Newsletter – February 2009
Lost Words Part 2 ...
The hugely successful ‘Lost Words Project’ that formed the focal point for the reopening of Newlyn Art Gallery and Exchange in 2007 is back!
The interactive community-based project devised and implemented by myself and Pete Lyon from Pool School Business and Enterprise College, is to be developed into Lost Words Found Objects as pert of the Heartlands redevelopment initiative, www.theheartlandsproject.org.uk, already underway in Pool near Camborne.
I will be working with young people from the College to gather stories and ‘lost’ words from local families that reveal the history of Pool‘s past and also the contemporary cultural influences and concerns for the future of the area.
Heartlands is part of a £22 million redevelopment scheme for the area - once a thriving tin mining industry based around South Crofty mine and Robinsons shaft. The Lost Words Found Objects project aims to give people a creative platform in their local community, to explore and express living memories of the area, to tell their stories and describe their aspirations. The project will inspire and inform the future of Creative Projects at Heartlands
The New Landscape exhibition at Royal Cornwall Museum Truro ...
I am currently showing two pieces of work from the ‘Landscape Paintings’ series in The New Landscape exhibition curated by Rupert White www.artcornwall.org, and Robin Airey www.royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk.
The New Landscape
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
17/1/09 - 14/3/09
The artists of the original Newlyn and St Ives schools, while drawing influences from French impressionism, were also part of a tradition in British landscape painting that can be traced back through Constable and Turner to the great watercolourists of the 18th century like Crome, Cotman and Cozens.
During the 1940s and 50s West Cornwall went on to provide the backdrop for more daring experiments in landscape art by a new generation of artists. Peter Lanyon famously described himself as a landscape painter, whilst Barbara Hepworth, John Tunnard, Ithell Colquhoun, Ben Nicholson, John Wells, Bryan Wynter and many other 20th century modernists, centred on St Ives, were inspired in different ways by the landscape of Cornwall.
In the 21st century art in Cornwall has become more diverse and eclectic than ever before. Whilst representational landscape painting (or paintings of ‘views’) has a broad popular appeal and remains the most conspicuous and commercially successful type of art, other more contemporary and critical approaches to the landscape have become important.
Artworks made using newer technologies, or borrowing from recent art movements like Land Art or Installation Art, offer new ways with which to represent and therefore consider our experience of the landscape of Cornwall.
These approaches look more to the future than the past. What tend to be depicted are no longer ‘views’ in the traditional manner, but rather ideas: ideas that link history, politics and contemporary lifestyle issues with a sense of place.
Artist-led organisations helped these art practices to become established in Cornwall in the 1990s. It is a process that has continued in the last few years with the support particularly of the Newlyn Art Gallery, and more progressive private galleries in the county. It is an approach also found frequently reflected on the pages of the online magazine artcornwall.org.
In recent years artists have tended to organise their own events and exhibitions, quite often in unconventional or provocative locations. Many of the artists in ‘The New Landscape’ have been involved in these site-specific events including: ‘Wheal Art Weekend’ near Carn Brea (eg Alison Sharkey and Paul Chaney), ‘MORE Cornwall’ in various locations (eg Rupert White and Daryl Waller), ‘Second Nature’ in Truro Cathedral (eg Andy Hughes), ‘The Pack’ at The Eden Project (Ben Cook) ‘CUT/STACK/BURN’ at Tremenheere (Bruce Davies), and ‘BOSArts08’ in Bosigran (Ian Whitford).
Whilst photography and video has been used in a number of these cases to document site-specific interventions, ‘The New Landscape’ also includes work by artists based in Cornwall who use photography or new media in a way that is less interventionist, and more ‘descriptive’ (Patrick Shanahan, Ian Brown and Nigel Ayers)
‘The New Landscape’ therefore represents an unprecedented opportunity to see a range of contemporary landscape-inspired works in an accessible central location.
Coming Soon ...
Surf Stories
An exhibition of new works, including found object assemblages and new ‘Bellyboard Collages’ in the project space at Cornwall Contemporary Gallery in Penzance. More next time.
R I P Kamikaze , 2009
Hollow kook box made from recycled materials.
For regular updates on new works check out my Surf Art? blog site
bencookartist.tumblr.com
to download the February 2009 newsletter please click here
Newsletter – October 2008
Ben Cook / O P D limited edition tee shirts ...
