all’s fair…

Posted on by
2
Sheridan Russell stand at Affordable Art Fair, Battersea.

Sheridan Russell stand at Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, showing 5 of my paintings. Photo © Sheridan Russell Gallery.

March has been another busy old month, hence the delay in posting for a while. Funny how one thing can lead to another in the most unexpected ways. I sometimes wonder whether the time I spend on social media is worth it (mainly looking at/promoting my own art and work by other artists I admire). But a recent development in February made me think again. 

I was contacted via my website by Sheridan Russell, a London gallery looking for another artist for their stand at art fairs. They’d been given my name by an RI artist whose work I admired on Twitter, but who I’d never actually met. She generously recommended my work to them, so I took quite a few works down to show to them and fortunately their reaction was really positive. Consequently they took my work to the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea, London. It’s the first time I’ve had work in the major art fairs and to my delight four largeish ones sold. As the gallery specialises in art fairs, my work will also be going to Art fairs in Chelsea in late april, and Hampstead and Tunbridge Wells in May. 

Strandline. Acrylic/mixed-media on canvas. 100x100cm. Sold at Battersea Affordable Art Fair 2016.

Strandline. Acrylic/mixed-media on canvas. 100x100cm. Sold at Battersea Affordable Art Fair 2016. © Mari French.

My point is, you never know where an opportunity or contact can come from. I know many artists are worried about losing control of their images if they post them online and are sceptical about social media, but I personally feel an artist needs to spread their net far and wide these days. Apart from financial and exhibiting benefits, there’s the great feeling of ‘meeting’ and networking with artists on social media, plus the generosity of many artists in sharing their techniques and advice online, whether on Facebook, in blogs, in videos on YouTube etc, or just sharing a grumble or concern about some aspect of producing art. I also love coming across and sharing amazing artwork on Twitter and on Pinterest. 

If you’d like to follow/contact me on social media here are my details:

Twitter: @MariFrench12

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MariFrenchArtist

Pinterest: @french1180

luscious lines …

Posted on by
9

 

Collage/mixed-media on board. Mari French 2016

Collage/mixed-media on board. Mari French 2016

I’ve been diligently trying to practice the techniques I learnt at the recent Emily Ball workshop (see previous post), but keep succumbing to a flu bug I picked up on a trip to London. 

These are the result of experimentation in the studio this week, in between feeling rubbish, using some fabulous Markal Paintstiks I treated myself to after using Emily’s (they’re like big luscious oil pastels!). This is a collage/mixedmedia piece on board, which I’ve split into two as it seems to work better that way. 

By the way, I’ve tried laying out this post in a better way but have lost the will to live (it’s the ex-designer in me). 

 

Collage/mixed-media on board 2

Collage/mixed-media on board 2. Mari French 2016

see Emily play …

Posted on by
6
My own work: reinterpreting a small jug, and other experiments.
Emily using one of her books to demonstrate a point.
Hard at work.
Interpreting our objects.
‘Try some thicker paint Mari!’
Detail from one of my pieces of experimental mark-making.
A gift of a book.

I had the privilege of attending an Emily Ball workshop last weekend at Cambridge Artworks. I’d been a fan of Emily’s work since picking up her book Drawing and Painting People – a fresh approach some years ago. Even though I prefer landscape painting, her emphasis on mark-making and developing your own visual language really struck a chord with me; I’d been aware of the need to develop and extend my own mark-making for some time. So when the opportunity was presented to me by an artist friend, I leapt at the chance.

There were ten of us all together, from different backgrounds and artistic experience, and we were worked very hard by Emily, eventually, I think I can say, producing very different work to our normal output over the three days.

Emily showed us how to unpick and reinvent the familiar, inventing our own marks to animate our work, till eventually the painting takes on a life of its own apart from the subject.

Some of the fun exercises included one I called ‘Hangman’, after the old pen on paper game. We were put into teams of two and took it in turns – one would make a mark on a large sheet of paper, the other would then step forward and add their own mark, relating to, reacting to, or obliterating part of our own mark; leading to much friendly cursing and wails as our ‘precious’ marks were changed beyond our control.

Emily was very generous with her time and materials and it was a pleasure and privilege to learn directly from her. She runs courses from the Seawhite premises where she has her studio as resident artist, as well as at locations abroad. I’d urge you to check them out.

The three day weekend workshop was full-on, tiring but thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying. Typically generously, we were each given one of her inspiring books at the end.