“Why are you so concerned about society?” That is always the question. And my answer is simple: “Because you are an artist, you have to associate yourself with freedom of expression.” - AI WEIWEI
The Vanguart Collective presents The Conscious Art Exhibition, displaying work by like minded creatives who believe in using the power of art to provoke change for a better and more sustainable future. We aim to bring together artists of all discipline's who are making a conscious effort to raise awareness regarding sociopolitical and environmental issues affecting the global community. We believe in the collective power of the people, and art as an universal language.
Issue #1 VANGUARTISTS Mike Stout Christian Marot Niamh Curran Jessica Johnson Aaron Howell Nicola Radford Janin Raiz Lucy Dalton Jamie Sinclair Emily Tomasso Erin Caine Alice Rae Sam Horton Beth Sherrard Michael Savage
S T O U T M I K E Mike describes his work as “detailed black ink drawings of weird trippy stuff.” His main sources of inspiration into 4 simple categories: conversations, documentaries, nature and substances. “We live in a world that is controlled by banks & corporations, evil masked villains of which influence the news and corrupt governments in order for them to obtain more wealth and power, this is an aspect of our world that deeply bothers me.” “Over the past couple years I’ve fallen rather deep into the subject of conspiracies, which obviously just saying the word ‘conspiracy’ flags up ‘crazy’ in most peoples brain, but I cant really think of another word to sum up what subjects I find most fascinating. I’ve always been greatly inspired by how powerful illustration can be in bringing awareness to subjects of great importance, the ability to say something without needing to utter a single word, something that makes people think or revaluate.”
H O W E L L A A R O N “LOST”. Aaron’s piece explores how an individual inhabits his personal space whilst mentally isolated from a congested society. Lost in his own world, it conveys the beauty of being totally submerged in one’s own imagination, instincts and desire. The film aims to challenge the limitations of ‘social normality’ and the potential in a person’s freedom to create and express. Dancer- Shawn Willis
R A E A L I C E Alice’s piece was initially inspired a psychic reading she had on her 21st birthday. During the session the medium describe to her a scene. The setting was the beach, with two transparent triangles positioned parallel, in the first triangle you could see the water magnified and in the second triangle the sea was far away. She cut shapes from acrylic and took them to the beach to see if she could recreate what the medium was describing. The weather and environment applied uncontrollable constraints to her project, which shows through in the mood of her visuals. The circle discs represent the moon and by having them in the water this in turn represented their control over the tides. The acrylic would stop or alter the direction of the water flow. This made her think about the contrast between the objects which where man-made and the environment which was unpredictable and forever changing.’
S H E R R A R D B E T H Beth’s Don’t Waste Create was an animation she did made entirely out of recycled materials. It was originally created to promote Up-cycling for the space that used to be the Brudenell school but has just been left as wasteland. ‘UpCycled’ was created when experimenting with recycled materials; using these Beth created her animation, it progressed on to a more realistic animation to promote recycling to children.
T O M A S S O G O V I E R E M I L Y Emily’s project is centred on social-economic prejudice and waste, interested in photographing the uncomfortable, the underbelly of the everyday. It presents recurring themes of waste and human trace and through photographing individuals bath water from different social backgrounds from P.E teachers to Lawyers, it makes a stand against social prejudice through spotlighting that even those from a high social-economic standing have dirty bath water they would rather nobody see.
C A I N E E R I N Erin’s piece serves as a conversation between herself and a peer, starting at each side on the edge, working towards the centre. It consists of snippets of rough poetry noted when out and about on the move; comments on society, people’s body language, gender stereotypes and her own feelings. The painting was executed in a quick, frantic fashion as the ideas were scraped onto the canvas. Erin sees the piece as a cathartic experience where discontented emotions were released onto the surface through the medium of paint.
S I N C L A I R J A M I E Jamie: “As a documentary photographer I aim to be socially engaging with my work. Challenging audiences to think differently about situations they may previously not have given thought to.�
R A I Z J A N I N Janin has created a world that embraces diversity, a utopic place where there are no borders. In this mixed media piece she has selected cutouts from magazines taking them out of their context and has given them a new one by uniting them in this idyllic landscape. Her piece was created out of frustration with extreme patriotism and is in opposition of nationalism. She believes that this political ideology encourages blind faith that blocks people from possessing any true faith in humanity. It is a celebration of our multicultural world and its differences which is what she believes is truly beautiful.
J O H N S O N J E S S I C A Through the exploration of illusion Jessica’s work analyses the relationship between the consumer and the world of marketing and advertising. She considers how this society and world we live in is manipulated heavily by large scale corporations at a large cost to our environment with little reflection on the impact on our world.
D A L T O N L U C Y Lucy’s piece explores themes of isolation, depression and diagnosis. It is about her personal diagnosis of health issues and how she deals with it. “I found this piece helped a lot with other people coming to understand how isolating a health diagnosis can be as well as helping other visualise their own journey through similar situations…It’s very important to me that we bring awareness to help issues such as depression, anxiety, pain issues and very importantly feeling alone in a situation which being along is not an option”.
S A V A G E M I C H A E L “Human/nature� is a project Michael began over Summer 2015, born of frustration with the general mistreatment of our planet and appreciation of the nude. It aims to re-establish the synthesis of natural form and rural landscape, as the subject wanders through vibrant shrubs, gazes at pastel skies and immerses himself within crashing riverbeds. It is a celebration of natural beauty in a world ravaged by deforestation, air pollution and ocean contamination.
C U R R A N N I A M H In response to the film Girl Rising, Niamh’s piece help raise awareness for young girls in developing countries who have no rights to education. She has created her own piece to go along side the film to promote the film and the cause. She thinks that people can easily forget important issues like this in other countries because we disconnect from them, people often forget how lucky we are.
R A D F O R D N I C O L A The title of Nicola’s piece is Receptacles; the work is visually focused on the semiotics surrounding female genitalia and the objectification of women in general. The sentences she has used are all from women who have been raped and their experiences surrounding that event. 1 in 20 UK women are raped. She feels it is important as a woman artist to highlight issues that affect women.
H O R T O N S A M U E L Sam’s photos question, “how do I escape without imagining a utopian city? In puddles, windows and mirrors reflections are perceived; they all allow me to visually slip away from reality through an alternate dimension for a split second. Deceiving me to believe I have a chance to escape, however, I realise that this is only a mirrored perception of reality, recording my moves. Although, they allow me to see an alternative reflection of life, implying that there is always another side to everything-conceptually referencing the totalitarian system we are trapped in. I strive to teach contextually through imagery that once you understand there are alternatives in life (alternative perspectives perceived through reflections) it will influence your opinions and the way you perceive life, exposing that you don’t have to live systematically under the influence of others. This is my peaceful revolt against capitalism”.
Mike Stout www.stoutisland.com/ Christian Marot www.christianmarot.format.com/ Niamh Curran niamhjfcurran@gmail.com Jessica Johnson www.jessicafayejohnson.com Aaron Howell www.howlcreative.wix.com/work Nicola Radford www.cargocollective.com/nicolaradfordfineart Janin Raiz www.cargocollective.com/jraiz Lucy Dalton www.facebook.com/LoadedDimension Jamie Sinclair www.jamiesinclairart.com/ Emily Tomasso www.emilytomasso.co.uk Erin Caine www.instagram.com/bogzart Alice Rae www.alice-rae-wd1y.squarespace.com Sam Horton samxhorton@gmail.com Beth Sherrard www.bethleahdesign.com Michael Savage michaelshaunsavage@gmail.com
Directed by
Janin Raiz and Niamh Curran With Special Thanks to Jessica Johnson