20x20 Artist Talks - December 2024
December 12th 2024
Doors 6.30pm for a 7pm start *
* Gasp will be open from 5pm for a bit of Xmas social before the 20x20 starts at 7pm - there will be some drinks and party substances and after the 20x20 we plan to retire to either the Barley Mow or King Street Tavern - all members, guests, friends, dogs and pet hamsters are invited.
It is the only party you will ever need!
Dress code suggestions : Sophisticated, Feather boas, Big Hair.
Our popular 20X20 talks return to Art Space Portsmouth on Thursday December 12th with ASP studio holder Kate Street, alongside Donna Poingdestre and Justine Hounam.
Kate Street
ASP studio holder Kate Street works across the digital/analogue divide. With a background in painting, she uses found imagery and objects to lead the formation of works. Drawing upon figuration, landscape and cultivation, her work aims to explore hidden social inequalities and alternative narratives. Small scale details from the pages become monstrous through her Frankenstein approach to collaging, assemblage, and digital manipulation. This coupled with remnants, such as hooks, found jewellery, beauty paraphernalia, and nylon stockings create familiar, yet uneasy, objects.
@katestreetstudio
www.katestreet.net
Donna Poingdestre
Donna divides her time between London and Portsmouth. Predominantly using paint as her main medium and more recently using audio, film, publishing and performance to explore her current interest in liminality, transitory spaces and experiences. The transformational states of both the physical spaces we inhabit and pass through as well as the transition and periods of lingering between life experiences.
Donna works in both the street art and gallery setting. Is co director of artist led contemporary Both Gallery, London, and of Art Up (Portsmouth) CIC whose flagship project is the Look Up Portsmouth street art festival.
@donna_poingdestre_artist
Justine Hounam
Justine Hounam is both a sculptor and filmmaker based in London, and her artistic practice revolves around exploring the connections between individuals, their homes, and household objects, symbolising physical, psychological, and metaphorical aspects of identity.
Hounam's background in architecture shapes her interest in form and materiality, leading her to experiment with sculptural processes in order to innovate new techniques. Justine makes bodily sculptural forms resembling hardened shells by layering household paint onto fabric stretched over domestic wooden furniture. When removed, akin to skin pulled from a body, the fabric retains the imprint of the object it covered. These sculptures, suggestive of territory, reveal the contours and aging of the furniture within. The materiality of the objects is integral, as they contain memories, subjectivity, and personal space, whilst also having the ability to display the erosion of time and experience, which get imprinted onto cloth. Hounam sees the material and its idiosyncrasies as symbolic metaphor of skin and scar tissue.
In addition to sculpture, Hounam produces short films shot from above (birds eye viewpoint), capturing mundane daily tasks in domestic life. Through these films, she uses personal and domestic environments as a backdrop to also question broader societal and political concepts.
@justinehounam
When the Trees Speak - Book launch
Thursday 5th December, 6-8pm
When the Trees Speak is a photo poetry book exploring the innate wisdom held in trees. It is a collaboration between Paul Williams, photographer ('Lungs of the City' exhibition at ASP, October 2023) and Dr Sandra Walker, poet. It is the first publication resulting from their collaborative enterprise Sanpau Creative Wellbeing (www.sanpau.org).
The evening event starts with welcome drinks and nibbles then Paul will talk about his process in creating the photographs which utilised various types of pinhole camera. Sandy will intersperse with some poems and a chat about her process in responding to the photos and how the poems were created. There will be time for viewing some of the pictures up close and purchasing signed copies of the book after the talk. This timely and thought-provoking book would make a great Christmas present for the nature lovers in the family.