My work has been selected for an exhibition tentatively entitled ‘On The Map’ to take place at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery in the new year.

‘The museum already has a permanent collection of historic maps but would like to extend the reach of the exhibition by exploring map-making in its broadest sense, bringing the subject up-to-date with a display of contemporary work inspired by maps and/or mapping techniques.’

Councillor Trevor Webb, lead member for leisure at Hastings Borough Council, said: “Hastings Museum and Art Gallery has wonderful collections which can provide all sorts of creative inspiration, and exhibitions like this are excellent ways of demonstrating the importance of historical artefacts to the work of contemporary artists.”*

The exhibition will take place from March to June next year. I’ll post further details nearer the time.

*Source: Hastings Observer – www.hastingsobserver.co.uk

Click the picture above to view more images

Drum roll please… I’ve just printed up my first ever batch of t-shirts and in a way of a celebration, and because I’m over excitable, I thought I’d offer up one shirt for FREE to a lucky follower, friend, fan, fiend, or farmyard animal.

This is a limited edition run of just 50 shirts which have all been screen-printed by my own fair, and purple, hands. The design has been printed with black pigment and then heat-pressed with some lovely shiny silver foil (as you can see pictured above).

The sexy Shewolf design is taken from the series of hand drawn Bestial Drawings that I’ve been working on over the last twelve months or so.

To be in with a chance of winning one of these shiny new shirts you’ll need to leave a wonderfully exuberant comment below or retweet one of the millions of tweets that I’m likely to post to Twitter in the next few days. Alternatively you can post a direct link to this article in a tweet. If you’re posting directly on Twitter be sure to mention me (@Spike_Dennis) so that I don’t miss your tweet.

The deadline is 23.59 (GMT) on Sunday 4 December 2011. I’ll put all of your names in a big wintery woolly hat and pick a winner sometime on Monday morning.

if you don’t win this giveaway don’t fret as the shirts will be available to buy from my Spikeworld shop from Monday next week in small, medium and large sizes. This is a limited edition print run of just 50 shirts so be sure to snap one up quickly; when they’re gone, they’re gone!

www.spikeworld.co.uk/shop

Terms & Conditions: There are none. I shall be as fair and honest as I possibly can be but I reserve the right to make things up as I go along.

Following a successful exhibition at The Sho Gallery I have been invited to take the Infographics exhibition to the Cardiff Design Festival Headquarters at the Cardiff Story Museum in the city centre. The exhibition is open now and will continue until the 9 November featuring work by an international selection of artists and designers including:

• Alix Martin
• Amy Kett
• Daniel Ulf-Hansen
• Innes Jones
• Juan Manuel De J. Escalante
• Mario Klingemann
• Matt McKenna
• Ninian Carter
• Phil McCollam & Ellen Mueller
• Rob Stevens

The infographic works can be seen alongside a range of other work that was a part of the Cardiff Design Festival. This includes information about some of the work short-listed for the Best of Welsh Design Awards and work by illustrators Amelia Johnstone and Anna Bhushan.

Entry to the Cardiff Story Museum is free and the opening hours are
Monday to Saturday: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Sunday: 11.00am – 4.00pm

Photographs from both the exhibition at The Sho Gallery and The Cardiff Story Museum can be seen on my Flickr pages here.

Exhibition opens: 4 October 2011

Exhibition celebration: Wednesday 12 October 2011, 7.00 – 10.00pm

Difficult subject matter is dealt with by local creative designer Alix Martin as well as Mexican artist Juan
Manuel De J. Escalante. Using data provided by Welsh Women’s Aid (www.welshwomensaid.org) Martin examines the problem of sexual assaults against women in Wales and the UK. Similarly Escalante examines problems arising from within the society in which he lives in Central America through a generative work inspired by statistics from the Mexican Presidential Office relating to the deaths caused by the country’s drug wars.

