Much of my work is concerned with our relationship with landscape - the ways in which landscape can affect us emotionally and the stories we construct by projecting our own beliefs, expectations and desires onto what we see. I use photography, video and installation to explore this borderline area between ‘reality’ and fantasy, the outer world and the inner.
Recent work includes a series of non-narrative video pieces concentrating on minimal changes and transformations that might otherwise go unnoticed. The resulting works have a mesmeric effect and are intended to induce a meditative state of mind in the viewer. They have been shown nationally and internationally both in gallery exhibitions (including Art Gene, Barrow-in-Furness; raumpool A.V. Frankfurt and Hirschl Contemporary Art, London) and in film and video screenings (including Fotofest 2004, Houston, Texas, Neuer Standort, Vienna, Austria; the Leeds International Film Festival, the BBC Big Screen, Manchester)
Another recent series, The Circles they Desire, supported by Arts Council England (Borland Gallery, University of Salford, Feb-March 2006; The Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness, Nov 2007 - Feb 2008), is inspired by the stone circles of Cumbria. Installations, video and photographic pieces link elements of the history of the circles to legends, myths, astronomy and sacred geometry. The exhibition at The Dock Museum included Witches Dance - a circle of eight life-size photographic panels, printed onto silk and suspended from the ceiling. The photographs are of surfaces of stones in Cumbrian stone circles and all reference the female form. The piece is based on a legend associated with the stone circle “Long Meg and her Daughters” near Penrith. According to this legend, Long Meg was a witch and she and her coven were turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. By printing onto silk, a sensuous material that moves as visitors pass, the petrified witches dance again.
My work draws on my experience as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and, in particular, on the ideas of the psychoanalyst D.W.Winnicott concerning transitional phenomena (phenomena related to an intermediate position between fantasy and reality). I am a member of an interdisciplinary research project, Transitional Phenomena and Cultural Experience (T-PACE) led by Professor Annette Kuhn at Queen Mary’s, University of London. The aim of the project is to develop cultural theory, methodology and research through exploring the potential for object-relations theory in psychoanalysis (and in particular the concept of transitional phenomena) to extend and deepen understanding of various aspects of cultural experience. During 2008-9, whilst on the Research Development Programme at the Slade, I am exploring these ideas both theoretically in relation to the experience of the artist and in practice-based research. One area of exploration is to use the “wet desert” landscape of Morecambe Bay in North-West England, a treacherous area of quicksands and rapid tidal flow, as a metaphor for the transitional space Winnicott describes. Many lives (including those of the Chinese cockle pickers) have been lost either to the quicksand or to fast incoming tides. Personal responses to the landscape of the Bay are likely to be coloured by history, memory and associations to the concepts of both desert and sea. The work will use video and installation to explore the shifting relationship between land and water, above and below, life and death. This area lends itself to an exploration of the “intermediate area of experiencing” described by Winnicott in that it is itself an intermediate space - neither wholly land nor sea but constantly shifting from one to the other.
Education
2008 - 2009: Research Development Programme (Slade School of Fine Art)
2002 - 2003: M.A. Photography (University of the Arts, London). Distinction.
Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (Westminster Pastoral Foundation)
Honours Degree in Physics (Somerville College, Oxford)
Solo / DuoExhibitions
Nov 2007- Feb 2008: The Circles they Desire. The Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness.
2006: The Circles they Desire Borland Gallery, Salford.
2001: Heavenly Bodies.Paolozzi Gallery, London
2000: Transforming Myth TRACE, Weymouth. .
Dec. 1999 - Jan. 2000: Transforming Myth Gallery 1885.
1990: Inner Worlds .Islington Arts Factory.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2008 : The Gathering and The Spectators in In the Window Fold Gallery, Kirkby Stephen. .
2006 : Dance in group exhibition Talkshow., Lounge, London.
2005 : Full Circle in North-West Open Exhibition. Art Gene, Barrow-in-Furness.
