Magnetic Art alive in Bath



Stephanie Wilkinson's magnetic artwork

It was a little damp around the edges but luckily our magnetic art is all waterproof and our art is bright enough to catch the eye of eager Art hunters across Bath. If you're looking for something to do over the next week or so then head down to the stretch of towpath that runs from Pulteney Bridge to Churchill Bridge (red route on our map). Here you'll find more than 320 magnetic artwork dotted on railings and benches if you look hard enough.

Bath Map -
Red Route is where we
 placed the magnets

If you find a magnet then it will include the name of one of our 124 artists and possibly their twitter address too. If you would like more information about your artist then visit our Artists page where you'll find a link to their website.

FAB Fridge crew

Our intrepid band of artists' donned their waterproofs and took the plunge into Bath's cultural melting pot on the 24th May 2014. If you want to find out where they placed them then check out the slideshow below. Along for the ride was Maria Lopez, Jack Gardner, Ginny Reddick with Kim and Kez, Jessamy and Natalie Low, Effra Aye-Maung-Hider, Maria and Bryan Benge, Alban Low and Dean Reddick.

We had a wonderful time in Bath and were made very welcome by everyone at Fringe Arts Bath. It was amazing to see the diversity of Art on display at the various hubs around the city and we hope they will have us back again in the future. If you would like to exhibit with us in the future then drop us a line at collectconnect4@gmail.com and we'll get back to you.

From us all at CollectConnect,
Thank you.

Kim Reddick 2010 magnetic masterpiece

ps. If you think they've all gone then have another look. This year we found a magnet by Kim Reddick that had been in place since 2010!

FAB Fridge Exhibition 2014 - Bath here we come!

All the magnets have been cut up and sorted into alphabetical order. Our motely crew of artists are making their way to Bath, some have arrived already for the big party tonight. Dean Reddick, Bryan Benge and I will be travelling over tomorrow morning and meeting at
11.30am at Bath Spa Station, 24th May 2014.
So please come along if you would like to help place the art on the streets.

Dean Reddick
Placing magnets 2010

There will be a healthy crowd of us, and plenty of children so all welcome. If you've never encountered one of our exhibitions before they are unusual in their inclusivity and ingenuity. We have been exhibiting both in and more often out of the gallery environment over the past 4 years. Placing art right under the public's noses and inviting them to pick it up and take it home.

Our exhibitions are free to enter and our artists are free from rejection as at least one of their works will be exhibited. We started exhibiting in this way to provide a platform for people with mental health issues to show their work without the usual stresses and expense of many open submission exhibitions. Since then we have placed over 4000 artworks on the streets from more than 1000 artists. We have crossed international boundaries and hopefully a few cultural ones too.

Sorting the magnets

Keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks for Art in unexpected places around Bath.

If you have picked up a magnet and want to find out a bit more about your artist then check out our Artists page where you'll find a link to their website. Please get in touch with your artist, they would love to hear from you, and find out where you picked up their Art.

Alban Low

RIP Antony Roberts -Artist (1958 - 2014)

Antony Roberts -
Open Fridge Exhibition 2010

The magnet exhibitions have featured the work of over 1000 artists in a short 4 year period and a regular participant with us has been artist Antony Roberts. Amongst the hard work and logistical juggling I have the opportunity get to know many of these artists, not only their work but also if I'm lucky to meet them in person. I was doubly lucky to spend time with Antony Roberts away from the heat of exhibitions and even managed a few nights sketching on the London Jazz circuit.

Antony Roberts - Beware of Fishing
Freezchester 2010

It is therefore with great sadness that I have to tell you that Tony passed away peacefully on the 31st March this year at Princess Alice Hospice in Esher. This past year had been a tough one, with his on-going Cancer treatment sapping his strength. He didn't submit to our exhibitions at this time but below I would like to show you some of his excellent work from previous years.

 

Antony Roberts
LightBite Exhibition 2011

Antony Roberts exhibitions include -

 

Open Fridge 2010 (Gallery 89, Barnet)

FAB Fridge 2010 (Fringe Arts Bath)

Freezchester 2010 (Hazard MMX Festival/Arndale Centre Manchester)

Lightbite 2011 (LightNight Festival Nottingham)

Brighton Open 2011 (Brighton Fringe Festival)

Rarities 2011 (Hastings Pier)

 

Antony Roberts - The Duel
Freedbook 2012

He also published his artwork in the FreedBook in 2012. The 72 page publication was left in the book swapping libraries on London's transport network where they were picked up and have been passed around the world ever since. This was Tony's last project with us and we will be releasing a copy in Bath on 24th May. It seems fitting, as his contribution and the book itself represents the two qualities that I remember most about him, his generosity and humour.

