Ravenseye Gallery - The Photography of Chris Gilbert

Sidereal calendar project go-ahead

Chris Gilbert — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:31:21 +0000

Sidereal Calendar Project by Chris Gilbert and Diana Syder - Exhibition2013

I blogged a while back about a project that Diana Syder and myself were planning. The news is that our proposal has been accepted by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery. It means that Diana and I will be having a six week exhibition at the Gallery next year between the 13th April and the 12th June. We’re chuffed, of course, but trepidatious at the same time. This is a major undertaking and we’re in Gallery 1, which if you know BMAG is the big one upstairs, where they host the Derbyshire Open every year so it means creating some big pieces. Exciting stuff. I’ll blog about it later when the planning is a bit further down the line but the first creative point is this year’s Spring Equinox and I hope to be able to report back here in a few weeks time.

In the Guardian again

Chris Gilbert — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:10:45 +0000

Chris Gilbert featured in The Guardian

Made the Guardian web site again, this time with a shot I took over toward Flash and the Quarnford Moors. Very pleasing, if only because this was a shot that I had overlooked and was destined for the archives. Very good to pull it out and have featured in a national.

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Moving Water Workshop for March 2012

Chris Gilbert — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:40:50 +0000

Moving Water Workshop for March 2012

I shall be running another moving water workshop in March. It’s actually a very good month for this – between the snow and the flowers. Contact me for further information.

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Neurology, Art and …. Synaesthesia

Chris Gilbert — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:01:01 +0000

I’ve been making good progress on my book, endeavouring to pull together
up-to-date research on how the brain integrates visual information, and had
a bit of a revelation. It was after watching Matthew Cain’s excellent ‘What
Makes a Masterpiece’ on More 4. I reckon I’ve really got my head around a lot of the Neurology of vision processing and had really been enjoying putting it all down on paper and then Matthew interviewed Howard Hodgkin, whose work is strongly abstract and who insisted that art was ‘felt’ and couldn’t be deconstructed. It made me think. If the neurology behind vision processing was so easy to deconstruct then why was there such a strong emotional need to protect art’s mystery and I think I now understand it. True artists, and specifically abstract artists, are actually synaesthetics. Their brains are not wired up like everyone else’s. They work roughly the same but the neuronic pathways create subtly different connections within thier brains to the rest of us, meaning that they derive their own unique and sometimes hard-to-understand visualisations through sensing the world in a subtly different way to other people. To them art is ‘felt’ because they ‘feel’ it. They can’t sense the world the way we do any more than we can sense it their way because we really do sense things differently

I did some research and it seems I’m not the only person to have reached
these conclusions. I found this after a single Google search;

Synaesthesia, creativity and art: What is the link?

At the moment I’m thinking that while it is possible to deconstruct visual processing you can’t deconstruct some art because it’s origins are actually outside current research and rely entirely on the wiring of the individuals head, which is unique and will never provide a suitably large and statistically provable sample-set. I also think that with all things like this it’s a sliding scale, with most of us exhibiting synaesthesia to a greater or lesser extent. It’s just that the really way-out-there stuff is down at one end of the synaesthesia spectrum while most of us are up here at the other.

Very interesting stuff

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Laura’s Book Group

Chris Gilbert — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:41:13 +0000

Laura's Book Group by Jane Money and Chris Gilbert

We have finally got ’round to putting together a web site to support Jane’s work on Laura’s Book Group. It’s just a basic site to get things off the ground really and we’ll see how things go and how we need to develop it further. Interesting times !

Laura’s Book Group

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Twitter and the first great light of 2012

Chris Gilbert — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:15:10 +0000

On Win Hill by Chris Gilbert

The year has got off to something of a damp squib as far as the light has been concerned and I’ve got off to a consequently slow start so it was with great satisfaction that I bagged my first big shot of the year just yesterday. Unless I can top this one this is probably the January shot for next year’s calendar. I’ve also been talked into finally joining Twitter (@RavenseyeChris if you’re interested) and so far it’s been an interesting experience. If Facebook is for the quiet, reflective sort then Twitter is for the in-yer-face, 20 second attention span sort, which is fine. It’s about adding a further channel to the portfolio. Interesting stuff though

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Mark Whitaker, Puppeteer

Chris Gilbert — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:48:16 +0000

Mark Whitaker Puppetry

Just a quick site I’ve put together as a starting point to advertise the work of my mate Mark, who happens to be an excellent puppeteer

Mark Whitaker Puppetry

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Moving Water Workshop – February 2012

Chris Gilbert — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:11:10 +0000

Moving Water Workshop Feb 2012 with Chris Gilbert

I shall be running another Moving Water Workshop this February. It’s a very useful way of using up bad weather days so let’s hope it lashes it down ! I do the driving and feed you as well as leading the coaching. Places limited to 4 people but there’s also a minimum of 2.

Review of 2011

Chris Gilbert — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:56:59 +0000

Well, I thought I’d take the time to write a few notes on the passing of 2012 and what it has meant to me and the progress I’m making with my camera. I think that this year saw the strong crystallisation of what it is that goes on in the head when we view art and that will be finding its way into the book that I have now started writing (hurrah!) so that will be January’s task – to break the back of the content, much if which I’ve already written about in my course handouts anyway but which require further elucidation and illustration. But, I’m still in 2011.

