Siobhan Tarr - The Mystery Mosaic Tour

Siobhan Tarr - 2013 Destination Unknown

Siobhan Tarr has always been one of those pleasant mysteries for me. An artist who I have worked with for two years since Nottingham's Lighbite exhibition in February 2011. I've exchanged numerous emails with her and she telephoned me once from her home in Germany, totally confusing me by talking with a Euro-Antipodean twang but we've never met in person.

Siobhan is primarily a mosaic artist but obviously has a flair for design and a keen sense of humour. Like many artists she posses destructive traits. She starts her artwork by smashing up plates and cups and decapitating porcelain figures. Although this might make her feel better, it is not the sole reason and is part of her overall system of working. She finds inspiration from the piles of porcelain chaos and her sometimes chaotic family life as a mother to then create order through her beautiful artworks.




(second from left) Siobhan's magnetic artwork
Rarities 2011, Hastings, England


Siobhan has exhibited widely in Germany and the craquelure of her work spreads slowly around the globe, but that isn't anything too unusual for this well travelled artist. Siobhan was born here in England (Maidstone) before moving to Australia. After a life-changing encounter with a handsome German backpacker she was destined for a life in the land of Lederhosen rather than skimpy swimming trunks. Now she's happily ensconced in the little village of Seefeld, near Bad Oldesloe, Germany with her husband and 3 children.



Siohan Tarr - Headline artist

In 2011, after we'd finished a mammoth year of exhibiting over 1,000 magnets on the streets of the world I hit the internet looking for new adventures and formats in public art. I stumbled across another mystery, a series of German towns had been invaded by a night time artist who had placed....yes you guessed it.... mosaics in public places. As I read about it on the popular Landsberg Blog one place name seemed vaguely familiar, that of Bad Oldesloe....now could it be?

So I contacted the local council and they directed me to their site specific map.
Right place but was it the right artist.....?

Unlikely?

My romantic heart had blurred my usually canny judgement. This was an underground mosaic art movement whose web stretched across the whole of the world. If Siobhan had been the 'Goldfinger' of tiled art then surely I'd have been inducted into this clandestine fellowship, with my street-art credentials.
So this meant Siobhan Tarr wasn't the 'Banksy of Bad Oldesloe'. Drats!

 

Back to reality and Patternotion.

Siobhan has kept up her air of mystery with her latest submission 'Destination Unknown' (top of the page)

She says

"This year, once a month, one of our family of 5 will plan and

organize  a day out to who knows where. 

 You can´t beat a good old mystery tour,  there´s a special thrill in not knowing

where you´re going or what´s in store .

 Lots of unknown fun and adventures to be had by all."

 

I'll be looking forward to hearing about where they all end up!

Hopefully I'll get a knock on the door one day, I'll be the last stop on the mystery tour and I'll get a chance to meet Siobhan and her family.

 

AL

 

Robert Good - Art, Yes, No Way, Yes!



Robert Good - Affirmative Action

 
Many of you will know Robert Good's work already, just a few weeks ago he graced the front cover of our first publication FreedBook with the excellent 'Affirmative Action'. Books seem to be the natural playground for his ideas and once again he makes us think 'Yes' with his current submission to Patternotion.
Good is fascinated with society's need to impose order and to construct systems, and his work deals with the frailties of language and the attendant possibilities for art.
He is an artist and recent convert to conceptual art who works with image, text and installation to explore the boundaries between visual and verbal, theory and practice, art and life. He is a recent MFA graduate and the 2011 winner of the Searle Award for Creativity.
www.robertgood.co.uk.


Robert Good - Patternotion Submission



 I first met Robert while participating in his thought provoking public art exhibition Text and Context in September 2012. He was brave enough to join myself and SMartwalks as we walked 8 miles through the streets of Cambridge, carefully attaching magnetic tweets to metal surfaces.

He told me about one of his current themes working with largely forgotten Pelican paperback images and authors. Taking books from the last century and juxtaposing them within our current digital framework. There was a suggestion that he's even reincarnated these authors on twitter. You could be cynical about this, thinking that Robert is playing the classic irony card but spend just a little time with his work and you'll find at its core there is humour, celebration and most of all optimism.



