Colour & Poetry: A Symposium V
Colour & Poetry: A Symposium V, 21st - 22nd March 2023, is a cross- and inter-disciplinary two-day virtual event held by the Slade School of Fine Art, in celebration of International Colour Day, World Poetry Day and World Pigment Day. The symposium hosts a range of speakers representing the arts and humanities, science, and industry, drawing upon knowledge from within and outside of the UCL community, it includes presentations, readings, performance and practical workshops.
Featured Media
Symposium Director: Jo Volley
Colour/Print/Poetry
Online exhibition Colour/Print/Poetry will accompany the Symposium.
Poster
Lesley Sharpe, Colour, Print & Poetry V (Palatino), 2023, 29.7cm x 42cm
This year's Colour & Poetry image is available to buy as a digital pigment print and printed in an edition of 50 exclusively for the symposium. Please contact Lesley Sharpe if you would like to purchase a print. Cost - £50
This event is generously supported by Colart.
Booking
Free: online via Zoom
Tuesday 21 March: International Colour Day & World Poetry Day
10.00 Welcome: Jo Volley, Symposium Director
10.15 Baroque Sari Professor Liz Rideal
Liz Rideal is an artist and writer whose work reflects an interest in colour, movement, repetition and the aesthetics and culture of cloth and drapery.
Professor and Leverhulme Fellow, recipient of a British Academy Award and a Scholarship at the British School at Rome, her publications include books on self-portraiture, portraiture and a best-seller: How to Read Painting. Rideal’s work is held in Tate; Victoria & Albert Museum; British Museum; The Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; Museet for Fotokunst, Denmark; Berkley Art Museum, Portland Art Museum, The George Eastman Museum, Yale Centre for British Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.
10.45 The Colour of Electrons Professor Daren J Caruana
Daren Caruana is the Scientist in Residence at the Slade School of Fine Art for 2021 and Professor of Physical Chemistry at UCL Chemistry. His research is mainly focused on interaction of electric charge and chemistry in various forms. In 2020-22 he was Slade Scientist in Residence.
11.05 Colourful encounters: the soft transformation of education research through digital fabric printing Dr Jo Townshend
Jo Townshend is an artist working in London. Her practice research investigates the possibilities of new materialist methodologies to develop new and different approaches for education leadership. Working at the interface of industry and academia, Jo recently initiated a Partnerships Lab for the new School for Creative & Cultural Industries at UCL East. Before that she was the Principal Partnerships Manager for the Creative Industries, UCL RIGE. She was a Founding Principal of a Studio for the Creative Industries, delivering further education with industry. She is Chair-Director of London’s Contemporary Visual Arts Network and Co-Founder of UCL Art Futures.
11.25 Iron Tannates in Nature - oneminutegeology Professor David Dobson
David Dobson is a geologist, mountaineer and artist. He is also a professor at UCL Earth Sciences and was Slade Scientist in Residence 2017-2018.
11.45 Josef Albers: Shifting from Theory to Making Malina Busch
Malina Busch combines painted and sculpted elements exploring spaces where feeling and looking overlap. She studied at Slade School of Fine Art, MFA; School of the Art Institute of Chicago, BFA; College of William and Mary, BA; and is a former Slade Honorary Research Associate for the Material Research Project.
12.05 Art and Architecture in Dialogue Professor Fiona McLachlan
Fiona McLachlan is Professor of Architectural Practice at the University of Edinburgh and is an architect and educator. She teaches architectural design, colour design for architecture and professional practice. She is the author of Architectural Colour in the Professional Palette, (2012), which was stimulated by the work of her own architectural practice–E & F McLachlan Architects– over a thirty-year period, co-author of Colour Strategies in Architecture, (2015) with Haus der Farbe in Zürich, and author of the recently published book, Colour Beyond the Surface: Art in Architecture (2022).
12.25 Poetry Reading Sharon Morris
Sharon Morris is a poet and artist, and part-time professor at the Slade School of Fine Art. She is also the Poet in Residence for the Material Museum at the Slade.
12.50 Bonds that cannot be broken Kash&Germ
Kash & Germ is Ivan Kashdan and blithe germ. They like going on walks together and sometimes make video games and music too. They are both in their final year of study on the graduate FAM programme at the Slade.
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Afternoon Session - hosted by Stephanie Nebbia.
Stephanie is an artist, curator, and TFAC Global Manager, Colart
14.00 Poetry Reading George Szirtes
George Szirtes is a poet and translator. Author of some 30 books, he has won various prizes for his work in both fields, including The T S Eliot Prize for Poetry and the International Booker Prize for translation.
14.30 Blots, dots and spots in colour history: From Mary Gartside to Rana Begum Dr Alexandra Loske
Alexandra Loske is an art historian, writer and curator with a particular interest in the history of colour in art, architecture and print culture. She is researching women who wrote and published about colour and colour theory in the 19th and early 20th century. In Spring 2019 she published Colour – A Visual History (Ilex/Tate/Smithsonian Institute), which has been translated into German and French. Most recently, she edited a volume on colour in the 19th century for The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Colour (2021).
