"Life just seems so full of connections. Most of the time we don't even pay attention to the depth of life. We only see flat surfaces". Colin Neenan.
When objects line up and connect, next to each other their surfaces touch. What is the reaction? Nothing? A dramatic response that changes everything or a metaphorical nod and acceptance that life causes us to rub up against so many events, objects and things that it's all part of being.
This is an open call that was open to many interpretations and the response has been diverse and intriguing.
Artist: Fion Gunn
Instagram: @gunnfion
Description: To reach a port we must sail' is about connections which are personal, global, historic and poetic. The cities represented Cork, Alexandria, Venice, Dubai, Shanghai have their connections through me and my response to them is where they meet as metaphors. The surfaces are rich with images which are often not what they seem - what is painted? what is collage? and how do they relate to one another? 'Venice' - the city in the central panel is topped with a panel 'The skies above' and under it 'The seas beneath' because this is how I envisage these centres of humanity; they have whole environments above and beneath them that many city dwellers don't think about or even see. Each city is a porthole - a view through one surface of meaning to another and across them all the birds fly as they migrate east to west and west to east - a connection without borders, the natural world beyond the boundaries of nations .
Artist: THE NAKED ARTIST
Instagram: @suziepindar
Title: Connecting
MEDIUM: mixed media
DESCRIPTION: Layering around words of thought in places they belong in society. This was an old red phonebox.
Artist: Cherry Adam
Instagram: @cherryland
Title: “Dualidad”. MEDIUM: Mixed media: Analog and Digital Photography.
DESCRIPTION
Seeking connection. I saw my body reflected in nature. Series inspired by this extract from "Early Darkness" by Louise Gluck: “Never forget you are my children. You are not suffering because you touched each other but because you were born, because you required life separate from me.”
Artist: James Critchlow
Instagram: @jamescritchlow
Title: Rings
MEDIUM: Digital Collage
DESCRIPTION: This work is a collage exploring the materiality of the digital image. Layering, blending, cutting and erasing the surface of the image in digital space works to transform it, to give it depth and structure. Ultimately, the work showcases the digital image as a surface to be manipulated.
Artist: Yvonne Coughlan
Instagram: @ycoughlanartist
Title: Safe harbour
MEDIUM: Oil, acrylic and pigment on canvas.
DESCRIPTION
Safe harbour reflects themes of safety and protection. The development of the texture within the blue/ purple form has allowed a more organic feel to the work and has been influenced by pitted ceramic surfaces and weathered elements. The connection of the form to the surround is clearly demarcated and a deliberate non merging of the two.
Artist: Gregory Daines
Instagram: @circa1990design
Title: Baroque
MEDIUM: Multi Layered Papercut Sculpture. DESCRIPTION: I made this piece following a research visit to the V&A museum and was inspired by a stone-carved medallion from 1356. The layers are connected yet separated by shadows. I like the depth that can be created by layering paper on its side as well as one sheet over another.
Artist: Velvet Zoé Ramos
Instagram : @artvelvetzr
Title: El Nido MEDIUM: Digital photography. DESCRIPTION: I discovered that the Tumbleweeds, on the edges of life, near the shores of the healing salt, represent an ethereal flight that scatters hope to more lands. The bundle of dry plant that rolls represents the essence of the nomad guided by the winds and propelled to sow in survival. I was attracted by the formation of tangles and clusters like a nest. We form clusters of memories, entangling ourselves with others and scattering new things: thoughts, connections, and memories. I have come to know the ability to build my nest from which I come complicated and tangled interwoven i lay and contemplate weaving my stories towards the horizon of my inner horizons. I tumble forwards in the constant My nest is shaped by my road i form and learned to rebuild my nest for newer journeys awaiting me ….
Artist: Sharon Reeber
Instagram: @sharonreeber
Double Cosmic 2:
This imagery suggests both the microstructure of cells and the macro-structure of galaxies. Individual entities, or people for that matter, constantly in motion, bump up against each other. Sometimes their interaction is simply a “sliding by,” hardly noticeable, and sometimes there is a joining that transforms by the effect of influence, combination, or even transformation. This could be interpreted in the physical sense, for example, applied to meteoroids that travel, collide and break or burn up. This process can be applied to interpret human interaction, as people travel along many orbits and sometimes a slight change in force or direction yields an encounter that changes both parties, causing new connections.
Artist: Mark Purves
Instagram: @mark_purves
‘Let us watch a while’. MEDIUM: Wood/intruder spikes. DESCRIPTION: This work challenges what we understand about the everyday stuff we eat, wear and interact with by challenging function, reassigning meaning and building new visual language.
Artist: Claudia Ungersbäck
Instagram: @claudia.ungersbaeck
Forms and gestures, situations over a copy (is_t) existence. marks and notes happening while light resounds.
Title: Sculpiturity. MEDIUM. Digital print. DESCRIPTION: Sculptiturity Is a developed work in shaping paper. I wrote poems about colour and machine poems based on sounds of the console and formed them. The series is focussing on the question of originality in a specific sense and also I am approaching it in a philosophical way, it’s existing and being thrown into society and language.
Artist: Mr Les Bicknell
Instagram: @les1bicknell
“Folding space #8”. MEDIUM: 3D printing. DESCRIPTION: Transparent 3D printed sculpture that explores the nature of the book. The material is formed by exploring the limitations of the process so that it references the handmade in basketwork.
