The artist’s view of an art exhibition

This post is to show you how glamorous my life is an artist.

I had a solo art exhibition at The Trinity Collective on Saturday 14th October 2023. Trinity is a cool art space with a tattoo parlour upstairs, run by Max and Gemma who are amazing. They happen to be my next door neighbours and we’ve collaborated on a couple of mural projects together.

I get quite anxious before an exhibition. I worry about how many people will turn up, if I will make sales and if people will like my art (less about the latter). It’s not an overwhelming anxiety, it’s just a background hum of nerves.

In the afternoon before the launch evening, I had a last minute panic about buying snacks and drinks for the event. I assumed Trinity would get some bits in but they didn’t. Here’s a lesson: Never assume, it makes an ass out of u and me lol (not my words).

So I went to Booker cash and carry, literally 5 minutes before it closed. My mental programming around buying beer (and most things) consists of “What’s the value per litre?” Or if it’s not liquid related, it’s “what bargains can be had?”. I didn’t have any time to conduct a price comparison on beers so I got Carling and Fosters. Many of you would scoff and proclaim that those are just watered down piss and I’d say “you’re right”. In my defence they’re an easy beer to drink, 4% abv, and they had pint cans.

With 48 beers in tow, my wife, baby and I went to Home Bargains for snacks. Big mistake! There were queues in and out of the store’s car park, last thing I wanted was to be stuck in HB for hours on end pre exhibit.

Picasso wouldn’t have been doing this FFS!

So we went in, it had 5 isles of seasonal bits and bobs, Christmas and Halloween mainly. People went skipping around joyously at the sight of the plethora of sparky lights. My wife went off to look at some home bits and I deliberated what to get in the crisp isle. If you know me well, Crisps (Chips for my fellow Americans¹) are my kryptonite and a very nostalgic food stuff for me. Well it’s kind of food isn’t it? The nostalgia ran deep, as a chubby little 8 year old, I’d cross the road and go up to my local shop, they had the best selection of retro crisps there (well, retro now, back then they were modern).

So walking down this isle was like looking at an old family album. “Oh there’s salt and vinegar fish and chips, I remember when we had those in 1989” and “Beef space raiders, I remember having a Space Raiders sandwich on white bread and flora, after school that day”. My mind went back to ‘value’ and I was looking for £1 for 6 packets of crisps, this was an impossible task in 2023.

I wanted more time in my beloved crisps isle, but I couldn’t be there all day! I had to be decisive, RIGHT! LET’S DO THIS:

- BEEF + PICKLED ONION SPACE RAIDERS ✔️

- SALT AND VINEGAR FISH AND CHIPS ✔️

- SCAMPI FRIES ✔️

- BACON FRIES ✔️

- PRAWN COCKTAIL PARTY MIX (good value big bag) ✔️

- CHEESE AND CHIVE PARTY MIX (good value big bag) ✔️

- JALAPEÑO PARTY MIX (good value big bag) ✔️

- 24 Tins of Coke Zero ✔️

I go the till like a true hero, stacked up with a world-class selection of snacks.

We go back outside, load the car, and go back to the gallery to set up the snacks and drinks, triumphant.

Prices are added to the art pieces, print rack is loaded, refreshments table set up. All ready to go, will come back in 3 hours.
…

I get to the venue at 6:30pm, crack open a can of Carling and anticipate the hoards of SLART fans to enter, frenzied, fanatically fighting over which art pieces to buy. They all sell within minutes and I make £500,000 and go home.

Sorry, was just fantasising then…

No one turns up at 7pm, 7:15pm, 7:30pm, I think to myself, “I might as well go home”.

7:31 hits and a lady comes in with her six-year-old son. We’re Facebook friends, I know the lad’s dad, he has an art studio next to mine. She’s lovely, very inquisitive, asks me a lot of questions about my art.

People started trickling in between 7:31-8pm, the space had a nice buzz about it, people were drinking and chatting, I connected people who didn’t know each other before.

An artist who I admire turned up and chatted to people all evening, he stayed right to the very end of the event. I really appreciated that.

Pleasant evening on all accounts. I had expected more people to turn up, many more RSVPd, but it was nice overall. I didn’t make any print sales which I was disappointed about and although I had a nice evening, I had a niggling sense that all the effort and time was somewhat wasted. I know, if you’ve read this post you’ll know that my inner doutber is an arsehole!

I’ve been reflecting on this since that day and ultimately I need to think about what I want as an artist. Since having a child, I realise how precious time is. The thing is, it’s not all about sales, the main thing is the creation of my art. I love setting up my own art exhibitions, like FISTULA in 2022, being creative with the entire event was a a lot of fun. I did have some sales but it was more about people seeing (hopefully enjoing) my work that I found satisfying. Plus there was a community and charity element to it, we raised over £400 for Kidney Care UK which was fulfilling.

My inital goal is to leave my day job and spend that time painting and sharing my work.

So what’s the first step in getting towards this?

I could work 4 days a week so I have a day painting.

This post is turning into a deeper reflection of which I will ponder on this week, I’ll share more about this soon…

For now, enjoy some photos from the exhibition:

SLART X Trinity - 14th October 2023

Thanks to Gideon Liddiard Photography and Trinity for the photos! and Trinity for hosting me!

I look forward to sharing more with you soon.

Very best wishes to you,

End note: ¹I went to New York in 2009, I remember landing in JFK and hearing that Michael Jackson had died. Back to the crisp point: I went to a Chinese takeaway when I was there and ordered my chow mein and asking for ‘chips’ about 7 times before realising my mistake. “Oh we call fries chips in the UK” I said roiling my eyes at myself, expecting them to find it as funny as I did. They just stared blanked faced back at me.