Here are some images documenting my solo exhibition ‘What you see is what you see‘, plus some thoughts left by visitors in the comments book:

‘dividing line 2012’
Animated image / DVD

‘sandset i & ii’
Giclee prints, aluminium mounted, 18″ x 12″

‘A beautiful exhibition, clean pure and spare’ …

‘inner glow i & ii’
Giclee prints, block mounted
30″ x 20″

‘heavy weather i, ii, iii, iv’
Giclee prints, aluminium mounted, 18″ x 12″

‘Love the darkness’….

‘another world i, ii & iii’
Floating acrylic Giclee prints, framed 16″ x 16″

‘through the’, ‘living space’
Giclee prints, aluminium mounted 30″ x 20″

‘leaf light i’
Floating acrylic Giclee print, framed 30″ x 20″

‘Excellent inspiring work.  Great food for thought’….

‘into the trees i & ii’
Giclee prints, aluminium mounted
40″ x 26″

‘we’ve landed’, ‘point of view’
Giclee prints, aluminium mounted
26″ x 20″

‘Pushing a new way to perceive landscape’

‘sea farm’
Projected Lightjet FujiClear print

‘Impressive, original and atmospheric’….

‘city rising i’, ‘lakeland light’, ‘up in the air’
Giclee prints, aluminium mounted, 40″ x 26″

‘A moving show’….      ’Flawlessly executed’….

‘What you see is what you see‘ – a solo exhibition of ‘quiet photography’ for the Bristol Photography Festival curated by Louise Copping.

Thursday 17th May to Sunday 27th May 2012

‘What you see is what you see‘ is a solo exhibition of my ‘quiet photography’ for the Bristol Photography Festival curated by Louise Copping.

The show at the Motorcade/FlashParade gallery will run from Thursday 17th May to Sunday 27th May (12-6pm) open on Thursday through to Sunday both weeks.

As a way of keeping up-to-date with DaveMD news via facebook I’ve just created a facebook artist page.

If you’d like to subscribe, just hit the ‘Like’ button on the Sidebar or visit Dave MD on facebook and do the same.

Number 40 is part of the SouthBank Arts Trail on 21+22 May in Southville+Bedminster, Bristol – always a brilliant weekend. As well as my own work the exhibition includes six other Bristol artists: Ruth Broadway (drawing); Hannah Hickman (photography); Stuart Low (glass and painting); Paul Brown (illustration); Hannah Broadway (illustration); and Steve Broadway (photography).

For more information: Number 40 @Southbank Arts Trail

Following March’s Rural Idyll 2 residency the resulting exhibition takes place every weekend throughout June 2011 between 11-5 at: Little Dodnash Farm, Bergholt Rd, Bentley, Suffolk IP9 2DQ.

Following the weeks residency I created two groups of work to be shown at the farm throughout June:

‘WOOD WORKINGS’
A constant theme of my work is the human interaction with landscape.  Whilst walking the woodlands that surround Little Dodnash Farm I became increasingly in awe of the trees, and fascinated by the process through which they are managed.  ‘Wood Workings’ documents the human relationship with the woodlands, and ultimately reflects on how; through domestic occupation and husbandry we leave a transitory mark on this environment.

See Gallery – Wood Workings for images from the collection.

’5 WORDS – SHADOWS ON A RURAL IDYLL’

Responding to the question – ‘give me 5 words that describe your feelings about living in a Rural Idyll’, the owner of Little Dodnash farm replied:

Solitude, Panic, Pleasure, Hardwork and Comfort.

’5 Words – shadows on a rural idyll’ uses these words as inspiration for a series of shadow based photo-ascetates constructed and photographed   at the farm during the residency in March. Through the use of Real-time graphical programming the photographs have subsequently been transformed into five animations (one for each word) and shown as a site-specific installation in the farms wood cutting yard.

It should be noted that although the inspiration for the piece sprang from the owner’s feelings about living in a rural idyll, its creation and ultimate presentation are based on my own responses to spending time at Little Dodnash Farm.  My main aim was to produce a piece that creates unity and provides equal weight to all five words, so giving us an insight into reality behind living in a Rural Idyll.

BV Studios is having its first Open Studios next month. The converted 30,000 square foot warehouse in Bedminster, Bristol houses around 80 artists (including myself) who work in a variety of media.

I’m in an upstairs Studio – number M3, so please come along and say hello.  I’ll have some  new work as well the odd bargain for sale.

Opening times:
Friday 19th November: 6pm – 9pm (party continues/drinks served till late)

Saturday 20th & Sunday 21st: 11am – 6pm

Free Entry, Food available throughout the event from Katie & Kim’s Kitchen. Teas and coffees from Daisy Rollo of CoffeeArabica available Saturday and Sunday.

After years of thinking about it, wondering if I can afford or even deserve it I’ve just got the keys for a studio.  It’s in the BV Studios which is a brand new development of purpose-built artists’ studios in Philip Street, Bedminster, Bristol.  I have a portion of one of the mezzanine studios (pictured here), I just need to get some shelving, furniture and all my boxes of frames in and I’m sorted.  I’m really excited about this and hope it’ll give my practice an injection of energy it needs and help me move my career on to another level.