A lighter side to the exhibition can be seen in a number of works such as Mario Klingemann’s Dada inspired response to the current trend for infographics and a series of ‘How To’ videos by American artists Phil McCollam & Ellen Mueller. During the Cardiff Design Festival visitors to Sho Gallery will not only be visually stimulated but they will have the opportunity to learn how to find water in the wilderness and how to communicate non-verbally with extraterrestrials.

Exhibitors:

Alix Martin \ Amy Kett \ Chris Glynn \ Daniel Ulf-Hansen \ Hole in My Pocket \ Innes Jones \ Juan Manuel De J. Escalante \ Mario Klingemann \ Matt McKenna \ Ninian Carter \ Phil McCollam & Ellen Mueller \ Rob Stevens \ See What You Mean

Location:

The SHO Gallery, The Coach House, 1A Inverness Place, Roath, Cardiff CF24 4RU

Opening Hours:

Monday: Closed
Tuesday – Wednesday: 10.00 – 17.30
Thursday: 10.00 – 18.30
Friday: 10.00 – 17.30
Sunday – 11.00 – 4.00

Further information:

www.thesho.co.uk
www.cardiffdesignfestval.org

My work will be on display in Lithuania as a part of an exhibition hosted by The Textile Artists’ Guild in Kaunas this month. The exhibition, entitled Experiments with Light, has been curated by Jolanta Šmidtiene and Dovil? Vanagaite.

The brand new Kaunas arena’ media centre will be transformed for an international exhibition in which exhibits will be installed in the darkness and illuminated by ultraviolet light. This luminescent lighting will highlight details of the artworks enriching the aesthetic experiences of the visitors creating mystical effects and exhibiting unexpected approaches to textile art.

The exhibition will feature four of my luminescent sculptures including Wretched Rupture III (pictured above). There will be a launch event on Friday 23 September 2011 from 8.00 – 9.00pm and the exhibition will continue throughout the Textile festival. The Textile Guild will also be holding a number of workshops throughout the Kaunas Biennial.

Click here to download a pdf of the the Kaunas Textile Biennial programme or visit their webiste: www.biennial.lt

Location:
Zalgiris Arena
Karaliaus Mindaugo g. 50
LT-44287
Kaunas

You can find out more about Kaunas Textile Guild here: www.tdg.lt

Jade Gilbert: Untitled (May 2011)

Intended to showcase and support unique and innovative artists working in the UK today, Bank Street Art’s drawing and illustration season will present a varied programme of solo, joint and group exhibitions across two galleries.

My work has been selected, along with that by Jade Gilbert, for the first exhibition in the series which will be on show from the 20 September until the 29 October 2011. My work will occupy the Atrium Space whilst Jade’s will be on display in the Juniper Gallery. Apparently there will be an exhibition Private View at a later date, the details of which I will post here once it’s confirmed.

Bank Street Art’s drawing and illustration season is being curated by Chloe Reith and this inaugural exhibition will be followed by a programme of exhibitions leading into the new year.

You can see a snippet of Jade Gilbert’s work on her Axis pages here: www.axisweb.org/artist/jadegilbert

Bank Street Arts are located in Sheffield:
32-40 Bank Street
Sheffield
S1 2DS

Visit www.bankstreetarts.com for more information.

I’m happy to be taking part of the Venice Vending Machine project: an Installation, to be shown at venues in Venice from the 15 to the 30 September 2011.

This dual sited installation will be hosted by Italian partners Microclima, an artistic project at the Serra dei Giardini and with Laura Ostan at the Contemporary Art Galleria Perela.

Vending machines will be installed at each of the two venues and filled with plastic spherical capsules that will each contain a work of art by one of the contributing artists. Visitors to the space will be able to purchase or barter for a token with which to release an orb from the machine.