15.00 Twopence Coloured: Making Toy Theatre Colours Vaishali Prazmari
"If you love art, folly or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's"
Recreating a classic toy theatre palette and painting a toy theatre using traditional colours.
British artist Vaishali Prazmari’s multidisciplinary work incorporates elements from various cultures including the Indo-Persian miniatures and Chinese painting of her multiple heritages. Vaishali holds degrees from both the Slade School of Fine Art and the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts and holds an MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (UCL) specializing in floating islands. She studied Persian and Indian manuscript painting under various masters and during her MA at PSTA and Chinese painting under a master in Hong Kong. Vaishali has been painting ever since she could get her chubby hands on a brush www.vaishaliprazmari.com.
Her work has been acquired in collections globally and she has exhibited nationally and internationally for nearly 20 years. She has been bringing traditional miniature painting to life for a wider audience as an educator for 10 years. Having been immersed in these ancient painting traditions as well as contemporary art she is now working towards a practice-led PhD at the Slade, an epic and generative project that is an innovative visual interpretation of the 1001 Arabian Nights, its motifs, frame narrative, numerous tales and meanings: www.memorypalace.co.uk.
Born in London, she grew up on an island in Hong Kong and currently lives and works in London.
15.15 Countless readings: infinite openness Caroline de Lannoy
Caroline de Lannoy is an artist who lives and works in London. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, Central Saint Martins and Athens School of Fine Arts. She works across painting, drawing, text, sound and video. She creates compositions that draw upon the spectrum of sensory perceptions and feelings, and highlight the conversation between the visible and the invisible.
15.25 George’s Trip - a shaggy dog story. Benjamin Arthur Brown - film
Benjamin Arthur Brown is an artist, poet and curator at Van Gogh House, London.
15.35 REDiscovering madder colours: Science & Art for the preservation and creation of cultural heritage Dr Vanessa Otero
Dr Vanessa Otero is a Researcher at the Department of Conservation and Restoration of the NOVA School of Science and Technology, Lisbon (Portugal).
16.05 the colour of ripe strawberries, fresh tomatoes, and the glow of a warm fire Egidja Čiricaitė
Egidija Čiricaitė is a PhD candidate at the Slade School of Fine Art (UCL), working on an interdisciplinary research with UCL Linguistics. She is an artist and poet, with a special interest in artist publishing.
16.30 Prismatic Utopia: Exploring the use of vibrant color in Shaker Societies Brece Honeycutt
Brece Honeycutt is an artist who makes nature and history-based drawings, installations and videos. Honeycutt holds a B.A. in Art History from Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY) and an M.F.A. in sculpture from Columbia University (New York, NY).
She continues her long-term research project documenting the Shaker communal society through residencies and fellowships. Recently, she was awarded a 2023 Winterthur Maker-Creator Fellowship for her project, Prismatic Utopia, exploring manuscripts and objects in their Andrews Shaker Collection (Wilmington DE); and in 2020, she was an Artist in Residence at Hancock Shaker Village (Pittsfield, MA).
Concurrently, Honeycutt’s series makingAWARE manifests in walks, writings, archival research, video essays & natural dye workshops, hoping to bring attention to the natural around us. In 2022, Art Omi (Ghent, NY) invited her to lead walks for their Ecological Series; Copy Press UK published her audio-visual essay, ‘A Bird to overhear’ for their Becoming Fireflies series: and, the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, MA) invited her to discuss her ‘weed & bird’ based research project for their Artist in the Archive Series.
Website: https://brecehoneycutt.com
Instagram: @brece_honeycutt/
Wednesday 22 March: World Pigment Day
10.00 World Pigment Day’s 3rd Anniversary - Welcome with Jo Volley & Ruth Siddall
10.05 Keynote: The Pigment Farm Kimberly Selvaggi
Kimberly Selvaggi (first and former Slade Conservator-in-Residence 2020-22) is currently Scientist-in-Residence at the Slade School of Fine Art, pursuing a career in the practice of heritage conservation with a special interest in dyes, paints, and pigments.
10.30 Poetry Reading: Mataio Austin Dean
Mataio Austin Dean, artist, poet & activist.
10.50 Stygian Colour and Hume's Missing Shade of Blue Dr Edward Winters
Edward Winters is an artist and writer. He is an elected member of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art; and an elected member of the council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He writes widely on art and aesthetics, his most recent publication is Architectural Aesthetics (2023), Bloomsbury Academic.
11.20 Feeling Colour Lavinia Harrington
Lavinia is an Italian-British artist, presently studying at the Slade School of Fine Art (Painting MFA, 2022-2024. Lavinia has worked in arts education for over a decade and graduated from Oxford University in History of Art (BA Hons.), completing her MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
11.30 Cross words: Crow’s swords: A pigment puzzle Andy Leak Emeritus Professor, UCL French Dept.
Andy is also the Writer in Residence for the Material Museum at the Slade.