 

He is missed. Never forgotten. Goodbye Tony.

 

I have already passed on many of your condolences to Tony's family, so thank you to all.

 

Alban Low (May 2014)

 

 

 

 

Antony Roberts - Open Fridge 2010

Antony Roberts - Open Fridge 2010

Antony Roberts - Lightbite 2011

Antony Roberts - Lightbite 2011

Antony Roberts - Rarities 2011

Antony Roberts - Rarities 2011

Antony Roberts - Brighton Open 2011

Antony Roberts - Brighton Open 2011

 

Susie Mendelsson - Specimens of humanity

Susie Mendelsson - Specimens of humanity

With the FAB Fridge exhibition less than a month away we are taking the opportunity to get to know some of our artists. Our exhibitions are run by artists themselves, who share both the pleasure and pain of their fellow practitioners when it comes to displaying their work. So who could be better to write something about the FAB fridge art but one of the other (120+) artists in this exhibition.
Here Theo Wood writes about ............

Susie Mendelsson
Specimens of humanity

Susie Mendelsson -
In the frame 1

The twisted diminutive ‘specimens of humanity’ are cramped within the containing spaces of their cells/houses/boxes..the light casting brightness on parts of their bodies and throwing deep shadows.  There’s an atmosphere of confinement even though the front of the ‘containers’ is open. And the creatures (who seem to be female) are shrunken in the space with their strange hands in front of them. One of the containers has what looks like a chimney above it asking the viewers to decide..is there a fire in there? Does it keep the creature warm or is there a more sinister purpose?



Susie Mendelsson -
In the frame 5

Susie Mendelsson is a figurative artist influenced by the German Expressionists as well as medieval art. Much of her work is motivated by psychological states of trauma and anxiety. Her work explores the universal theme of being a wife, mother and woman. Her current project is Purdah.

T.W.


We'll be displaying Susie's and Theo's artwork in magnet form on the streets of Bath as part of the Fringe Arts Bath Festival. Come and join us on the 24th May from 11.30am (Bath Spa Rail Station) onwards when we'll be placing the magnets on metallic surfaces throughout the city. The magnets are free to pick up and take home so it's the perfect opportunity to start a collection on your fridge.
If you can't be there in person then follow us on twitter at @collectconnect4 and #fab14.

Getting Ready for FAB Fridge

Dean Reddick and magnets

Submissions are now closed for FAB Fridge 2014.
We're just downloading and logging in the last few entries and I think we'll top 300 mark.
This will be the second largest Contemporary Magnetic Art Exhibition ever, so very excited about the event itself.
It's not all about quantity and this year has seen a swathe of exciting new artists join our rank with some truly inspiring artwork. Of course it goes without saying that we couldn't do this without some of our old hands too, whose devotion to the cause is uplifting.

Over the next week we'll be updating our artist lists with names and links. Then getting the images ready for the printers in 32 image sheets. These are turned into magnets and shipped back to us in May, all ready to cut up and prepared for the streets of Bath.

Over the next month we will be writing about some of our CollectConnect artists, so please keep dipping in and out.

On the 24th May we will be meeting at Bath Rail Station at 11.30am. We will then be walking around Bath placing magnets on metallic surfaces.


Francesca Albini - Chips

Follow us on Twitter - @collectconnect and @albanart
or hashtag #fab14 where we'll be posting some photos of the magnets.

Hopefully we'll be stopping for a spot of lunch and doing just what one of our new artists Francesca Albini has drawn.

Alban, Dean, Stuart and Bryan.

Exhibit at the Fringe Arts Bath Festival

Fab Fridge 2010
Dean Reddick (middle)
Holly Hinchcliffe (bottom)

Thank you to Stuart Simler for leading the Cardboard City exhibition throughout December. It was a poignant and exciting installation that brought together 25 artists along the banks of the Thames in London. We are still deciding whether to run Dean Reddick's 'Book of Nets' before our big CollectConnect Open. When the core of CC decided to work together, not only did we agree upon our ideals but also that we would have a big open exhibition that was not themed, and give an opportunity to all of you out there.

This year we have been fortunate enough to have been awarded one of the coveted curatorial slots at the Fringe Arts Bath festival 2014. We hope you will get involved by sending us your artwork and as always it is FREE to enter.

Visit the Submit Art page to find more instructions.

On the 24th May 2014 we will exhibit your magnetic image on the streets of Bath. The public are free to pick up your work and take it home. Who knows on which fridge your art will ultimately be exhibited.



