The De La Warr Pavilion Artists’ Crit Group meets on the last Thursday of every month at 6-8pm in the DLWP Studio.

The meetings are informal, friendly and offer visual artists an opportunity to share their work and ideas in a mutually supportive setting.

June’s guest speakers are Sue McDougall and Cliff Crawford.

Sue McDougall says that much of her work is a way of trying to come to terms with the brevity of the human lifespan but she hopes that the results are playful rather than gloomy. She has a diverse practice, engaging in both painting and sculpture. Some of her works are clearly one, some clearly the other, but she is particularly interested in the boundary between the two – three dimensional works that are painted, two dimensional works that do not take the classic rectangular form. Some of her work is modular and can be arranged in different ways, allowing the creative pathway to be shared with others. Sue likes to work large but tries to ensure that large does not equate to heavy. Thanks to helium, some of her sculptures have even been lighter than air.

Cliff Crawford works with a broad range of media including digital animation. For his recent project ‘Faceless Portraits’ he has created a series of digitally animated heads using ‘Blender’ software. Cliff says “The initial head I created in Blender, was a generic head – little more than a balloon shape. So I made a representation of a specific individual: however the self-portrait was all about the objects placed on the “head”. With this head, I wanted a classic 3D bust as the starting point. Having made a digital, yet traditional, representation of a head I looked to camouflage it with a set of photographic images from ‘Faceless Portraits’ a series of photographs I produced in November last year.

Inside looking out

I collect, make, do and see.

My face is not me.

The images wrapped around the face present aspects of personality that are missing from a traditional portrait, but they also camouflage and influence perception. This process of influence based around the most easily perceived aspect is usually with the face as the principal influence.The wrapped image reveals something of the person without the traditional access of a sculpted head. The resulting image disrupts rather than excludes the face.”

About the Artists' Crit Group

The De La Warr Pavilion Artists’ Crit Group meets on the last Thursday of every month at 6-8pm in the DLWP Studio.

The group began in 2009 as a six month long, artists’ career development pilot project. Over the years, the group has evolved into a sociable group which meets on a monthly basis with members dropping in regularly or occasionally and the group continues to grow and attract new members. Meetings usually take place in the De La Warr Pavilion Studio but occasionally we visit members exhibitions and studios too.

The group aims to be inclusive and welcomes all visual artists from students and recent graduates, enthusiastic amateurs, emerging and mid-career creative professionals, through to established artists working in any medium including film, photography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, performance, illustration and digital art.

The meetings are informal, friendly and offer visual artists an opportunity to share their work and ideas in a mutually supportive setting. There’s no set format, all artists are welcome to present their work in whatever way they feel is most appropriate. You don’t need to prepare a talk, but can if you wish. The only requirement is that there’s an opportunity to ask questions and discuss the work as a group. Meetings are two hours long, which allows plenty of time for an in-depth conversation, it may sound like a long time but presenters invariably remark on how quickly the time goes and meetings have been known to overrun and continue on in the local pub afterwards.

Over the years group members have built strong relationships with one another and have collaborated on various projects including the Navigate Art Trail in Bexhill and the Sotto Voce Exchange Residency which saw a group of our members making work and exhibiting in the castle in Corigliano D’Otranto in Italy in Winter 2014 and reciprocal visit from Italian artists, musicians and actors making work, performing and exhibiting in and around Hastings and Bexhill in Summer 2015. These projects were generously supported by the De La Warr Pavilion, Rother District Council and Hastings Council, Sussex Coast College, St Mary in the Castle and Jerwood Gallery.

Previous presenters include

Join the Artists' Crit Group

The group is free to join and is coordinated by painter-curator Paula MacArthur.

Please contact her for further information paulamacarthur@me.com

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