2015 Fine Art graduate Lyn Killeen is taking the next step on her journey as a professional artist with a new exhibition, combining the artistic strengths of four women - a journey that began with the support of the University's Futures Fund.
‘A Visual Conversation’ Through The Language of Colours and Lines is at Makaan Art Gallery, South Shields. Lyn’s work is showing as part of the ‘Creative Women’s Collective’. The Fine Art graduate received financial support from the Futures Fund, combined with the opportunity to work and learn from business experts at the University’s Enterprise Place, which has enabled Lyn to transform her business into a thriving start-up.
Four artists in the North East have decided to set off on a creative journey in an unusual way in times of tough measures, funding cuts and the arts sector facing austerity. What brings them together is their lifelong passion for art and the need to make their mark on the cultural landscape through their work. Together they have formed ‘Creative Women’s Collective’, with the aim to create new work through experimental collaboration and dedicated to engaging women and girls of all ages in arts.
This is the first time that the artists have come together to create a site-specific work in a small terraced flat in South Shields, now converted into an art studio Makaan, where they are transforming the space into a unique experience for the audience as well as evoking an emotional response. This collaborative piece will be opened for the public on Thursday, 9 March, 6.30 pm at Makaan Art Gallery, 126, Talbot Road, South Shields NE34 0RG.
“At the centre of the experimental collaboration lay the rule that there were no rules, meaning that we work with and over each other’s marks, creating a response to the mark someone else has already left. The idea was for elements of each artists’ work to become part of the changing collective mark making. It is about being totally open to the continuous energy of what has gone before, a visual conversation. This experimental approach is about our response to each other.”
Creative Women’s Collective was the brainchild of artists Padma Rao and Miki Z who came up with this idea while on a weekend of workshops with Sangini, a women’s organisation in Sunderland.
“It has been an exciting and inspiring experience for all of us to come together like this. Though Padma and I have been talking about it for sometime, but meeting with Lyn Killeen and Roohia Ahmed made us realise that it’s now or never. Two of the members had left their regular jobs in order to pursue a career as artists, so we decided to give it a go. At the time of discussion about setting up the ‘Collective’ we didn’t even know about each other’s work. All we knew was that we needed to take charge of our lives and pursue our dreams,” Says Miki Z, one of the artists who founded the Creative Women’s Collective.
“One of the key elements that emerging artists look for is ‘space’- to produce, to experiment and to try out new ideas. Makaan, as an unusual space provided us with an open, yet intimate space where our experimental collaboration could sit in line with the aesthetics of our practice. Working in a collaborative way we responded to the space in its entirety, treating it as a canvas which resulted in an installation for public presentation.
This was an opportunity for us to work in a way that was responsive not only to the space, but also each other’s personal approach. This is opposite to how an exhibition is curated. In that sense, there is an element of curatorial risk but that provides an element of excitement, surprise and a notion of discovery,” says Padma Rao, one of the artists.
“My primary interest is looking at the process, before and after creating the work, whereby I spend a lot of time exploring materials that inhabit our lives and are often attached to rituals. Relationships and human connectivity are one of my concerns that form the visual language in this project. I feel that in every given moment we are forming a complex web of connections or disconnections around us, whist internally pulled by a desire for freedom. This tension is the essential tight rope we are walking on every day. Memories, heritage, identity, migration appear as threads providing an existential narrative that is raw and untamed.”
Starting with large sheets of white Fabriano paper and lining the walls of the studio in a layout that worked well visually, the artists have created a large scale site specific multi-layered art work, taking into consideration the size and shape of the space.
Multidisciplinary artist, graduate and Futures Fund recipient, Lyn Killeen who is concerned with memory and emotions, says: “There was no limit to the materials we could use on the pre-lined walls of the entire studio. Unique combinations of materials such as vermillion powder and turmeric have been applied as well as more traditional materials like paint, pastels, chalk, pen and ink, pencil and charcoal.
"The surprise element has been engaging and at times challenging although the artists have successfully combined their individual ideas and skills to create a unique collaborative model.
"Over the past six months we have worked, sometimes together but mostly alone with the time we could commit. It has been an extraordinary journey for all of us and we learnt so much about ourselves in the process.
"Experimentation with no boundaries might sound an easy thing to navigate but having so much freedom is in some way a very difficult landscape to work in. Being considerate to other people’s feelings about their mark making process combined with your own idea of aesthetic and technical competence has been a real personal battle. The fear of too much freedom plays out in becoming completely stuck and not achieving anything or using that freedom to be bold and experiment.
"Exciting things happen when the fear dissolves and you let go of your own ego within the context of working collaboratively. The most important thing we learnt was that if the platform is not there to show our work, then we need to create one and that’s just what we did through this project.
As the project title suggests the communication between the artists was visual and this has been fundamental in provoking artistic responses and to the success of our journey.”
Woven into the abstract lines and explosion of colours is the Arabic calligraphy by Roohia Ahmed who is a contemporary Islamic artist living in Durham. “The words portrayed in the work were often chosen as a response to the work as well as keeping in mind the spirit of the women who created it. The entire piece has various individual narratives, as well as a collective one, making this into a large story.” Says Roohia Ahmed.
Dr Caroline Mitchell, Senior Lecturer in Radio said: “The Creative Women's Collective is a wonderful model of women working together, exploring, creating and questioning. I have followed their work both individually and collectively over the past few years and believe that they are one of the most interesting and inspiring art groups to come out of the north-east region.”
For more information about the exhibition, please contact creativewomenscollective@hotmail.com or phone Padma Rao on 07930175319.
This project was supported by Sangini, Makaan Art Studio and ArtsConnect CiC.