2004 : The Spectators in group exhibition The Trace Edition. Hirschl Contemporary Art, London.
The Way in group exhibition Elegant Underground. raumpool e.V., Frankfurt.
2003 : Full Circle in group exhibition Attentive Lounge, London. .
2002 : Ecclesia Mater and Spotless in group exhibition Obsessions II. Huddersfield Art Gallery.
2001 : Spread the Word Henley Festival - Towpath Gallery. .
2000 : Ecclesia Mater as part of group exhibition Obsessions Herefordshire Photography Festival - Globe Gallery, Hay-on-Wye.
Cumbria Contemporary Print and Photography Beacon Gallery, Whitehaven; Dock Museum, Barrow in Furness (Feb - April 2001) .
1999 : Ecclesia Mater as part of group exhibition ObsessionsStandpoint Gallery.
1997 : Unfolding Fetal medicine unit, St George's Hospital. .
Oct.1994 - Aug.1995: Touring exhibition. Viewfindings - Women Photographers, Landscape and Environment. Newlyn Orion Gallery; Watershed Gallery, Bristol;
National Museum of Photography, Bradford; Zone Gallery, Newcastle.
1994 : Creating the Subject. Morley Gallery.
London Independent Photography exhibition. Barbican Library.
Photofusion. Group show In Search of Self.
1992 : Photofusion opening exhibition.
1988 : Madwoman in the Attic.Camberwell School of Art.
Spectrum Women's Photography Festival Open South London Gallery.
Screenings of Video Works
2006 : Dance in Intermix. The BBC Big Screen, Leeds Film Festival.
Dance in moving image art event Time Flesh and Nerve. Lounge, London.
The BBC Big Screen, Exchange Square, Manchester. Full Circle in The Bigger Picture.
2004 : Present Absence in short film/video screening Intermix 04 at Cathedral Hall, Leeds International Film Festival. Toured to The Lamp, Hull.
2004 : Full Circle in short film/ video screening Waterworks. Fotofest 2004, Houston, Texas. Toured to 111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco;
The Garage, Winston-Salem; Clinton Street Theatre, Portland; 21 Grand, Oakand; Miami Beach cinematheque, Miami; Voyage at Bada Lounge, Seattle;
Neuer Standort, Vienna, Austria.
Publications
2005 : Transitional Spaces: surface, fantasy and illusion in Surface, University of Plymouth Press.
1999 : Work discussed in Nexus: Theory and Practice in Contemporary Women's Photography; Volume 6 Palpable Signs by Barry Taylor, edited by
Marsha Meskimmon, Scarlet Press.
1994 : Work featured in the book Viewfindings - Women Photographers, Landscape and Environment, Availablelight.
1991 : Contributor to the Women Artists' Diary.
Awards
2007- 8 : Arts Council individual artist’s award to develop Witches’ Dance and to exhibit The Circles they Desire at the Dock Museum.
2006 : Arts Council individual artist’s award to develop The Circles they Desire.
2002 : Group granted National Lottery’s Awards for All award for Obsessions II exhibition and study day at Huddersfield Art Gallery.
1998 - 9 : Group granted A4E Express award to produce work for Obsessions exhibition at Standpoint Gallery and to conduct associated study day.
1996 : London Arts Board individual artist's award for Transforming Myth.
Selected Invited Presentations
2008 : Talking About Contemporary Art, Kendal. Artist’s talk.
2006 : University of Sunderland. Artist’s talk.
2005 : Salford University. Artist’s talk.
Leeds College of Art and Design. Artist’s presentation and masterclass.
2004: Transitional Spaces: surface, fantasy and illusion. Guest speaker at symposium Land/Water and ‘Surface’. University of Plymouth, Exeter. June 24th-25th
e-mail: townsendart@btinternet.com
For further information and images from other exhibitions, please visit my website at :
www.patriciatownsend.co.uk
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