letting the work completely become unhinged from that initial prompt, and I never feel any obligation to circle back and force it to make sense, to resolve it BM – So how does it make you feel when you look at it afterwards, and are there any signifiers within the work that you can identify as being related to certain things? TAW – I generally don’t let a painting survive if it makes sense, I find it boring. Sometimes symbols and shapes that I draw are interpreted as specific signifiers for something, but they’re most often based on my immediate interest in drawing them. Sometimes that can result in something that maybe points to things happening in the subconscious l, but I’m comfortable with letting people interpret it however they’d like. I also had a great teacher that once told me “you’re saying more than you might think”. So I just kept going, firing from instinct and impulse.

Maybe We Should be Kissing

BM – In general, do you think that the most successful artworks are those that are least didactic? JFK once said something along the lines of “Art is not propaganda, art is truth”, and I think it’s really apt. TAW – I’d say I agree with that. I’m definitely most interested in art that I immediately find confusing. BM – If you had unlimited time, money, space, what would be your dream project? TAW – Hmm, ok here’s one thing I’d do immediately: I’d like to tie or affix Matthew McConaughey to objects and only allow him to repeatedly say “Alright, alright, alright”. Like just imagine him doing that, placed sideways at the bottom of a huge painting. I love it. BM – Haha that is wild. I’m going to end this interview there, because there can be no better way to wrap one of these things up than with that image. So thank you. TAW – Thank you.

It’s Like You Don’t Even Care About Vitamins

For more interviews For more conversations Michael Swaney Richie Culver

Miranda Forrester – Episode 15 of the Delphian Podcast is now live!

episode 15 - Painting by london based artist Miranda Forrester

In episode 15 of the Delphian Podcast we speak to the extremely exciting artist Miranda Forrester who has just completed the Plop Residency and was involved with the BBZ Alternative Graduate Show at Copeland Gallery. We talk about her work, the lack of diversity in art education teaching, and learning to say no to to opportunities that aren’t right for you.

Listen now on our website HERE, or search DELPHIAN PODCAST in iTunes, Spotify, or Podbean.

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Portrait of Guts Gallery director Ellie Pennick

Ellie Pennick – Episode 14 of the Delphian Podcast is now live!

Ellie Pennick – Episode 13 of the Delphian Podcast is now live!

Ellie Pennick

Ellie Pennick is the founder of Guts Gallery, who aim to provide financial support and exhibition opportunities for artists less platformed within today’s contemporary art scene. Their desire is to facilitate space and exposure for BAME artists, female artists, working-class artists, queer artists, and artists outside of London (bridging the North/South divide). She joins us for this episode of the Delphian Podcast as we talk about the varying landscape of curation and artist opportunities as well as our collaborative exhibition ‘Delphian x Guts’.

Listen now on our website HERE, or search DELPHIAN PODCAST in iTunes, Spotify, or Podbean.

Join us for our panel discussion which features Ellie TOMORROW – register for free tickets HERE

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Collaboration with Guts – Delphian X Guts Exhibition

Join us for the private view of our collaboration with Guts Gallery – Delphian X Guts

Private View

Thursday 28th November 6-9pm
Exhibition continues until Wednesday 4th December

Socially, politically, and economically, we are living in trying times. These difficulties create division, and division breeds competition. We endeavour to support all art-world practitioners wherever possible, whether they reciprocate or otherwise, and to collaborate with what would (by some) be called our direct competitors. We believe that the art-world would be a much more open, supportive, and progressive place to work if we started working together, rather than pulling apart. For this reason, Delphian and Guts have decided to join forces.

Exhibiting Artists

Douglas Cantor
Florence Hutchings
Geoffrey Bohm
Igor Moritz
Jake Grewal
Lauren Roche
Morteza Khakshoor
Rachael McCully
Sebastian Eriksson
Sunyoung Hwang
Tania Alvarez
Valerie Savchits

Generously supported by The Factory, Crate Brewery & JARR Kombucha

*RSVP for the guest list by clicking the free ticket below*

[TICKETS]

Opening Hours
Monday: 11am — 5pm
Tuesday — Friday: 11am — 7pm
Saturday: 8am — 7pm
Sunday: 10am — 6pm

For more info, click HERE

Portrait of australian french based artist Rachael McCully in her studio

Rachel Mccully – Episode 13 of the Delphian Podcast is now live!

Rachel Mccully – Episode 12 of the Delphian Podcast is now live!

Rachel Mccully

Whilst Australian artist Rachael McCully was in London she joined us on the Delphian Podcast to talk about her process, taking inspiration from everyday objects, and juggling a home life with producing work. We also talk about the subject of using art as a form of therapy and her experiences with this. Rachael’s abstract works combine bold and muted colours to create perfectly balanced, harmonious compositions which are calm and serene – an antidote to our often hectic lives.

