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Thursday 30 June 2011

CARA B = SIDE B, 7 - 17 July 2011, BLANKSPACE, Manchester

Live Drawing on Opening Night

Live Drawing on Opening Night

Opening Night Drawing

Opening Night Drawing


Live Draw 'Noise Upstairs' Improv Closing Day of Show

Opening Night Drawing

Existing Work Shown


Existing Work Shown

Existing Work Shown

Closing day of the exhibition plus special event 'Noise Upstairs' 

Join myself and the other artists from cara b = side b on Sunday the 17th of July for a special event on the final day of the exhibition for a collaboration between Noise Upstairs and Blank Media Collective.


The Noise Upstairs is an improv collective running free-improv jam nights in Manchester and Sheffield. The basic premise is that anyone can turn up and join in by putting their name in the hat. Names are pulled out, ensembles formed, and hearts broken. For this special event, artists and musicians are invited to come to BLANKSPACE and create an experimental improv with all those around you… 


Join the improvisation or simply watch/listen and enjoy, you will also be able to see the work we created on the opening night, existing work and more live performances from myself and Takahashi's Shellfish Concern.
More info http://www.blankmediacollective.org/events/exhibitions/carabsideb
 Drawing at the Opening of Cara B = Side B, Blank Space

 For more images from the opening click here http://www.flickr.com/photos/multisensory/sets/72157627223746298/

About Cara B = Side B Exhibition


 For this exciting exhibition I'll be showing existing work and drawing live on the opening night (6pm 7th of July) and again on the final day (4 pm 17th of july). I'll be working with the following musicians for live drawing; Dave Johnson, Paul Balcombe, Dan Bridgwood Hill and Dave Birchall. Follow this link for more information about my collaboration with musicians http://deadrabbit-ablog.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-collaborations-new-drawings.html

'Music meets paint in this explosive collaboration between Blank Media Collective (Manchester) and Untitled BCN (Barcelona) signaling the start of an exciting new relationship. Experience the live workings of artists and musicians up close and personal in an exploration of the senses. cara b = side b promises to deliver innovative and engaging results.

Presenting the works of Ephemeral Eggplant Intervention (Barcelona), Takahashi's Shellfish Concern and Naomi Kendrick (Manchester), audiences will experience the creation of works in front of their own eyes on the opening night. The exhibition will then showcase the results from these performances and collaborations, along with a series of special events / talks.' 

To find out more about the exhibition...
http://www.blankmediacollective.org/events/exhibitions/carabsideb

New Collaborations, New Drawings...


I have spent a lot of time ‘drawing musicians’ recently, though I realise as with the term ‘drawing music’, this does not accurately describe what happens. When I say ‘I’m drawing Dan the Guitarist today’ I actually mean ‘I’m off to draw the wordless thing, where Dan’s music and my mind meet’.  

My Boyfriend, Andrew, had an interesting way of further defining my drawings “ Marina Abromovich said that in the pecking order of art, it is music that is the most immediate and effecting, with long duration performance art being her attempt at approaching this kind of immediacy in visual arts. If that is so then maybe we can look at your ‘music drawing’ as being kind of like a net capturing some of the immediacy and pure moment of music in a drawing/piece of visual art. Maybe some bits slip through the net, but some goes down onto the paper.” 

I love the visual picture of the net, what I am drawing is fast moving, ephemeral - each time I draw, the music pulls at some part of me, and within the urgency of that moment, makes me tell it. 

'Mushrooming' (Dan & Dave Improv) Naomi Kendrick 2011. Photo Andrew Brooks



I enjoy the verbal language musicians use to describe the bringing together of people, who create something individually, simultaneously, to make a whole (through the use of musical instruments, or the voice). And so I jam with the musicians, plan gigs, ‘draw & record’. Jamming is the most appropriate term, as when I work with the musicians (at the moment 3 separate groups/individuals on a regular basis) we improvise, and with each session I make a new discovery, mark, or way of thinking about it.

I love the social aspect of the jams too, though visual artists work collaboratively, for me it has never felt quite like this. In some ways it is the perfect marriage of interests, we feed off of and encourage each others desire to experiment and play, and our individual actions and though processes are linked enough to have a shared understanding (articulated in a strange mix of bilingual audio and visual terms during the breaks), but never so close that we lose the awe for what the other person is doing, how they are expressing themselves. Often we can’t really explain what happened, we just get lost in the sound, and I in the lines.


'Dave & Paul Improv 1' Naomi Kendrick 2011. Photo Andrew Brooks

I find working with recorded music harder now. Being able to feel the vibrations of a guitar string, a drum, the piano key being struck rather than hearing than only hearing the note is far more exciting, as is the unpredictability of it and the moment intensified by knowing it is about now, this can not be played back and repeated. The drawings have always been an emotional response and this is heightened by ‘live’, and in some way by sharing that moment. 

The Manchester Halle Choir

'Halle' (Spring Large) Naomi Kendrick 2011

'Halle' (Untitled) Naomi Kendrick 2011

 That is not to say that it always works, Sometimes I have arranged a Jam, and the pressure to produce within a certain time frame, makes me feel like I am churning things out, but somewhere amongst each session, it comes together – the right balance of abandon and focus meet in the drawing.
The improvised nature of the music also means I keep my materials very simple during the Jams, charcoal provides me with a full vocabulary, often ending up as a smudged matter carried by my fist and fingers, without even the restriction of gripping. 

