Zoom Meeting Link from 7pm:
https://uca.zoom.us/j/96532156262
Meeting ID: 965 3215 6262
Friday 17th June, 7pm (doors open 6.30pm)
After a small break of a few years due to Covid we are pleased to announce that ‘20 x 20 Artist Talks’ is back! Please come and join us on Friday 17th June to hear Olana Light, Ashley David John and Vera Hadzhiyska talk about their recent work.
We open at 6.30pm to socialise and have a drink for a 7.00pm start. It will finish by 9.00pm. Each artist will use the Pecha Kucha format of 20 images for 20 seconds each, giving us scope to take in their practice/research and leave time at the end for questions and points of discussion. The focus for this evenings line up centres around engagement – and the different approaches the artists use to work within communities.
The artists will also have a few pieces up in the gallery so you can see their work first-hand.
Admission is free.
Olana Light
Olana is a visual artist who uses sculpture, performance and film to explore timeless questions of belonging, identity and otherness. Striving to make the familiar unfamiliar, Olana’s fantastical worlds offer an escape from the mundanity of daily life. Since graduating from the BA Fine Art course at Southampton Solent University in 2017, Olana has completed a MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University of London.
https://olanalight.wixsite.com/svetlana
@olanalight
Ashley David John
Ashley is a collage artist from Portsmouth and has worked as a gallery technician across the South coast for over ten years. At the moment his practice uses collage or text to explore current social and political issues. The collages repurpose found or discarded materials whilst text-based works frequently culminate as hand-drawn poems; these are often placed publicly as a form of gentle disruption.
When not making solo work Ashley is also part of a collective of artists and curators who make up Stair/Slide/Space. Frequently exploring practice that is grounded in co-operation, friendship and conversation. They began with a studio space in Portsmouth in 2012 which acted as a testing ground for their shared practice. Now moving beyond the studio they develop site-based projects with groups and institutions.
www.ashleyjohn.bigcartel.com
@ashleydavidjohn
@stair_slide_space
Vera Hadzhiyska
Vera Hadzhiyska is a Bulgarian multi-disciplinary artist and curator based in Portsmouth, England.
Her practice is informed by the study of migration, cultural and national identity, history and collective memory. Her work begins autobiographically, tracing family narratives and shared traumas. Through the use of photography, archival documents, audio and video installations Hadzhiyska examines historical and political events in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe, their impact on people’s lives and identity.
Vera has an MA and a BA degree in Photography from the University of Portsmouth. She has exhibited internationally in Bulgaria, Greece, France and the United Kingdom. Her work has been published in Musée Magazine, Source Magazine, The Calvert Journal, Loupe Magazine, Photograd, Post Pravda Magazine, AND Then There Was, BalkanStories and Bulgarian Photography Now among others.
www.verahadzhiyska.com
@verahadzhiyska