POP 145 Tuesday, 3 November 2009

Today’s Pop is Becky. She caught up with Tinsel and Twinkle after their opening in (yes you guessed it) South London last week. Broken record I know. Its just easier to drag boys (cave woman style) home when they only have a few blocks to go.

What went on in SE1?
‘Being Human’ is the first exhibition at a brand new gallery called The Tank Room in Elephant and Castle. The gallery was a huge unused space underneath a school there and was discovered by one of the teachers. The school received funding to refurbish the old tank room and make it into a gallery, and the head of art has been working alongside other galleries like The South London Gallery and the ICA to borrow works by artists such as Banksy, Tracey Emin, Anthony Gormley, Mark Titchner, plus work by prisoners and students at the school were also on display. Its been an amazing and positive project for the school. We are also going back to do some workshops with some of the students in response to the exhibition.

Is it still there/open?
Its open until December 11th, it opens for two weeks and then closes for a week, so it’s best to contact the Tank Room to check opening times before you visit.

The Tank Room At St. Saviours and St. Olaves, New Kent Rd, SE1 4AN. For
further info contact: Sue Mulholland smulholland@ssso.southwark.sch.uk

Why choose south london?
On this occasion South London chose us as we were asked to be part of this show. The majority of art shows we either visit or take part in are in the East end so it was refreshing to be asked to do something South, especially in such an interesting space.

A little about your work lady?
Tinsel:
My work is a wide ranging commentary on all sorts of observations that I make in everyday life, I am interested in challenging and protesting about different things, to promote and inspire positive change. I love the idea of Do-It-Yourself, and continually promote that ethic in my work, I have always been inspired by the spirit of punk and rebellion. I see my work as politically active, not because it references particular political events or current affairs, but because through my observations, questions, statements and slogans, I aim to instigate positive action and change on both an individual and wider level. The themes in my work vary widely, it can be an honest personal narrative, it can reference the everyday, or highlight social and cultural issues. I often use humour to deal with these themes.

Twinkle:
I make work which is heavily influenced by Britain both now and as it was 2-300 hundred years ago. Up until recently my work was predominantly decribing British quirks, questioning what we as brits were modern day slaves to and using humour as a main tool to depict my ideas. While these elements are still running through my work it’s now got more political in many ways, i’m also questioning a lot of our culural habits which actually stem back from a long time ago. I guess i’m looking at how on the surface everything changes yet underneath many things don’t change at all.

Click continue to see artwork and photography featured in the exhibition, including pieces by Kris Myhre and Tinsel Edwards.

Whats with the parking tickets?
Both of us predominantly make paintings and exhibit in gallery spaces so we wanted to do something different which would take our work out of the gallery space and to a wider audience. 
We loved the idea of doing something which was a bit of a practical joke as a way of getting our artwork out and our ideas out there, so we decided to dress up as traffic wardens and fine cars with parking ticket bags which actually had art work inside them! The screenprint in the parking ticket bags is an image of a Woolworth’s empty shopfront which has closing down posters in the window, we’ve changed the posters to read ‘It Was The Best of Times It was the Worst of Times’ from Charles Dickens’  A Tale of Two Cities. The idea behind the work was a direct response to the recession not only it’s impact on the nation, but how it’s been dealt with in the media. We wanted to make something which acknowledged how tough recessions can be but also maybe add a positive slant to it. Recessions can also be a time for change and creativity to flourish! We thought that producing a free mini-print as a very large edition would help to promote that message. And so the initial bad news of a parking ticket is replaced with a positive response to some free artwork!