N A T U R E P R O J E C T
Group exhibition
Place: ArtSway Gallery, Sway, England
Dates: 11~16 Feb 2014
Artists: Athar Zahid, Donna Peters, Maria Naydenova, Marta Vives Poch, and Sharanya Kunnath.
Nature Project is a collaboration of five MA Illustration students from AUB.
ArtSway is a contemporary gallery space situated in Tawny, in the heart of the New Forest, in the south of England. Fine arts and architecture students from Art University Bournemouth (AUB) are working at ArtSway where they can get the experience of curating exhibitions in a professional gallery environment.
In February 2014, together with my four classmates, we had a chance to design and build our first art exhibition. ArtSway Gallery kindly gave us one of the rooms for these purposes.
We chose nature as our theme for this project, then made sketches of how to use the space and where to put what. When we discussed all the details and came to an agreement on our exhibition's presentation, we started preparational work.
It was my first experience creating an art exhibition. Before we staterted the project, I was afraid that we might have some arguments with my classmates or that the working environment would be unhealthy (with jealousy and dirty competition). But things turned out really well, everyone was helpful and supportive, and each artist knew exactly what to do and tried to stick to a plan. I had a lot of pleasure working with my classmates and friends side by side.
Each of us had a distinguishable style and preferred to use different media. Athar made some paper sculptures of flowers and leaves, and Donna was screen printing birds directly on walls. Marta, Sharanya and I did small murals and applied permanent markers, yet the final images were unique.
I had never done a wall drawing before; it was a brand-new experience. Painting on such a large scale was new for me. I got used to sketchbooks and smaller paper sizes, and the greatest format I previously drew at was A1 (594 x 841 mm). Moreover, in ArtSway, I had to translate my sketch from an album to the wall and zoom it in 10 times.
The task was tricky, and I spent some time making the proportions even and accurate to the sketch. Another issue was getting the image to look symmetrical: one side of an image tended to shrink or lean over the central line. Doing linework on a rough and bumpy surface was not easy. I had to control my line and do the work slowly because I was afraid to make rude and noticeable mistakes.
I am proud of myself. I did a great job -- my mural looked nice and sweet.
To bring life into our exhibition, Marta created a short animated clip of a jumping and galloping reindeer. One of the girls found the bird sounds, and we put them into the background to make a presence effect.
Thank you so much for watching!
