The Georgie Project: Day 19

Susan Finlay

Info

Who

Natasha Morland graduated from City and Guilds of London art school with first class honours in 2007. She has exhibited at SPACE for its 40th Anniversary show, Transition gallery, the Soane museum, and the RCA amongst others. she was awarded the company of Skinners Phillip Connard travel award in 2005 and was shortlisted for the Celeste Painting prize in 2010. She is interested in forms of random or accidental storytelling and the opportunity this creates for weaving contrasting subject matter together. Recently she has begun to make paintings while listening to people's accounts of their histories as she films them. They are an abstract and visceral response to what she hears as they candidly reveal themselves to her.

What

Morland has taken the old parlour game of Consequences and the visual equivalent, “Exquisite Corpse”, invented by the Surrealists, as a basis for this project. A hybrid version emerged, whereby a number of artists produce a series of works, each connected to the one made before it, and linked by accompanying text. The format requires an artist to start a story with a line or two of text, accompanied by an artwork in two dimensions, then to choose another artist to finish off their sentence, continue the story with some more text and another artwork that responds to theirs, and to choose another artist to continue and so on, until the project has reached the targeted number of 27 artists.

Why do it

The inspiration for the project came from Morland’s desire to commemorate the short life of her sister, Georgia, who died in 2004, by using art as a means of exploring and highlighting links between creativity and mental illness. Georgia committed suicide after a life marked by bipolar disorder and drug and alcohol dependencies. She frequently turned to art as a means of solace and escapism from the painful situations she found herself in. Yet, essentially, she remained alone. In a simple way, the collaborative aspect of this project goes beyond the artist’s interest in random storytelling devices, to hint towards the possible benefits for struggling creatives to supplement their frequently isolated practices with an approach that involves working with others.

Why 27 artists?

Georgia was 27 when she took her life which puts her alongside a large number of notable creatives who have also died in a self destructive way at this age. Janis Joplin, Jean Michel Basquiat, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse are four people all known to be members of the so called “27 club”. Thus, anecdotally, the number has become synonymous with the age a person is most likely to take their own lives.

The Exhibition

There will be an auction on the 4th December 2012 at the fantastic new contemporary art space in Notting Hill, The Griffin Gallery which is part of the Winsor and Newton headquarters. A book to accompany the show will also be on sale and all proceeds raised on the night will go to the Creative Therapies Fund at Mind, the largest mental health charity in the UK. There should be much fun and frivolity with live music, performance, and plenty of food and drink to keep the troops going....

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The Georgie Project

Monday 26 November 2012

Day 19

Susan Finlay

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