Just a quick update – I’m really enjoying being in the space, I’ve got shelves and furniture, so it’s down to work now!!

I’ve just added my details to Saatchi online.  He seems fairly successful in the art world! so I thought might as well take advantage of the huge amounts of online traffic that no-doubt surge through the site and generate some interest in my own work.

Having been involved in organising the South Bank Arts Trail for five years, I have been looking for a ways to develop new community arts based events.  The big difference being that I’d like to retain more creative control, be funded to do it and be able to pay artists to be involved. Jess Wright was in a similar situation, having run the South Bristol Business Awards for two years she was looking for a new challenge.  We share the same aims but come from different backgrounds:art and business. Seven months ago Jess and I started working on a new project called illuminate. Illuminate aims to produce arts-based events that promote and reflect both the creativity and rich history of South Bristol. Key elements of illuminate projects will be the use of disused properties to show art/moving image work, to reflect the community and history they are set in and to involve key creative organisations in the city of Bristol.

illuminates long-term aim is to produce a festive Christmas event that would transform multiple disused shops on North/East St by using projected films/light/artists installations. We will be piloting the illuminate concept at the end of March with Spring Forward, an event partnered with the Knowle West Media Centre and Picture This:

The weekend of March 27 to 29 will see two empty shops – numbers 26 and 28 in Bedminster’s North Street  – playing host to illuminate’s first event ‘Spring Forward’. Number 26 will feature a series of projected films made by Bristol based artists alongside an exhibition in the empty property (no.28) next door. The exhibition celebrates the past and present of Bedminster’s retail history.

For more information see the illuminate web site

My friend artist Tony Eastman has been collecting tiger related memorabilia for many years.  He shares his passion for all things tiger with anyone interested in tigers; collecting; art or purely having a curious mind.  In the past he has shown his collection in his garden shed, complete with curator/guide in costume, but time was right to get with the 21st century.  A web site has now been built, of which I had some input (mainly photographing the collection). The site tigermuseum.com does a great job of showcasing the collection and sharing Tony’s magpie like approach to collecting and enthusiasm for life in general.

I’ve just produced the postcard above. It’s a collage of 24 of my images to promote exhibitions and generally give people an idea of the range of work I produce. It’s proved popular; with some people wanting to see other collections presented in the same way?

Last year as part of the Southbank-Bristol Arts trail we (the SBA) facilitated the collaborative ‘shoebox project’, whereby SBA members/artists, friends and family and local school children were asked to use an empty shoe box to appropriate/create a piece of art. The uptake was fantastic with an amazing range of work created.

As Chair of the SBA I wanted to continue this collaborative approach and facilitate more projects as part of this years Southbank-Bristol Arts Week (12-19 May 2007). In partnership with Tony Eastman I devised two projects with a similar ethos. Here is a summary of the project briefs:

Message on a Bottle invited Southbank artists and friends of all ages to make a work of art that sent a message from our own community to friends, family or the world at large: by taking a bottle (or bottles) as a starting point, everyone was asked to construct a positive message they wished to send by using any medium or combination of mediums (i.e. paint, enamel, collage, papier mache, sound – you name it!) The ‘bottle messages’ (signed or unsigned – it’s your choice) were installed in St Paul’s Church and unless otherwise indicated included in a silent auction to raise funds for the SBA.

Seaside, Cities and Sandwiches – a ‘ReCollection’ offered the chance to share holiday memories and see them incorporated into an audio photographic collage at the Grant Bradley Gallery: Choose an old photograph that records one of your most memorable holiday experiences and be prepared to record a short description of the experience.

The Southbank Arts Trail now in its fourth year continues to be a very inclusive event attracting school children, professional artists and first timers in equal measure. The event celebrates the creativity in the neighbourhoods of Southville, Bedminster and Ashton and aims through art & performance to bring people together, let them express themselves and have fun.

As Chair of Southbank-Bristol Arts (the organisers of the Arts Trail) I was keen to present a selection of the 180 artists who exhibited in over 50 venues at this years trail and to distil the quality and diversity into one group exhibition. It took a lot of planning, but thanks to the hard work of my co-curators Janine Partington and Abbie Jenkins from the Grant Bradley Gallery the exhibition looks great and has been well received by the artists and public alike.

This exhibition runs from 9 November 2006 until 11 January 2007 at the Grant Bradley Gallery, Bedminster Bristol.

The centre of Bristol is being re-built, well the shopping centre anyway. Most people’s first impression of arriving in the city by road is now of post war reconstruction! Tollgate House & Car Park which are making way for the re-routed road is currently being used as a giant canvas/art installation by Blackout Arts. I spent a very cold but inspiring evening there on friday- it’s a perfect use for the site. It’s seems a shame that art is only allowed to be made in temporary locations – why can’t permanent affordable spaces be made available and free public art encouraged all year round ?

Luis Nobre – Random Border exhibit (Leigh Woods, Bristol)