Sophie Ashdown

On this day we started at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) and it was a lovely sunny day. 

We went in for the “New Contemporaries” exhibition. Of course my instinct is to go to the things that are monochrome and/or have a pattern but I made sure to look at everything. 

I liked this piece by Sara Osman because it is white/grey, is in a circular pattern, and has an urban edge to it. If I did sculptures I could see myself making something like this but without the crumbled pieces as I like things to be neat and tidy!

This piece by Hazel O’Sullivan speaks to me because it was the most like something I would make, apart from the colour scheme. When you first glance at it, the pattern seems to be symmetrical but when you take more time you realise that it has some clever differences.

This piece was both powerful and d disturbing. It has a family of four eating their dinner in a seemingly normal way except for this great block of stone pushing them down so their heads are almost on the table as they eat. There are many metaphors that could be drawn from this, and I’m sure there are many families that can relate to this. We love our families but there is always a great weight of history, responsibility, guilt, and expectation that I think this is trying to convey.

I love a good gallery shop and I found this great little book about women, technology, and art. It had a chapter talking about constructivism so I had to get it! A review will come later.

After the ICA we headed to the Tate Modern, one of my favourite places in the world.

I used to work just along the river from it and would often wander around in my lunch break. I haven’t been for almost a year so I was excited to go back.

There was a great exhibition called Electric Dreams about art inspired by technology. Kate, Dalal, Fatema, and I all went in together.

Wow it was even better than I hoped. There were so many fascinating oieces and also so many that were related to what I make. Here are some of my favourites:

This feels like a mobile version of a constructivist painting.

I love all the lines in this. It’s hard to tell from the photo but there are front pieces that slightly move so the horizontal pattern in the background changes as you look at it. I also love the monochrome of course.

This is hundreds of nails in a wooden panel. I spent some considerable time looking at this piece and it has given me an intriguing idea that I want to try.

From far away the pattern is interesting…

And up close you can see the complexity of the detail that makes the pattern overall.

This is one of my favourites for obvious reasons. It’s linear, complicated, monochrome, ordered, and even has an urban feel. I love it.

This was a large room with patterns that washed over the furniture and people. There were giant white balloons that the kids were enjoying. The light patterns played on the balloons as they roamed around the space.

I like the technical feel of this piece. It strikes me as a mixture of data, pattern, technology, and space invaders!

I’m not a fan of the colours here but I appreciate the pattern.

These are pieces created with algebraic functions. I love this concept and am considering exploring this further as I love maths and data.

Overall the exhibition was very inspiring. Stay tuned to see how my work is influenced in the future.

We also looked at the public galleries and enjoyed the experience. What a great day.

Here are just a few more pieces from the main collection:

A fantastic day of seeing so much inspiring art!