Artist: Lorna Jewitt
Instagram: @lorna.jewitt
Title: “Planet”. MEDIUM: Textile - calico & embroidery.
Description: The three tactile layers - of cloth, of thickened or watered down printing ink, and of stitch - suggest some kind of celestial map ,with circles as oddly orbiting stars or planets. The patchwork areas of different colours were chosen to represent night skies, with dawn and dusk - the repetitions and connections with our sense of time and history - with the central ‘core’ of orangey red, as the beginning of the literal layers that build up our planet.
Artist: Lucy Kent
Instagram: @lucykent_art
Title: Missed/Tentative Connections
MEDIUM
Khadi Cotton Rag Paper
Description: These pieces were made using a needle and paper, as part of a project titled missed/tentative connections. I was looking at how we connect with the world around us and the sense that the connections we make can be extremely fragile and easily lost. The series focuses on root systems and reforming photographs, photograms and cyanotypes to create the images.
Artist: Henry Jacobs
Instagram account
The syndrome of all before
MEDIUM
Collage (Photomontage)
DESCRIPTION
Henry "Hank" Jacobs works slowly in what has typically been a spontaneous medium. He carefully selects scrap from a large collection of material and constructs two-dimensional monoliths with obscure origins in cosmicism, abjection, and thing theory– aggrelicts. Unlike collages that thrive in their juxtapositions, the aggrelicts form cohesive structures despite their fragmented, disparate pieces
Artist: FAZAR ROMA AGUNG WIBISONO
Instagram: @fazar.r.a.wibisono
Title: NATURAL INTERNET CONNECTION #2
MEDIUM
DRAWING AND DIGITAL COLORINGS
Description: Nature has provided a natural way of communicating, just as in plants, plants (trees) can communicate with each other fundamentally with roots as a means of communication between trees, be it trees of different types, with tree roots (plants can establish relationships with each other to be able to know the position other trees, knowing the structure of the soil, good or bad natural conditions and other information about the condition of nature as a whole. So naturally as an example for surfaces and connections as a small study in this tree that trees also have a natural means of communication long before humans knew about communication like Morse, telegram, telephone and digital internet like today.
Artist: Andreas Wilkinson
Instagram: @andreaswilkinson
MEDIUM
Plaster, Acrylic, Shellac
Description:
The piece of work explores painting and its surface. The canvas it self and its surface is incredibly important within my practice so for this piece I captured the canvas through its texture within plaster. Questioning painting and how far its boundaries can be pushed.
Artist: Lara Sayegh
Instagram: @larasayegh.art
Title: Purple Lake: MEDIUM. Oil on canvas
Description: In this piece, I wanted to capture the chaos of emotion. The dark abyss of brushstrokes serves as the backdrop, narrating a tale of intense emotion and energy that unfolds within the depths of the psyche.
As an abstract artist based in London, Lara passionately driven by the power of colour, movement, and emotion.Through bold and dynamic brushstrokes, her canvas becomes a stage where vibrant hues explode with luminosity and dimensionality.
Her art is a celebration of energetic brushwork. It invites viewers to dive into a realm of raw emotions, where the chaotic intertwines with the harmonious, and the abstract intertwines with the tangible.
Artist name
Emily Arnold
Instagram: @e.arnoldfineart
Loose Strands
MEDIUM: Monoprint on marbled paper
DESCRIPTION
Produced using human hair removed from hairbrushes. We leave traces of ourselves wherever we go, those loose strands connect us to places we have been. Fingerprints, footprints, skin cells, hair, all left in our wake, telling a story of where we've been, and who and what we've come into contact with. The image also gives indications of life on a microbial scale, the invisible made visible
Artist: Gaelle Chassery
Instagram: @gaellechassery_soothing_art
“Dawn to Dusk on Uist”
MEDIUM: Crocheted with pure Scottish wool
DESCRIPTION: When flat, it is a mini landscape offering a journey to the Isle of North Uist where the wool used for the project was grown: white beaches, intricate ripples in the sand, energising waves, textured rock, and that unforgettable island light. Mounted on a copper circle it becomes a mini installation reminiscent of a lampshade, where the head of the person going in acts as a lightbulb that illuminates the work through their unique perception.
Artist: Patrick James Newby
Instagram: @P.J.NEWBY
Star-Crossed
MEDIUM
Steel
DESCRIPTION
Part of my series exploring simple forms reflecting deep emotion from the aufoence. I wanted to create a simple yet human analogue to represent physical depictions of emotion and moments in time. In an attempt to create a three dimensional Rorschach test, I used the pieces in this series to reveal histories and perceptions on an individual level from the viewer.
Artist name: Claudia Tong
Instagram: @cxt.art
A Moment of Connection
MEDIUM
photography
DESCRIPTION
My work presents a sensory experience at the city wall in Xi'An, a Chinese city which acted as the capital of six dynasties starting from two thousand years ago. How do we connect with history? By moving the camera rapidly, I captured the light and movement of this seemingly flat surface, bringing the bygone days to life.
Artist: Nerissa Cargill Thompson
Instagram: @nerissact
Mind the Gap
MEDIUM: Mixed media sculpture
DESCRIPTION: Nature creeps in through the cracks in our cities, reminding us that it will fight back. Cannot be truly tamed. I love the juxtaposition of textures of nature and manmade. Made from recycled textiles/old clothing, cast in domestic plastic food packaging