AL (left), RG (right). Photo H.Wells


As if to reinforce this point we walked past his installation on the Cambridge streets. And yes you guessed it, Robert Good had released another 'Yes' into the world.
And yes it did feel like the real thing.
I could feel the force.

And true to his name I felt better because of Robert Good.

AL.

Mark Lomax - The Art of Waiting




Mark Lomax - Walking and Waiting

  This is an exciting time for me, as the 1st February 2013 deadline slowly approaches, the artwork for the Patternotion book arrives in my inbox.
Part of the inspiration for this book was the work of Mark Lomax.
An artist who I've been lucky to exhibit with since the early magnet installation at The Arndale Centre, Manchester called Freezchester in 2010.
Mark plied his trade as an illustrator and photographer during the 1990s before moving north to Scotland. He is now a part-time lecturer at Inverness College. His  industrial style was honed in part by his collaboration with experimental electronic band Attrition. Whose dark waves of sound emerged from the 1980's post-punk world of an unforgiving industrial Coventry.
He is a excellent artist whose rich ideas take him happily from 2 dimensions to 3 and back again. Although each photo is created as a stand-alone work, when grouped together the individual elements compliment and enhance each other to create something new with power and narrative.

This is what Mark wrote about the system for the Patternotion book -

“Walking and waiting” records the frustration and boredom of waiting for someone who is three quarters of an hour late for a meeting.  The pattern created, with its zig zag rhythms and sense of movement, documents the erratic pacing and growing concern I was experiencing at the time.  The images for this composite were taken using an ipod, this has since become my camera of choice."

He's definitely an artist I'll be keeping an eye on in the coming year and hope that we'll be exhibiting together for a long time to come. 

Check out his photo work at

http://marklomaxphotoworks.wordpress.com/

AL.

Submission closed

15.35 28th December 2012
We're full.
All pages have been reserved for the Patternotion book.

If you've missed out and would like to go on the reserve list.
Then get in touch at albanlow@hotmail.com
Last time 3 people from the reserve list we're able to be included.
And those that missed out we're offered first choice on the next opportunity.

The next book opportunity will be courtesy of SMartwalks.
Who will be attempting to create an exhibition/book that stretches acoss the whole of England.
Alban

Join the New Year's Revolution

Join in the lastest book from Sampson Low Ltd by submitting your artwork and inspire others to a better life in 2013. As artists and authors we get the most out of lives and have the artwork to prove it!
Many people start New Year's Resolutions at this time of year but have nothing to show for their efforts and often fail because of it.

Help these people by sharing your systems and show them how to see the interesting aspects of their everyday lives. Inspire them by documenting your own New Year's Resolution perhaps.

If you've got an interesting 'system for living' already or are willing to embark on a fresh start for 2013 then get in touch and reserve a page. Then make your artwork and send it to me before the deadline of 1st Febraury 2013.
We'll publish it in the Patternotion Book and send you a copy for FREE.
For all the details on how to get involved visit the Theme and Submit pages.

The Book page tells you more about the physical book itself and how you will be paid.


For my page, I've started to decorate my daughter's bedroom (after several years on the to-do list) this Christmas holidays and we're going to create a series of sculptures with what we've found under the floorboards and behind the wallpaper.
A mundane job has some added interest and I get to spend some extra time with my children.
See our first robot above.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Alban

Patternotion Definition

patternotion
an applied concept or idea that changes the nature of behaviour.
e.g. New Year's Resolution

from

pattern

A model or original used as an archetype.

A person or thing considered worthy of imitation.

A plan, diagram, or model to be followed in making things

A representative sample; a specimen.

An artistic or decorative design

A design of natural or accidental origin

A consistent, characteristic form, style, or method, as:

a. A composite of traits or features characteristic of an individual or a group: one's pattern of behavior.

b. Form and style in an artistic work or body of artistic works.

A test pattern.

notion

A conception of or belief about something.

A vague awareness or understanding of the nature of something.

patter
Patter is a prepared and practiced speech, that is designed to produce a desired response from its audience