Solitudo in Vita by John Cutting

The inspiration when creating Solitudo in Vita , reflects my own personal experiences suffering from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Covid 19 infection in some ways can very much reflect a similar pattern of isolation, fear of the unknown and erodes confidence in life ever becoming normal again. The salvaged decaying wooden chair and steps, symbolise a fragile and weakened body, stooped forward and unable to function at intended. The stone head cradled in bone hands, sitting precariously on the shoulders, ready to fall into obscurity. Like many silent victims today, defeated and succumbing to the influences of deteriorating mental health, sat down to die.

Artist statement
Using natural and manufactured objects, found within rural and urban environments, I create assemblage sculpture and instillations. Artistic combinations, overcoming the interference and disturbances, these objects may otherwise impose upon each other.
My art practice has developed from the numerous skills gained during my working life as an engineer, adventurer and traveller. Experiences, enabling me to identify and play with natural, raw, synthetic and engineered materials.

Utilising my imagination, observation, creativity and experimental approach, I identify suitable found and scavenged materials from their texture, form, malleability and connectivity properties. While embracing a fun influenced approach, to establish a working knowledge of the material’s capabilities and boundaries.

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gerald cooks in half the time! by Kelsey Cotton

Today I learnt if you cut out
a chicken’s backbone and break
it’s breastbone it cooks in half the
time. I’ve filed this normally
useless information away, and
now I’m thinking how fucking
perfect an analogy that is for
how my brain is feeling. Cracked
and smushed and like something
very fucking important is missing.

Cooks in half the time! Break
some things for your culinary
convenience. If you pour boiling
water over it, that’ll make the
skin extra crispy. Perhaps it’s
to compensate for the bones
that have just been snapped
and ripped out. Got to have that
satisfactory snap elsewhere. Cooks
in half the time! Thank fuck
I’m not a chicken with crispy skin

From the doldrums by Simon Fraser

From the doldrums

The dull drum murmurs have replaced
the vibrant song
energy is stifled by unwelcome lethargy.

A slow, uncertain rhythm emerges,
is barely discerned through pitted silence.
Intermittent motion.
Grey.
The rain adjusts the day in a non-specific way
and time is urgently endless.
Muffled noise.
So much nothing much.
Stuck.
Stop-start-stopped –
a semi-permanent hesitation in a puzzled void
listless and looking for change.

With nothing much to think about
my head fills up with crazy thoughts
the easy process is now fraught,
putting off indefinitely.

Irrational anger at inanimate objects
shouting just to hear some emotion
The inevitable repeating
stop-start-stop phase

• these doldrum days

A poem to vent the frustration which has become the starting point for a clown opera…

Still got this by Jane Middleton

A digital drawing in the form of a positive affirmation, ‘still.got.this’ to help give us a little boost…we’ve come this far and we’re stronger than we think! The illustration shows a woman looking empowered and positive, sliding down the iconic rainbow surrounded by other objects that have become Covid icons such as antibacterial gel, face masks and zoom calls.

I illustrate positive vibes, empowered women, hand drawn letters and some humour thrown in where relevant.This piece is produced digitally with bold colours and forms.

Www.janemiddletonart.co.uk

Weeks of Covid by Ria

WEEKS OF COVID

I am the storm of frustrationThe clouds go over the rain falls out like wetness of the coldness.The madness of people’s voices talking over and over again till it explodes.
BANG!! goes the world
People look and think what she’ll we do I say we already in mess.Just take a look around us we there.

Week1
Who am I,I’m the mess of creativityWho brings life together though quotes.Inside life they is quote everywhere you see & go.They will be there just listen to voices over again you’ll find it the end.

Week 2
I am a fighter of the GoddessI hide away in the shadows of darkness,I try make people happy deep under my tingling skin.
I end up feeling sham & guilty for what I’ve said as a human.I can’t change the past unless I changed the worldDon’t fight with me unless you need to.

I’m love having a sassy, silly, funny & kind Sense of humourand drips of sweat coming down with having a fitNo matter that I have to cope with the day to day shakiness and tirednesslike the sand and drips of sweat coming down with having a fitI might look like I’m dancing on the floor,but I really don’t give damn of what I look thenI know deep down under my skinI have strength to win,I can try and achieve all sorts in my incomeno matter what, I like my art it’s my life no matterif it’s scribbles on paper.

Week 2
This time I boiled the kettle and drunk my tea and saw the sparks in people’s eyes, byes
This time I saw anxiety in people’s facesFaces of fear of gloom and happiness
This time I see the numbers on the remote going up and down.Numbers going high & low as flick of a switch,People walking in and out like flash of lighting.
Busy buzz like bee flying.

Week 3
Where I came from the bank and my sister going on like a ringing bell saying move.I come from stars above and beyond.I come from mum who struggles to take care of me when young
My heart go be beyond the breath & feelings haunting me
I come from people who know me and made me, MEWith sassiness, time goes on.Time travels though time
Children get older and grow older learn how to be strong.Life is life we get on.

Ria

Artist statement

Ria works in two dimensions using paint, print and collage to create radical and inspirational slogans about identity. She has also recently branched out into creating electronic music.

Ria was one of the contributing artists in the Hidden Art / Hidden Artists exhibition. She created a three part work which is hidden from the audiences view inside boxes. The work is accessed by looking through peepholes with a torch. The three boxes are called ‘Horrific’, ‘Escaping the Life of Torture’ and ‘The Dream is in the Hospital’. They express Ria’s frustration that, while the old model of lifelong in-patient hospital support for people with disabilities has gone, she can still feel trapped in the invisible boxes of the care system.

Ria created an iconic large scale artwork she called ‘Graffiti Man’ which was turned into a postcard and poster to mark the joint 30th and 110th birthdays of Pyramid and Swarthmore Education Centre.

https://pyramid.org.uk/ria/

Warm Yellow (2021), Goodbye (2021) by Celeste Drouin-Davis

Poetry on photographs of buildings at night.

Celeste’s practice articulates her personal experience with spaces, how the home can impact them mentally and spiritually, provoking the viewer to reflect on their own spaces in the home. We make our own memories about the home, our own nostalgia. Celeste communicates this concept by video combined with poetry and written words; working upon the ideas of John Cage’s notions of space, as well as the theories on mass production by William James.

Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC80Siry5VHB7m3f1uG21TRQ Instagram- @celesteeni