12.00 Searching for Metaphor and Meaning in Colour, Poetry and Place Helen Jury
Helen Jury is an Art Psychotherapist and Doctoral researcher in the department of Genetics, The Psychoanalysis Unit, and the Slade School of Art, researching the touch and handling of materials and objects in Art Psychotherapy as a distinctive psychotherapeutic medium. Helen lectures, gives talks and runs workshops internationally, and is co-editor of 2 books: Art Therapy in Museums and Galleries: Reframing practice (2020) and Art Psychotherapy and Innovation: Territories, Techniques and Technologies (2022). She is an Associate Editor of IJAT: The International Journal of Art Therapy and a practising artist, dividing her time between an Art Psychotherapy practice in Bath, and London, and Catalunya.
12.30 Ask the Chemist: Q&A session with Mark Cann
Mark Cann, Technical Excellence Manager, Colart.
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14.00 Discrepancies of Color and the depiction of landscape Yannis Ziogas
Professor Yannis Ziogas, artist, University of Western Macedonia
14.25 A visual poet's conversation with John Milton's last two poems Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes Richard Kenton Webb
Having made 179 paintings, drawings and relief prints for Paradise Lost between 2011-2021, followed by a commission from the Milton Society of America of 12 drawings for Lycidas, I was always perplexed by what came next. Those final two last poems of 1671.Last summer while on a residency at the Albers Foundation in Connecticut USA I attempted a conversation by making 13 drawings in a response to Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. I am asking myself what relevance do these have for an artist in the 21st century.
Richard Kenton Webb is Subject Lead of Painting, Drawing and Printmaking at Plymouth College of Art. He studied at Chelsea, the Slade, and the Royal College of Art and has work in national and private collections. Recent shows have been at the Martin Museum of Art, Texas; and at Hefei Museum of Contemporary Art, China. In 2020 he won first prize at the Sunny Art Prize, followed by a solo show, Hope in an Age of Anxiety in 2021. Recent work from his residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Residency, USA, of drawings and paintings, his Manifesto of Painting, will be exhibited in April at Benjamin Rhodes Arts in London.
14.50 Finding Colour at the Edge of Time Robert Mead
Robert Mead is a painter and PhD researcher at the Slade School of Fine Art. Moving through the strata of his paintings digs up histories and ghosts of the past which linger in the changing landscapes of today. Using the materiality of paint and process of harvesting and making pigments, his research reveals different types of residues left by human impacts on the planet.
Instagram: @r.m.g.mead
Website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/research/mphil-phd/robert-mead
15.00 If Black is Black Dr Sara Choudhrey
Dr Sara Choudhrey takes us on a brief exploration of the colour black in artistic practice whilst considering perceptions, conceptions and connotations from everyday life and Islamic culture.
Dr Sara Choudhrey is an artist, designer and researcher based in London, specialising in Islamic art and digital design. She conducts studies through visual analysis whilst referencing historical collections, archives and architecture. Sara is particularly interested in demonstrating the need to continue conversations around our relationship with material spaces and their relevance to heritage and society. Sara is currently a Lecturer within Kingston University’s School of Art. She holds a Masters in Digital Arts from UAL London, and a PhD in Digital Arts from the University of Kent.
15.25 Poetry Reading Latifah A Stranack
Latifah A Stranack is a Slade graduate who paints the women she encounters into bold goddesses, symbolising and celebrating the child, maiden, mother and wise old woman. She creates her heroines to explore her own memories, mythology, and issues in the modern world.
15.45 My body, the Circle and the Craftsman's Grids Sandra Smith
Sandra is a painter and coordinator of the Slade Short Courses, Summer School and Widening Participation. This film is an exploratory ‘drawing out’ of regular geometrical patterns relative to ‘rules of thumb’ and the dimensions of her own body. She has used this body scale diagram as a hands-on template from which to explore number, 2d space, rhythm, materials, tools and imagination with diverse groups of learners including school children, musicians, architects, engineers, and art students.
16.00 Land, Colour and Feeling Rose Shuckburgh
Rose Shuckburgh is an artist whose work encompasses painting, printmaking, poetry and film. She is currently studying MFA Painting at Slade School of Fine Art. Her practise catalogues an emotional relationship to land, using colour to capture the sensation of forms she encounters in the natural landscape. In 2019, she was a recipient of The Richard Ford Award, and in 2022 won The Royal Watercolour Society's New Graduate Award.
16.10 रंग सुफ़ने दा / Colour of dream Reading the other, reading the self by Akshay Bhoan
Akshay is in his final year of study on the graduate FAM programme at the Slade.
16:20 Viewing of Colour/Print/Poetry online exhibition with its curator Stephanie Nebbia
16.30 Dark Satanic Mills: Logwood, Salford and Making ‘Ordsall Black’ Dr Ruth Siddall
Ruth Siddall is a geologist and co-author of the Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historical Pigments. She is co-founder of World Pigment Day and in 2018-19 Slade Scientist in Residence.
End of symposium