Art: There’s no such thing

The Custard Factory in Birmingham is a fixture on the arts map in the West Midlands. It’s currently playing host to 'No Such Thing', an exhibition of a selection of works by multi-media artists from the West Midlands who have come together to explore personal notions of memory, time and identity. This will be the first time that some of the artists in the collective have exhibited together, and if successful they hope to tour the exhibition beyond Birmingham.

Arts Hub spoke to Katrina Vivian, one of the artists involved with the exhibition, and asked her about its motivation and her own artwork. Like the other artists, Katrina was invited by the co-curators of the show, Dean Kelland and Hilton Vasey, to participate in the 'No Such Thing' collective exhibition, which sprang from an idea of linking Midlands based artists whose work looks at the notion of memory, time and identity. As Katrina points out, the exhibition also gives the artists an all important network system to other artists and arts organsations working or curating in similar directions.

“My current Masters degree at Derby University, together with my understanding of the British Nuclear testing carried out in the Maralinga area of South Australia in the late 1950's and 1960's, has led my work into researching the use of Nuclear weaponry.” Katrina says. Her artwork, 'Little Boy' looks at this subject, in particular the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski. She describes her multimedia artwork as having childhood as its core:

“Giving an impression of heat and the fusion of glass, it encompasses the banal, everyday life of the common man. Through the use of transparent materials such as glass, the piece offers an omnipresent atmosphere to the work suggesting worlds of lived, half remembered experiences. I feel it is important to add an element of childhood in all my pieces of work, emphasising the innocence of victims of war, arms testing and genocide. Little Boy utilises the idea of a childhood game of marbles and the work creates an essence of this game through a small glass marble ring, fused by the force and violence of heat created from nuclear weaponry. Added to this is a glass jar of marbles, melted and fused together: possibly belonging to the young child whose presence is fused amongst the remnants of an innocent game.”

Katrina says that the exhibition takes on many forms of media and includes the kinetic work, 'Hypno Wheel' by artist Hilton Vasey, a “basic construction, made up of utilising found objects and has been developed from the artist's fascination with memory interaction and the illusion behind hypnosis”.

Also on show is work from artist Kate Shipley taking the form of photography and interactive sculpture, 'Recall is never Replay’. Her work looks at the subject of Alzheimer's and the control the disease has on memory: only allowing certain memories freedom from the mind.

Artist David Cooksey's work, 'White Noise' looks at the use of dissecting the image through peripheral photography. The notion of white noise, peripheral photography leaves traces of colour blocks creating it's own visual DNA: Its own identity.

And Staffordshire based artist Andy Nash, has created a land based work created through the use of seedlings. A full sized bed with male and female body forms lay on the floor of the gallery. Viewers are invited to sprinkle seeds onto the piece of work, allowing it to grow as the exhibition takes it's course.

Katrina’s enthusiasm for the project and exhibition shines through, and she says they are a “tight knit group of artists who relate well together within the subject matter of the show”.