Meet the artist: Daksha Patel
How do you go about transforming an idea like that into a physical piece?
Drawing is a primary method for thinking through ideas and of realizing them. It is a very direct and immediate way to explore ideas. I use methods and processes that respond in some way to my subject matter. For instance, I have used clay - a material that is unstable and slowly drops off the paper surface as it dries - to draw landscapes that are undergoing desertification. Or animal fat to draw Meet the artist: Olivia Punnett
How do you get ideas for each piece of work?
I have a set of central concerns, drawing inspiration from natural ephemera, and exploring the photochemical mark are two. I am a print maker and use photographs in that process often, taking medium format film photos myself and then choosing from the images I have which to take forward into printmaking processes.
I then have ideas about ways of presenting these images, and how I would like people to perceive the images. These often mimic reflection, or I try to achieve this, often with mirrors. I play with these set-ups until they form a good position.
How do you go about transforming an idea like that into a piece of art?
Play is my main tool, I give myself lots of photos, prints or equipment to play with and test out different combinations of them. The blurred or washed over effect of an image that has passed through an imperfect lens translates, to me, to the recalled or remembered image.
My first mentoring session with Frank Abbott
Last week, I had my first mentoring session with Frank Abbott, an artist who, like myself, plays with technology within his work. Frank and I discussed how I could enhance my paintings, by adding what we referred to as a ‘real’ material, something that could only be fully experienced in the ‘flesh’. I have decided that I will experiment with materials that change appearance as the viewer moves around them, for example iridescent paints or reflective tape. We also discussed the possibility of being more loose and disruptive in my paintings. I plan to do this by including more ‘playful’ imagery.
A month into my residency
So far I have completed one of the three paintings, I will be making for the IRL exhibition. This first painting, like all my work, was initially made on Adobe illustrator, from which I then transferred onto canvas using acrylic. This work provides us with a tangible window into the surreal digital landscape. Through the use of multiple vibrantly painted surreal flowers, the painting represents copy and paste, as well as repetitive ‘eye candy’ you may find on digital screens. All of the flowers share the same simplified visual DNA, to replicate the quick and passive qualities of digital imagery. After reviewing the finished painting, I now hope to alter it by making it more ‘Real’ and ‘Tangible’, through the addition of materials that would only display their desired effect in the ‘flesh’. I also hope to make more of the digital design language visible through the addition of more imagery.
When I haven’t been in Artcore, I have been working on the largest of three paintings, in my studio in Swindon. This work depicts the vastness of the digital world and I am using household gloss to make it. In my next painting I am planning on showing a more playful side to the digital world.
A month into my residency
Meet the artist: Maria Cepeda
Maria Cepeda is Fine Arts tudent from Leeds Arts University.
She works with sculptures to investigate the existing relationship between self-other-environment.
Work across different materials, approaching sculpting in a performative and innovative way her research is currently focused on how this relationship is studied by new materialism, stressing the impact of technology on the way we perceive our own material bodies.
She is one of the two artists selected for In Real Life residency, second of 4 artist residencies organized and curated by Artcore between 2018/2019.
We visited her in the artist studio, where we had a conversation about how she looks at her sculptures as both organic and technological elements use to reflect on future condition of human body.
Have a read of what she says!

Maria Cepeda, Wear, Ceramic, 2018
Meet the artist: Tom Van der Meulen
Tom Van der Meulen is a recent Fine Arts graduate from the University of Reading. He creates his own digitally influenced paintings that explore the relationships between painting and the digital world. Van der Meulen’ work can be described as ‘A-temporal’; painting that has entered an unrestricted arena where all forms and periods of art can coexist at once taking influence from a range of sources.
He is one of the two artists selected for In Real Life residency, second of 4 artist residencies organized and curated by Artcore between 2018/2019.
We visited him in the artist studio, where we discovered some interesting aspects of his research concerning the representation of digital spaces and imagery through the medium of contemporary painting.
Have a read of what he says!

Tom Van der Meulen, Elide, 2018, Household Gloss on canvas