‘Each sphere represents the light, a world, an artist, a creative seed and will contain an original piece of diverse artwork produced by both emerging and established artists. Through the game of interaction and the inherent chance of the machine, an automatic distributor, an exchange takes place for both the artist and receiver of the art work.’*

Click here to view some images of the work that I have contributed to the project.

The project has been curated by Ann Jordan from Elysium Gallery in Swansea and Marina Moreno from ART-E-MOTION.

Related Links:
www.venicevendingmachine.com
www.galleriaperela.it
www.serradeigiardini.org
www.microclima-venezia.com
www.elysiumgallery.com

Submissions are invited from artists, illustrators and designers for a forthcoming exhibition of intelligent infographics at the Sho Gallery**, Cardiff. The exhibition is scheduled to coincide with the 2011 Cardiff Design Festival taking place in October (www.cardiffdesignfestival.org).

Artists are free to interpret any information that that they feel fit although submissions that address current social or political issues will be particularly welcome. Ultimately however, you should feel free to select a source of information because it inspires you whether it is pertinent to us today, or simply because you feel that it might just make a very cool informative visual.

Find those hidden connections and patterns that lie beneath the raw data and re-present the information in a dynamic way which helps us to better understand it. Inspire us, shock us, make us smile, educate and enlighten us.

It is expected that the majority of submissions will be two dimensional but all media will be considered. New approaches, new media and submissions in three dimensions and beyond are actively encouraged.

Submission Guidelines:

• Submit up to 3 works.
• Please only send low resolutions images of your work via email at this time (which should be saved as .jpg or .pdf files and be no larger than 1mb).
• A brief statement explaining the reason that you have selected the specific information that you have chosen to illustrate/interpret (maximum 100 words).
• A concise CV/bio including contact details.
• Details of work as appropriate, eg. Title, Media, Source.
• NB. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines might not be considered.

Submission Deadline
Submissions should be emailed to exhibitions[a]eye-sore.co.uk no later than Friday 2 September 2011.

Images
Top: Chris Glynn – ‘Modular Dog’
Front: Ninian Carter: ‘Transnationals’

**The project was originally due to be scheduled at the Milkwood Gallery but due to logistical reasons it has been relocated to the Sho Gallery (www.thesho.co.uk), also in Roath, Cardiff.

Topic Winner: My Entry Number – Work of Art (Olwen Moseley)

The Cardiff Photomarathon 2011 exhibition opened at the Old Library (aka. The Cardiff Story Museum) in the city centre this weekend. I took part in the event last month on the 11 June and so you can see the pictures that I shot along with copies of the images taken by the other 399 entrants.

Unfortunately I didn’t scoop any prizes for my efforts but one of my colleagues did; Olwen Moseley won the topic prize for My Entry Number: Work of Art (pictured above). The images by the category winnwers along with the overall winners take pride of place at the exhibition so you should pop in to take a look if you find yourself in Cardiff city centre during the next week or two.

The Photomarathon exhibition will be on show at The Old Library until the 20 August 2011 (10.00am – 4.00pm Monday to Saturday and 11.00am – 4.00pm on Sunday).

If you’re not local, or just plain lazy, you can see a selection of the winning pictures on the BBC Wales website here; and you’ll find my own efforts on my blog here.

For more information about the Photomarathon: www.photomarathon.co.uk

Artwork by Laima Oržekauskien?

I received confirmation this week that four of my sculptures have been selected for an exhibition taking place in Lithuania this autumn as a part of the Kaunas Biennial: TEXTILE 11.

The exhibition is entitled Experiments with Light and will feature textile artworks created from fabrics and threads that fluoresce in ultraviolet light.

The exhibition opens on Friday 2 September 2011 at Kaunas “Žalgiris” Arena. There will be a Private View on Saturday the 24 September. (I’m currently still awaiting confirmation of the end date for this project.)

For more information about the Kaunas Biennial and the events that are taking place you should visit: www.bienale.lt.

For news about my exhibitions, events, and invites to private views please sign up to my mailing list here.