Calling Margate artists: Mad for Margate

Those folks at Margate's Harbour Arm have put out the last call for artists wishing to show work in an impromptu show entitled 'Mad for Margate'. It will be held from the 6th to the 19th of June at the Harbour Arm Gallery. 


Every year they show the work of local artists. 


This year emerging and professional contemporary artists from the area are invited to submit work. As there is little lead time, please send your images and details, including image sizes please, to Pat Wilson (pat.wilson@i-machine.co.uk) by Thursday the 24th of May. 


The costs of gallery hire, and PV, which we hope to keep to between £15 and £20, will be shared by the participants.

Steve McPerson's 'Siren Signal' sound installation evokes the Kent Coast

 

Margate based artist, Steve McPherson, is exhibiting his sound sculpture installation 'Siren - Signal' on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd August within Light Vessel 21 (LV21), now moored at Gillingham pier on the river Medway.

The weekend is International Lighthouse Weekend and the 3 works that constitute 'Siren - Signal' will be installed in this magnificent 40 metre steel-hulled Lightship which saw active service at stations around the Kent coast between 1976 and 2001.

'Siren-Signal' references Steve's experience of growing up on that

 

coast, where the Fog Horn sound was a seasonal event that signalled the warning of impending and seemingly infinite cloud conditions. The Horns mournful cry echoed along the cliffs, yearning and piercing the visually impenetrable fog and thick sea mists that curtained the land and turned days into eerie twilights.

Vocally creating all the sounds and manipulating them digitally; Siren - Signal aims to reawaken slumbering memories and experiences which are no longer a part of our coastal environment, whilst  at the same time reflecting on and echoing my own and LV21's lost pasts.

LV21
Gillingham Pier
Pier Approach Road
Gillingham
Kent ME7 1RX

www.lv21.co.uk
www.stevemcpherson.co.uk
www.fromherewhereyouare.co.uk

DISPLACEMENT- MARGATE HARBOUR ARM GALLERY

Helder Clara is a Portugese artist living in Margate, which has been his home for the last 14 months. His new work ‘Displacement’ explores the feelings of disconnected-ness, of being cut adrift, that are experienced if we live in one place, but have our origins in another.

Helder has used recycled materials and the knitting process to create an installation that addresses these conflicting feelings . Knitting, like most craft work, is a repetitive and contemplative activity allowing the artist to ponder over, to sift through, his feelings about being a stranger in another land. The recycled clothes he has used carry their own meaning: they are ‘cast off’, ‘unwanted’, but yet they hold potential for another owner.

Using jellyfish as symbolic representations, Helder creates an immersive environment in which we are invited to imagine ourselves cast adrift. Jellyfish are ancient primitive animals: they encompass both beauty and danger. We are fascinated when we see them, but keep our distance. At the mercy of currents, tides and the weather, they are a metaphor for the lives of immigrants: disconnected, adrift, displaced.

‘Displacement’ runs from Saturday 31st July to Sunday 8^th August, Margate Harbour Arm Gallery - open daily from 1pm to 6pm and 7pm – 10pm, Admission free.

Event - Tim Spencer exhibition, The Margate Harbour Arm Gallery, Saturday 5th of June

Digital photographer, TimSpencer, is showing a collection of recently worked images in a new exhibition entitled 'about MARGATE' - a series of pictorial representations based on observations made during the three years since he moved from London to Cliftonville.

This is a new perspective showing diverse elements of the beautiful area around Thanet. With a fresh vision, Timhas framed captured moments in that ever-changing relationship between the seemingly permanent and the ostensibly transient.

Tim was born in 1956 and moved from Sussex to London in 1975. Upon completing university and, after 2 years in video production, he joined a local newspaper group and then went on to work as a free-lance photographer for more than 20 years.

Amongst the professional commissions he accepted, Timtook photographs of Prime Minister Tony Blair, Rock legend Mick Jagger and Microsoft founder, Bill Gates.

"The advent of digital photography and computer-based processing couldn’t have come soon enough for me!" says Tim. "The efficiency, the capabilities and the working environment, when released from the dark-room, are fantastic."

Tim moved to Cliftonville in March 2007 and recorded his first year in and around Thanet through a daily photographic blog entitled 'new2margate'. Some of these images appear in the show.

The exhibition 'about MARGATE' will be open at The Margate Harbour Arm Gallery for one day only on

Saturday 5 June 2010
11am - 7pm (free)

There is a preview on

Friday 4 June 2010 (by invitation)

The Margate Harbour Arm Gallery can be found between the new Turner Contemporary Building and the Stone Pier Lighthouse.

Margate Monsters Illustration

Found this great illustration by Daisy Emily Warne of Margate's most famous buildings on the lovely illustration blog site: Jam, Cake, Book...Sponge

Private View: Michelle Morris

On Friday 5th of June there is a the opening of the artist Michelle Morris' exhibition at her studio on the Harbour Arm.

Glimpse Margate

There's a photographic exhibition coming to the Margate Harbour Arm on April 3rd.
Glimpse seeks to celebrate the Margate UK Flickr group's website postings from the first two years, up until January 2009, and how the members of this online community came together through their photographs of Margate. The exhibition is as much about the people and the collection as the individual images themselves. Some people have never exhibited before, some are artists, some are native to Margate, some were just visiting.

What counts is that they came to Margate, were inspired to take a picture and motivated to share it. Glimpse will run until Sunday 19 April. The opening night event is on Friday 3 April, from 5pm-9pm, with delicious food to try from The Indian Princess restaurant. For more information go to the Glimpse blog at: http://glimpsemargate.blogspot.com/

And that's not the only thing on in town that night. The same Friday has the Turner Contemporary Project Space opening of their new show: The Sound of Music, which explores the links between art, sound and music. Featuring 30 works in a variety of media from artists including John Cage, Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller, Turner Prize nominee Angela Bulloch and Pierre Huyghe, all selected from the collection of the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais in Dunkirk. Alongside Sound of Music, Turner Contemporary presents Crossroads, a new video installation by David Blandy. Crossroads investigates the mythology surrounding the legendary Robert Johnson, a bluesman with three gravestones, 29 recorded songs and only two known photographs, who reputedly sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. The Sound of Music and Crossroads will run until Sunday 14 June.

Also, for one night only local artists will transform the interior of the Substation Project Space into a fantasy stage-set which will encompass both the audience and the evening’s musical performers. Headline act, French-Swiss two piece Vialka, proclaim themselves to be a “Turbo-folk mini-orchestra”, and promise to thrill the audience with their cabaret-influenced punk rock. Support comes from Margate’s Neverest Songs, Faversham’s Tikoloshe, and Canterbury/Brighton act Savlon. In addition, the local Roadkill Fanzine will be holding a stall at the venue, selling ‘zines, T-shirts and drawings. Tickets for this event are £4.50 payable on the door.on the night.

Art for my birthday

Lovely surprise this morning to receive art for my birthday by the Margate artist, Steve McPherson. Just beautiful. Now to find a suitable wall to place it on...

The sun was shining and we headed out for brunch. Struggled to find a place open today being Monday, so ended up in the newly opened Rokka Bar on the seafront. It's a little white and stark for my early morning taste. If they move into fresh breakfasts the view could make it a nice place in the summer. It seems like they cater for the evening crowd.