I continue to experiment with colour in my drawings as a whole, but find even with the use of just one colour the decision making this requires is even harder in the speed of improvised live music. There are many discarded ‘colour drawings’ from the jams. 

The solitary is still necessary. There is still an element of self-consciousness when drawing infront of the musicians despite them being a part of it rather than an observing audience. I also need that time to really push the drawings, to repeatedly listen to one piece of music if I want to, until I have ‘got it’, even if the drawing becomes of the sensation of endurance layered amongst what the music itself evoked. I have to keep working on my language. 

Sometimes I just need to be alone to do it, the radio head drawings (using their latest album ‘The King of Limbs’) are one result of this way of working, with these I learned to use space, economy in marks and touch, it re-trained me to listen when I needed that.

'Radio Head' (Codex) Naomi Kendrick 2011. Photo Andrew Brooks

'Radio Head' (Give up the Ghost) Naomi Kendrick 2011. Photo Andrew Brooks

Detail of 'Radio Head' (Morning Mr Magpie) Naomi Kendrick 2011. Photo Andrew Brooks

Working with each musician or group evokes very different things, all traceable within the drawings. To me they represent different states of mind, mostly due to the music they play but also through knowing them.

Dan and I face each other, he on a chair me on the paper on the floor, when he plays the guitar I am often overwhelmed by how sad the instrument sounds, it has it’s own voice and tells meandering, beautifully melancholic stories, even when it tries to be happy. I can't get away from wavy lines when I draw 'with' Dan. Dan himself, is very relaxed, a calming influence, that seems to balance the sadness of drawing ‘him’. The Last time I saw him he taught me how to go for a walk without having a purpose.


Detail -'Dan guitar 1' Naomi Kendrick 2011. Photo Andrew Brooks

 Dave and Paul’s music can be, intense, fast, as if I am running with lines and marks, it inspires movement, a rush. It gets my blood moving and charcoal crunching, snapping and pinging across the surface of the paper. I feel alive after wards. Dave and Paul buzz about us working together, we chat manically after wards, giddy.


'Dave & Paul Improv 1 Red' Naomi Kendrick 2011. Photo Andrew Brooks

Drawing Najia’s voice is to be exposed to her soul sometimes it is hard to ‘look’, to not be struck dumb by the beauty of the sounds she can make. My immediate response to her voice is not always to draw, perhaps fearing the intensity of what her voice may evoke. When I inevitably do make that leap, I swim, and enjoy again the surprise of an entirely new language emerging - one that I feel could turn into a series of drawings with an illustrative element running through them. Najia and I plan to draw and sing our way to New York together.


'Najia/His Eye is on the Sparrow' Naomi Kendrick 2011

Top 'Najia/Untitled', Bottom 'Forest' Naomi Kendrick 2011

'And You Sleep' Naomi Kendrick 2011.
 
More Drawings can be seen here:
 
Musicians Info: 
Dan Bridgewood Hill - http://dbhmusic.bandcamp.com/

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Salford University Residency 2011

An overview of the time, space and collaborative opportunities The School of Art & Design and Media, Music & Performance have been providing me with, and the work I have been making there.

Exhibiting & Experiments in Live Drawing

Poster for a week of drawing and showing at 'Create@Salford' The Lowry Outlet Mall

'Create@Salford' My studio and exhibition space for a week

Showing 'Naomi Kendrick Drawing Music' The DaDa commissioned film by Mark Morreau. Follow this link to see the film http://deadrabbit-ablog.blogspot.com/2010/12/drawing-music-film.html

'Intergalactic' Naomi Kendrick 2011

'Spem in Alium 1' Naomi Kendrick 2011

'Spem in Alium 2' Naomi Kendrick 2011

'Medulla' Naomi Kendrick 2011
To find out more about my week in the Mall follow this link
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150681646385651.685134.628050650

Space to work with collaborators

Drawing in Art and Design, Salford University, with musicians Dave Johnson and Paul Balcombe. Follow this link to find out more about my collaboration with musicians http://deadrabbit-ablog.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-collaborations-new-drawings.html

 Time to Draw & Instant Open Studio

The Drawing Studio, Art and Design, Salford University. Where most of my work has been made this year

Salford University students finding out about my work during my open studio.


Collaboration with Students & Testing Ideas

Collaboration with Music Student Manoli Moriaty. Manoli has design sensors that he attached to my hands as I drew, this meant that I manipulated the sound subtlety, whilst simultaneously drawing/responding to it. 

'Drawing from Manoli Collaboration' Naomi Kendrick 2011


School of Music, Media and Performance, Salford University. Exploring links between drawing and conducting music.


School of Music, Media and Performance, Salford University. Preparation for 'Drawn to the Beat @ Band on the Wall' with Dance and music students.
School of Music, Media and Performance, Salford University. Preperation for 'Drawn to the Beat @ Band on the Wall' with Dance and music students. To find out more about Drawn to the Beat @ Band on the Wall preparations follow this link http://deadrabbit-ablog.blogspot.com/2011/01/drawn-to-beat-preparations.html

Links 
AA2A Artists Access to Art Colleges
School of Art & Design
School of Music, Performance, and Media
http://www.salfordleftfield.co.uk/