Listen now on our website HERE, or search DELPHIAN PODCAST in iTunes, Spotify, or Podbean.

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We asked 40 artists what is the one book they wish everyone would read, here are their answers…

Paul Weiner (@POWeiner) – The book that I’m writing and releasing in about twenty years. Keep your eyes peeled, friends.

Charley Peters (@CharleyPeters) – ‘A Room of One’s Own’ by Virginia Woolf. It shows really well how artists need space and time to be creative – because only once we have that we can discover the truths in ourselves and what that means for our work.

Remi Rough (@RemiRough) – The Hagakure

Jonny Green (@JonnyGreenArt) – The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhem Reich. Written in 1933. Happening in a country near you right now. The politics of the sexually repressed.

Richard Stone (@Artist_Stone) – The Last Wave by Gillian Best, its a great book, a love story to the sea and ahem, it was inspired by a painting of mine of the same name.

Kevin Perkins (@Kevin_Perkins_) – In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan

Sally Bourke (@Justondark) – The god of small things.

Lee Johnson (@LeeJohnson.eu) – Knut Hamsun’s Hunger

Jenny Brosinski (@Jenny_Brosisnski) – Le petit prince

Andy Dixon (@Andy.Dxn) – Balzac’s Lost Illusions.

Klone Yourself (@KloneYourself) – 100 years of solitude.

Daisy Parris (@DaisyParris) – Nasty Women – a collection of essays and accounts on what it is to be a woman in the 21st century

Jake Chapman (@JakeChapmaniac) – Accursed Share.

Tom Anholt (@TomAnholt) – The Hypnotist, Laurence Anholt

Spencer Shakespeare (@SpencerShakespeare) -The book of John.

Hayden Kays (@HaydenKays) – ‘Happy’ by Derren Brown. It’s witty, informative and hugely rewarding. I’d go so far as to say, a life changing read.

Andrew Salgado (@Andrew.Salgado.Art) – Susan Orlean’s ‘The Orchid Thief’ is about obsession, and its non-fiction, and its brilliant. thats my first pick. a much more obvious choice for artists would be Art/work by Heather Bhandari as its like, ‘everything you need to know yesterday about an art career’.

Benjamin Murphy (@BenjaminMurphy_) – In Search Of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. He understood the human condition better than anyone else, and most of what you could ever want to learn about life is contained within ISOLT.

Richie Culver (@RichieCulver) – Floyd Mayweather’s autobiography.

Jordy Kerwick (@JordyKerwick) – The Rum Diary – Hunter S Thompson

Danny Romeril (@D_Romeril) – JG Ballard; Cocaine Nights, Crash and Empire of the Sun

Florence Hutchings (@FlorenceBH) – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Soumya Netrabile (@Netrabile) – I think Interviews with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester is essential for every artist. Bacon deftly elucidates some of the important nuances of the art making process in response to Sylvester’s brilliant questions.

Luke Hannam (@LukeHannamPaintings) – Matisse -The Life of a Master by Hilary Spurling

Hedley Roberts (@HedleyRoberts) – One book? Phew. That’s tough. Either Brave New World by Huxley, or Narcissus and Goldmund by Hesse.

Matthew Allen (@Matthew__Allen) – I would recomend everyone to read the poetics of space, by Gaston Bachelard. Its a beautiful read and lead me to a deeper appreciation for the everyday spaces that I move through and dwell in.

Nick JS Thompson (@nickjsthompson) – The very hungry caterpillar.

Neva Hosking (@NevaHosking) – I reckon To kill a Mockingbird is always required reading.

Justin Long (@_JustinLong) – #wherethewildthingsare

Erin Lawlor (@TheErinLawlor) – Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut.

Justin Lee Williams (@ArtJLW) – To many to mention, but I would start with all the major religious books, I’m not religious but it does give a understanding to why humanity is so fantastic and fucked at the same time

Wingshan Smith (@wingshansmith) – Everyone should read what they want.

Fiona Grady (@Fiona_Grady) – “We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – I think the title is pretty self explanatory. The aim of the essay is to remove the negative associations of the word feminism and embrace the idea of believing in equal rights.

Obit (@LazyObit) – Mr Bump by Roger Hargreaves. No matter how many knocks you take and how shit you are at life in general you’ll eventually find something that is perfect for you if you stay positive.

Anthony Cudahy (@AnthonyCudahy) – Paradise – Toni Morrison

Johnny Thornton (@_JohnnyThornton) – Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. It really opened me up to a lot of interesting ideas when I was a bit younger and some of those ideas still resonate with me today

Magnus Gjoen (@MagnusGjoen) – The Prince by Machiavelli.

