Community Arts Project news January 2024
Five current and past artists from the Community Art Project; Matthew Beadon, Victoria Bowman, Alan Payler, Joan Wilkinson and Alan Liddle have been included in a recent publication by Marc Steene entitled Outside In – Exploring the Margins of Art.
Steene writes “One group, based in Darlington does stand out and they produce the most amazing work. Laurence Ward, who supports them, is very skilled. They’ve produced some of the most beautiful work I’ve seen”.
A launch event for the book was held in London on 22nd November including a discussion with the artist Grayson Perry
"This is a super book that really seems to deeply understand the sort of art I love more than any other, what is commonly called Outsider Art. Ever since I was a student these artists have been a huge influence and comfort to me. Marc Steene is a great advocate for this disparate and often misunderstood branch of art history." Sir Grayson Perry CBE
London
Calling (again)
Victoria Bowman’s work will also be shown by Outside In at the London Art Fair in January 2024.
For more details see https://www.londonartfair.co.uk/ [external link]
Victoria Bowman. The Tube Train and River of Tears
Victoria will be travelling to London (accompanied by her father) to see her work and take part in a talk with Marc Steene from Outside In on Saturday 20th January 2024.
Mark Pearson’s painting ‘Friendly Face’ will continue its tour as part of the ‘Humanity’ national exhibition at Hove Museum of Creativity from 25 November to 21 January.
Laurence Ward was invited to participate in the ‘Humanising the Arts’ Symposium [external link] at Fabrica in Brighton on 18th January, sharing his experience with the Community Art Project alongside directors of the other most prestigious supported studio projects in the UK – Actionspace in London, Venture Arts in Manchester, Project Art Works in Hastings and Project Ability in Glasgow.
2024 Calendars
The Community Art Project 2024 calendars are now available. Two different designs featuring artworks by current CAP artists professionally printed in full colour, A3 sized and spiral bound ready to hang on your wall. They are likely to sell out fast so if you want to reserve a calendar, contact the Art Project asap. The calendars cost £7.00
Following the ‘Humanising the Arts’ symposium which brought together the main supported artists studios in the UK, we arranged a visit by the artist Cameron Morgan from Project Ability Studios in Glasgow. You can see some examples of Cameron’s brilliant artwork here [external link]
Cameron has been visiting various studios and producing drawings of the people and places on his travels. He came to visit CAP in Darlington in March and this was all the more poignant as it was just weeks before we had to move from the Bridge which has been such a brilliant home to us for over ten years
We organised day trips of our own in February to visit exhibitions at Baltic in Gateshead including ‘Residential’ by Project Artworks. We spent some time in the gallery space not only looking at the paintings but also the videos of neurodiverse artists creating their works and we even managed to do some drawing of our own inspired by the artworks around us.
Farewell to The Bridge
After eleven happy years at The Bridge, the Community Art Project is moving to new premises. We will be based within the Links and Foundations Day Service buildings.
We will miss our old studio and the other artists and groups that were based at The Bridge.
Photos by Emma Watson