Only 16 remaining out of the edition of 50! £36.00 each plus P + P
The Local - International tee shirt that started out as a bespoke diffusion line product for the Eden Project, is quickly becoming a collectors’ item. Tim Smit, the man who founded Eden, bought FIVE. There can’t be a better validation than that.
This is one of the most, if not the most, ethical tee shirts on the planet and an affordable artwork to boot.
Made from organic cotton and printed in PVC-free inks, each tee shirt has an individually designed and signed label made from recycled neoprene. There is no plastic packaging with this product, just recycled beach string and a recycled paper packet for mail order.
To purchase please contact Ben or Garry:
ben.cook5@virgin.net GP@opd.eclipse.co.uk
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New collage works ...
What are Cornish boys to do? 2008
Bespoke tie made from found textile and chalk on board
I am currently working on a series of photocollage / assemblages, using a combination of drawing, found imagery and surf related objects.
These works address aspects of a surfer’s life other than the ‘stoke’ of catching waves. I love surf art as much as the next surfer (see www.clubofthewaves.com ), however, through my work I am attempting to examine some of the more serious issues that affect surfers living in Cornwall.
Localism related to the housing market, and in the water over ‘rights to waves’, the commercialisation of surfing and it’s perceived loss of soul, the toxic paradox of surfing’s natural image and the compulsive/addictive nature of riding waves, are some of the ideas inspiring the new work.
What are Cornish boys to do? (image above) was inspired by a piece of graffiti in Camborne’s Tuckingmill skate bowl.
The skater who’d written it in the bowl had made a YouTube video of this title, after he had seen it written on the outside of the closed South Crofty Tin Mine.
After a bit of Googling I traced the writing to a Cornish folk song, ‘Cornish Lads’ by Roger Bryant, which goes:
Well Cornish lads are fishermen
And Cornish lads are miners too
So when the fish and tin are gone
What are Cornish boys to do?
With the loss of these industries in Cornwall, there are very few career opportunities for young people who wish to stay in the county. Much available work is seasonal and low paid, but what attracts some of them to stay is surfing.
The tourism industry in Cornwall uses the attractive image of surfing to glamourise the county, but surfing in Cornwall is not, and will never be a career option, due to the inconsistent surf and the remote geographical location of the area.
The ‘surfer’s tie’ is thus a paradoxical item representing the (non)possibility of a career in surfing, and also an item of clothing seldom found in a surfer’s wardrobe.
to download the October 2008 newsletter please click here
October 2008
See my new blog, Surf Art? at bencookartist.tumblr.com
September 2008
Read Alex Wade’s article from Cornwall Today (PDF download) »
September 2008
Read The Pack - article by Rupert White www.artcornwall.org »
Newsletter – June 2008
Ben Cook at Eden Exhibition opens...
Eden Landscape paintings for sale...
Limited edition Local - International tee shirts
Ben Cook at Eden exhibition opened on 5th June with a packed private view and coverage on BBC Spotlight TV, BBC Radio Cornwall, Pirate FM and the Sunday Times supplement. More to follow...
The Pack 2008
A special thanks to everyone involved in the development and production of the exhibition, especially Arts Council England South West, Tris Cokes/Homeblown, Chris Hines, Norman Frost/Sustainable Composites, Peter Hampel/Eden Project and Shaun and Petra Richardson/50-67 VW transporter restorers.
For more information go to www.edenproject.com
To view the Landscape paintings on show in the Core Gallery at Eden, and for prices and information, click here for works for sale ».
Ben Cook at Eden tee shirt
For his exhibition at the Eden Project, Ben Cook has collaborated with Obvious Product Design to create a limited edition, signed tee shirt.
The LOCAL - INTERNATIONAL slogan was originally made by scratching into surf wax. It reflects Ben’s practice, and also the surfing and environmental issues addressed by his exhibition.
It is a take on the old adage Think Global - Act Local, which is more relevant today than ever.
The tee shirt is made from organically grown cotton, by Earth Positive, the most progressive, ethical tee shirt company on earth.
It has been printed using PVC FREE, water-based inks by the only Soil Association certified organic tee shirt printer in the UK.
Each tee shirt has been individually signed, customized and packaged by Ben Cook and the OPD production team, using found and recycled materials -neoprene from old wetsuits and fishing string, gathered from the debris washed up on our beaches.
The tee shirt is £36.00 and numbers are limited to the run of the exhibition.
Available to purchase from the Eden Project, Cornwall.
to download the June 2008 newsletter please click here