January – the snow went and I was busy putting the final touches to the first tranche of work for the Royal Hallamshire Hospital. Lots of lessons learned about creating large amounts of work and how spraymount shouldn’t be used after it’s been stored in a cold place (the solvent and carrier separate so that when it’s sprayed the glue doesn’t actually come out, just the solvent. The mounted work then parts company with the backboard after the work has been framed and you need to go back and do it all again!). Quite a few courses in January also, where days working with me have been bought as gifts.

February – Hope valley Adventure Film festival. A small exhibition. Started on proper Macro work and Jane and I did a lot of work on Laura’s Book Club, which may yet see the light of day. Took Hope Valley Storms while out working with Edward Mulkern.

Hope Valley Storms (version) by Chris Gilbert

March – Always a difficult month, waiting for the world to wake up again, but started working with Diana Syder, which is a real treat. I first came across Diana’s work a few years ago through Derbyshire Open Arts and admired the way she painted – a way in which I aspire but fail miserably. Diana approached me about making good images of her paintings for greetings cards, which we have done very successfully but we have since embarked on a number of further projects together – all good stuff

April – Dry and warm. Warm and dry. Dry, dry, dry. 6 weeks in Spring without any rain. Amazing. All the flowers got off to a good start and then just stopped. A lovely trip in the campervan to Kington. Took Cuckooflower. Love macro.

Cuckooflower by Chris Gilbert

May – Started working with Barrie Farnsworth at Reflections magazine and wrote ‘A Deeper Beauty’. Set up a month-long exhibition with Diana at the Clocktower Gallery in Sheffield. Took White Peak In Spring.

White Peak in Spring by Chris Gilbert

June – Started the month in Glenelg, just opposite Skye, getting very frustrated with poor quality filters. Moved the Clocktower show to The Medway Centre in Bakewell and started shooting products for Steve Marnoch at Bakewell Art and Design. Discovered Combs, which is just as well because the dry spring put paid to any quantities of Orchids this year.

July – Excellent scouting trip out to Menorca in preparation for September. John and Carolyn as warm and welcoming as always. Made my entry to Take-a-View and took a fabulous trip in the camper up the west coast of Scotland. More frustrations with rubbish filters. Took North Atlantic Swell.

North Atlantic Swell by Chris Gilbert

August – Some really great heather this year. Took Glorious Curbar. Wrote Off The Beaten Track for Reflections Magazine and bagged a second cover shot. Developed a show flyer for Mark Whittaker. Appeared on The Guardian web site.

Glorious Curbar by Chris Gilbert

September – Great trip to Menorca. Met and worked with some lovely folk. Came back and full tilt into the final phase of the Royal Hallamshire work. Took Summers’ End. Joined Visit Peak District as a Photography Partner. Disappointing outcome from Take-a-View and vowed to not take part any more ( yeah, right ).

Summer's End by Chris Gilbert

October – still going full tilt at all sorts of things. Closed the Royal Hallamshire work successfully. Some great autumn colour. Shot Autumn at Stanage. Another cover shot for Reflections at short notice.

Autumn at Stanage by Chris Gilbert

November – Do a further product shoot for Bakewell Art and Design and started work on this year’s calendars. Found my pic of Chatsworth being nicked on several other sites (backhanded compliment!) and worked on another flyer for a show with Mark Whittaker. Designed this year’s Christmas cards.

December – A few Christmas gift fairs, started planning Derbyshire Open Arts for next year. Spent a lot of time working on archiving and turning over previous year’s work in detail and found some gems, including Near Monyash. Designed a dispatched some flyers for Libby Knifton-Smith and Priestcliffe. Completed a commission for the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield and started the book (phew!)

Near Monyash by Chris Gilbert

In summary – lots of plusses, lots of firsts and a general moving forwards. Photographically not a huge amount of work done simply because of the price of petrol but a much higher quality than in previous years. Met some great new people and made some excellent new contacts. Business through word-of-mouth is always the best sort. Thanks for all of your support this year and here’s to a successful 2012 for us all.

Happy New Year

Chris

Zest For Art

Chris Gilbert — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:28:09 +0000

I’m very happy to report that my involvement in Arts in Health has continued this week with a commission from the Zest Arts In Health project at the Northern General Hospital. Part of the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. The above four images were chosen by Kerry Blackett as a part of the her work in bringing art into the healing environment. It’s a very interesting set. The thee floral images – Heather, Globeflower and Ox-Eye Daisies – seem intuitive choices for the environment and while I’m a little surprised with the choice of the image of Spurn Point I’m also delighted as it’s actually one of my favourite shots. I took it on my birthday a couple of years ago when Jane and I took a trip out there. We sat on the end of the spit drinking tea and eating Dundee Cake while watching 10,000 tonne ships glide past only a 100 metres or so off-shore. Later on we got hit by a tremendously exciting summer thunderstorm.

Anyway, all of the images fabulous printed up large. The Globeflower and Spurn prints are 70cm along their longest edge and colour rendition and print qualities make them a feast for the eyes, even at close range.

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