Tracy Ferris - Sun

If you have never exhibited in this way before it is easy. Send us an email at collectconnect4@gmail.com with an image and your name and title of artwork. We operate a first come first served policy and may close early if we fill up before the 25th April deadline. We have space for up to 500 magnetic images.

Submit up to 3 images.
Your work and name will appear on the designated FAB Fridge site.

Any questions please get in touch....Bryan, Dean, Stuart and Alban

AL.

 

Stuart Simler & Tete de Alencar - Finale

As you might have guessed this is our last entry to the Cardboard City exhibition.

The Tate Modern, London

The final doors on our Social Advent calendar have been opened. It has been a long road and we fittingly pay tribute to the man behind this intervention and introduce another new face to the fray.

Tete de Alencar's door &
the Golden Hinde
 

First we open Tete de Alencar's submission beside the Golden Hinde, which was the galleon of Sir Francis Drake. Then we reveal our final Social Advent outside London's Cathedral of Modern Art. Housed in the old Bankside Power Station it is a great example of how to change a redundant space into a gallery. Here at CollectConnect we are adept at doing just this, finding and transforming public spaces, often I might add without millionaire backers.   
 

The Penultimate door

Tete de Alencar studied in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil before moving over to these fair shores. She studied in Wales (Coleg Menai), Liverpool (John Moore's University) and finally in London (Central St Martins). As a truly international artist she has exhibited worldwide and draws her inspiration from complex social issues embedded in contemporary society.

Tete de Alencar -
'OCD and the Silver Spoon dialogue!'

She is a perfect fit for the Cardboard City Exhibition with her playful ideas that experiment with what is revealed and in turn, what is concealed.

“What you see is never what you are going to get…the real work is usually hidden and sacred in a container - a disguise to protect the real art piece, transforming it into an enigma.  It’s an ancestral magic, an ancient tactic...they will have to be aware that breaking the spell and revealing what is inside, involves a kind of death of the piece and transforms it into ordinary gold…”

Stuart Simler

The final door belongs to Stuart Simler who has devised and organised this exhibition. All the artists we have spoken to over the past month would like pass on their thanks and Christmas wishes to him. He is a man who feels passionately about the themes behind the Cardboard City and the ethos that we at CollectConnect are so proud of. During the final planning stages the Southwark Police Force advised us against this exhibition but Stuart was undeterred and he wrote us,

Stuart Simler - ‘Outside Looking In’

"I do think though that this particular project theme encompasses many of the mission objectives of collect connect and instead of giving into these fears created by government democracy come propaganda we do what we set out to do, which is to highlight these fears and share them with everyone"

We were suitably galvanised.

Thank you for visiting these pages over the past month and being a part of the exhibition even if you have been unable to see the artwork in situ.

Now for a little break from blogging and exhibiting. We'll be open again for business in the New Year where we'll be revisiting our first ever street-art exhibition, the one and only FAB Fridge.

We have been awarded one of the coveted curatorial platforms at the Fringe Arts Bath Festival in May 2014. It will be an open submission with 500 spaces up for grabs so get involved -
FAB FRIDGE Call out

Have a wonderful Christmas from all of us at CollectConnect,
Bryan, Dean, Alban and Stuart.

AL.

Carole Scott & Alban Low - We're Still Here Klee

We're close to culmination and with the beginning of the end in sight we make a U-turn on our more historic backdrop sites for our worthy artists and return to the highly esteemed institution of the 'Great

A step in the 'right' direction -
Carole Scott is Bankside

Tate' - Modern that is! And today's pairing is an interesting contrast in the sense of the oldest featuring artist, no offence Alban, is being

Please release me - Alban Low
in the Tate toilets

released alongside another new face to our growing ranks; Carole Scott. Again we have two very different styles of artwork and with individual ways of weaving in their Social Advent message in response to the Cardboard City callout. We've released Carole Scott righteously as part of the advertising for one of the local Southbank Galleries, pointing all visitors to observe her work ahead of anything else they might be expecting to see…While my co-curator and fellow artist has taken the liberty of installing his latest release in the very heart of any aspiring artists site of envy - the Tate Toilet. I was not privy to the details of this particular release and

Snow Flake in Klee Minor - by Carole Scott

it's not my place to ask - there are some things that still remain sacred, even amongst artists.