Jesse Draxler (@JesseDraxler) – Freedom From Anger – a book I lend ppl, who then want to keep it. I’m on my sixth copy.

Martin Lukac (@Martin.Lukac) – Kamasutra

Mevlana Lipp (@Mevlana_Lipp) – “The color of magic“ by Terry Pratchett.

Charlie Mills – Episode 12 of the Delphian Podcast is now live!

Charlie mills

Charlie Mills is this episode’s guest for the Delphian Podcast. He is one third of the curatorial group Collective Ending as well as working for Bold Tendencies and Hannah Barry Gallery in South East London. In this episode we talk about Charlie’s numerous projects, past and future, as well as the changing role of the gallery in the current digital era and the difficulties and challenges of site specific works.

Listen now on our website HERE, or search DELPHIAN PODCAST in iTunes, Spotify, or Podbean.

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Antony Gormley at the Royal Academy

From the British coastline to the rooftops of Manhattan, Antony Gormley’s sculptures are recognised across the world. With work from his 45-year career alongside major new installations created for their galleries, The RA present his most ambitious exhibition in more than ten years.

Following in the footsteps of Ai Weiwei and Anselm Kiefer, Antony Gormley will be the next artist to take over the Main Galleries with a series of works that test the scale and light of the RA’s architecture.

The exhibition will explore Gormley’s wide-ranging use of organic, industrial and elemental materials over the years, including iron, steel, hand-beaten lead, seawater and clay. They will also bring to light rarely-seen early works from the 1970s and 1980s, some of which led to Gormley using his own body as a tool to create work, as well as a selection of his pocket sketchbooks and drawings.

Throughout a series of experiential installations, some brand-new, some remade for the RA’s galleries, they will invite visitors to slow down and become aware of their own bodies. Highlights include Clearing VII, an immersive ‘drawing in space’ made from kilometres of coiled, flexible metal which visitors find their own path through, and Lost Horizon I, 24 life-size cast iron figures set at different orientations on the walls, floor and ceiling – challenging our perception of which way is up.

Perhaps best-known for his 200-tonne Angel of the North installation near Gateshead, and his project involving 24,000 members of the public for Trafalgar Square’s the Fourth Plinth, Antony Gormley is one of the UK’s most celebrated sculptors.

The exhibition is curated by Martin Caiger-Smith, with Sarah Lea, Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts.

For more exhibitions, click HERE

Kristin Hjellegjerde – Episode 11 of the Delphian Podcast is now live!

Portrait of Kristin Hjellegjerde in her london gallery space

Gallerist and curator Kristin Hjellegjerde joins us for the Delphian Podcast this week. Known for its multicultural curatorial approach the gallery quickly gained recognition for exhibiting a roster of innovative, international artists since its inception in 2012. Kristin has galleries in both London and Berlin as well as a new London project space which will also be expanding in 2021.

We talk about the way in which she finds artists and how artists can make themselves more visible to galleries, the importance of networking, collaboration between galleries, and advice to young curators. We also touch upon the sometimes prohibitive cost of art fairs and how this affects a gallery’s decisions on their programming.

Listen now on our website HERE, or search DELPHIAN PODCAST in iTunes, Spotify, or Podbean.

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Gallery Spotlight: Dateagle

DATEAGLE ART is an independent London-based online platform, founded in 2017 by Vanessa Murrell and Martin Mayorga, that supports UK-based emerging artists in the form of interviews, studio visits, blog content and both online and offline exhibition curation. Their platform is about forging a community and this is why they personally visit every artist that they interview and feature. Their online content is equally gendered, ad-free, diverse in mediums and they don’t accept commission, as a means to keep their content as honest as they possibly can, through the lens of the artist.

dateagle

DATEAGLE STUDIO is the first creative art agency that offers both visual services and press and pr services within the contemporary art realm. Read more about their studio work here.

ONLINE, they operate as a journal in which they publish behind-the-scenes analogue photography of artist’s studios through their personal ‘Visits’, provide straightforward views from their contributor’s and guest artists in their ‘Journal’content, and allow in-depth discourse through their ‘Interviews’. They also undertake quick interviews through the ‘5×5’ series, in which they ask the same 5 questions to 5 artists in group shows as a means to giving an equal voice to a variety of artists, and through the ‘DM Interviews’ with international artists, revealing their first times. The website also hosts a series of music playlists from international artists, through the ‘Mix!’ section, allowing the audience to engage with emerging art through a variety of forms. They are also involved in curating ‘Spread The Virus’, an on-going online exhibition evolving over 12 months which intends to chart the year through aesthetic as well as social and political lenses, co-organised with an invited guest curator.

OFFLINE, they curate temporary shows in non-exhibition spaces throughout London, along with hosting regular panel discussions and public events throughout the UK.

dateagle.art

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