Shaun Gladwell Archives - DLWP, The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, East Sussex

hybrid life forms ……

This last Lift the Lid of the season was pretty busy with a stream of families taking a break from the lovely sunshine to come and join us in the Gladwell related activities. The most popular activity involved the use of brightly coloured plasticene to create hybrid creatures/montsters – some were not unlike Shaun Gladwell’s film of a strangely clad motorbike rider, others were rather cute and cuddly !

Some explored the idea of hybrid beings through drawing, colouring and collage creating some strange and startling creatures !

Penultimate Zine Workshop

Our penultimate zine workshop in conjunction with the Shaun Gladwell exhibition was held on Saturday May 25th. Despite only a few participants this session, there was a lot of great quality work, particularly using creative collage.

Local artist, Paco De Quesada, produced a lovely zine entitled Andalusia, which used a simple amphora shape throughout to explore texture and colour.

Other fellow zinsters explored shape and pattern to make visually arresting designs…

Still others made collage illustrations using the theme of ‘eyes’.

While another zine created work on the theme of food.

Thanks for all who came to the workshop – the final one will be held on the 8th June.

The Ride Goes On

Our cavalcade of Radical Riders, inspired by Shaun Gladwell’s Jack-in-the-Green, continued this week, with a new cast of characters. A quiet afternoon in terms of gallery visitors, but a very lively afternoon in terms of the live music installations all over the building by performcrs from the cutting-edge electronic music label, Editions Mego.

Our interaction zone on the rooftop foyer was a little haven of incredibly concentrated activity. Lovely visitors, lovely work. Let the carnival begin..

Elvis and friend….21st century Rapunzel…and her pink companion…Dudette…Alien…Superman…Spiderman…Bart…Mermaid…Floral princess…Batman…The Wicked Witch, hotly pursued by…Dorothy and Toto…

… lights camera action !

For the last time we are up on the top of the De La Warr Pavilion posing and posturing in front of a stormy sea to see how visitors shape up for the task of looking cool, looking good, looking convincing as they balance on their skate/surf boards ! The sun is shining the wind is blowing and we are all set for the ‘shoot’.

Got the chance to photograph the skateboarders on Gladwell’s ramps today – they were enjoying the sunshine and shimmying around the ramps in effortless style. Thanks to all those who were eager to have their photo taken and for all the chats about the Shaun Gladwell exhibition, Bexhill, the De La Warr and the location of many many unused skateboards and surfboards -perhaps they will see the light of day again !

Waggy Tails and other stories

Our third fanzine-making workshop, which was held on the 13th April was well attended – with another full table of cutting and pasting participants.

Some of those involved joined forces to make zines together – including four friends who made our biggest fanzine yet entitled “Waggy Tail”, which ran to many pages and gives us the title of this post.

Other notable titles included “Rage” (a very angry zine!) and “Book of Anything.”

And a few more from the session..

The next fanzine workshop will be held on Saturday 25th May – hope to see you all there!

Easter Zine Workshop

Many thanks and congratulations to all those who took part in the continuing zine workshops held on the Easter Saturday, which turned out to be a busy session…

The zine-making table was frenetic with activity and covered in piles of books, magazines and paper as participants cut, glued, drew and designed their own fanzines.

The sessions last for three hours, but the time flew by and some of the most productive amongst us completed multiple paged zines with the finished articles finally photocopied on to coloured paper.

Some budding zine-designers have vowed to come back to the next sessions to create more page designs and new zines as they experiment with the process. There were too many interesting examples to show everyone’s work on the blog but hopefully the selection of images here show the range of people’s creativity and expression.

Stay tuned for the next zine-making session coming up on Saturday April 13th from 1pm.

Fanzine workshops with Tristan Manco

Our first fanzine workshop took place on the 2nd March which proved popular with visitors to Shaun Gladwell’s exhibition. Participants got the chance to experiment with various DIY design techniques including collage, stencil lettering, rubber stamps, hand-lettering and drawing in an informal atmosphere with a view of the Mini Ramp Intersection installed on the roof terrace. The challenge was taken up by both adults and children with some very creative results.

Shaun Gladwell is fascinated with subculture and mythology in varied forms such as skateboarding extreme sports and cult movies. The zine workshop is intended to be a springboard to celebrate your own culture, passions and obsessions through art and design. The sessions take place right through to June guided by local designer and street art advocate Tristan Manco who is the author of a number of books that celebrate DIY art including Stencil Graffiti and Street Sketchbook.

The next session falls on the Easter Saturday March 30th – please feel free to come and join us!

Radical Riders reappear

The rooftop foyer of the Pavilion is becoming the chill-out zone of choice, with visitors settling in for the afternoon, soaking up the calm, the views and the pleasures of drawing. The combination of inspiring books, monitors showing films of BMX stunts and an interview with Shaun Gladwell, on-tap drawing materials and the rooftop ramp, is creating an environment which is a wonderful mixture of creativity and reflection.

The Radical Riders became more fantastical this week, from the fairytale to the freaky, with appearances including manga vigilantes, vampires and ghosts, as well as a range of highly technicolour motorcyles with equally vibrant riders.

Radical Riders (with Sheridan Quigley)

Now that Shaun Gladwell has sent the Green Man touring the Sussex back lanes on a motorbike, who knows who else may be close behind. On Saturday afternoon our gallery visitors considered this very question and came up with some enticing suggestions. Many familiar figures emerged from the drawing table on the top floor of the building, alongside some new personalities. Great fun, great vibe. Also, it was terrific to see so many adults taking part, rather than believing that gallery activities are only for children!

Talking about Lawrence

A keen audience of David Lean fans gathered on Sunday, for a special matinee showing of his iconic film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – and although I was there to introduce the movie as guest speaker, it was soon clear from a show of hands, that I was going to be preaching to the already converted. Almost every one there had seen the film before, and so it was with the sense of sharing a passion rather than introducing one, that I began to talk about Lean, his film and its links to the current, Cycles of Radical Will, exhibition. With both Shaun Gladwell and David Lean exploring identity, the tradition of the romantic landscape and the lone figure within it – there was much to discuss, and then with the music of Maurice Jarre’s famous score, beginning to reverberate around the De La Warr auditorium, we finally l settled down to immerse ourselves in the sweeping desert landscapes of Lean’s film.