Carole Scott as I mentioned is a new artist to our collective but I have had the privilege to have known her for a few years now. With a diverse range of skills and experimentation Carole never ceases to offer new ways of merging media, be they from her earlier experiences as a water colourist to more

weighty undertakings with mixed media her inventiveness always shines through as she seeks for appropriate representation for her message to be conveyed. In this case the message was inspired in part by an acclaimed

Opening the door on Carole Scott

artist showing within the walls of the Tate currently; Paul Klee, taking his interpretations of colour subtleties and geometric form to answer our own brief and merge the ideals of a wintery white Christmas with clean hard lines of an
overarching cityscape. Carole's ideology here finds resonance with the perfect and unique way that snowflakes find a way to combine and merge despite their individualities - a parallel that could fit well as an answer to some of our more pressing social and cultural issues.

Clear-up mission - Alban stakes out one of Southbanks
finest as he pockets some of our releases for his own collection!

Alban Low needs no introduction - but you're going to get one anyway pal: the man behind the Fridge Magnet phenomena has exponentially fuelled a number of successful community interventions; Freezechester, Future Bound, Freedbook, Lite Bite and many, many more exhibitions have in turn made inclusive art a reality amongst many of todays proof ridden showcases by inviting artists from all over the word to take part in uniquely themed collaborations with very few constraints and often completely open interpretations of the callout brief - only stopping the press if basic moral or ethical rights are threatened. Albans final offering to our Social Advent is true to form with its lean towards narrative and comic strip reference - once again we are presented with a strong moral or life message but which one?

Still Here - by Alban Low

Half the enjoyment for me when introduced to one of Alban's new works is in the interpretation - anyone who knows the artist will be aware of his dry wit and herein lyes the challenge and potential threat of not quite reaching the tenacious artists depths of irony, like Chaucer, there are several layers to peel away before getting to the kernel…engagement in a nut shell!

'Still Here' is no exception the above and with a direct dialogue between two individuals and very different views on the connotations of their situation we are left to ponder the unwritten sub-

Open the toilet door on Alban Low

script but with the imposing image of a multi story building dividing perspectives you can bet he's kept his observations close to the cardboard city brief.

Join us tomorrow as the man himself writes up the last of our Cardboard City's Social Advents and our final walk down what has become a very familiar backdrop to our collaborative community exhibition.

Keep em' peeled!

SJS

Sara Lerota & Marija Petkovic - Artistic Pinnacle

 

The Shard and Sara Lerota's Door

We're getting close to the pinnacle of our journey here at the Cardboard City exhibition and today we welcome two artists from out-of-town. Take a walk from the ruins of Winchester Palace where we found yesterday's doors and you cannot avoid two of London's towering landmarks. Southwark Cathedral and The Shard are separated by just a few metres but the gulf between them is a Millennium's width.



Southwark Cathedral &
Marija Petkovic's door

Marija Petkovic's artwork is exhibited next to two of the city's greatest survivors, The London Plane and in sight of the Cathedral which has been a site of Christian worship for over 1000 years. While Sara Lerota's art lurks in the shadow of Europe's tallest building. The Shard is a recent addition to our skyline (completed in 2012), it divides opinion and has been recently described as Boris Johnson's Judas Cradle as well as being awarded the more tourist friendly 'Iconic' badge.

Marija Petkovic - 'Card Settlement'

Marija Petkovic is a new face on the London and CollectConnect streets. She is a photographer and artist who is flexing her artistic muscle on the vibrant Belgrade scene. Recently receiving an award with our very own Jovana Mitic.

Marija Petkovic - Zemun Settlement, Serbia

Her artwork for the Cardboard City exhibition is an apt one. Here she presents us with an aerial photograph of a Shanty Town in Zemun, which is one of the 17 municipalities of  Belgrade. These makeshift dwellings greet many a visitor as they arrive by train in the Serbia's capital city. There has been some controversy about the eviction of Roma residences and the destruction of their homes in Belgrade, an issue that will rumble on in these tight financial times.

Sara Lerota's door

In contrast Sara Lerota has been our tenacious correspondent from Mostar for over 3 years. She first fell into our street art laps for Nottingham's Lightbite exhibition in 2011. Since then I have addressed many a letter to Bosnia and Herzegovina with her name on it, with magnets and exhibition catalogues inside. When not working with us on films and PR she is embellishing an impressive CV and portfolio that has seen her exhibit in Sarajevo,, Barcelona, Majdanpek, Zagreb and Berlin amongst others.

Sara Lerota -
A sense of belonging-essence of home

For this exhibition Lerota has taken a surprise approach, normally she relies on her superior drawing technique to raise the tone of the work but here she has taken the conceptual and abstract path. 'A sense of belonging-essence of home' is a town plan of integration, with each faction or district represented in both the inner circle and on the outer fringes.
It also symbolises our very own exhibitions where the catalyst is sparked into life by an individual and the varied styles, nationalities and ethnicities gather around, adding their very own colour to proceedings.

AL.