Archive 1990-99
A quick overview of some of the highlights images from the 1990-99 era:
If I was to sum up my art time during the 1990s, I would use three words: Playful, hardwork and luck.
I started out at on a wonderful degree course at Humberside Polytechnic (1990-93). It was superb. It allowed total freedom for any student, providing a large studio space, an experimental mindset that really gave permission to make art as you developed and devised it. I often look back with remarkable and nostalgic praise for a wonderful time in my life.
The next two years were difficult. Employment for any recent art graduate is not that good. I was not the exception. Friends leave, I stayed in Hull where I had studied - a city high in unemployment. A close friend unexpectedly died, and I was beginning to get a taste of a new way of life beyond college days…
Nonetheless, I pulled through, carried on with my art and got employment. Significantly so, I began by volunteering with Hull Time Based Arts (HTBA) which turned out to be a national (and major) arts organisation that promoted experimental, performance and multi/interdisciplinary artworks. Many artists visited the city, many local artists converged, and the wonderful ROOT art festivals (Running Out Of Time) that HTBA created through the artistic director at the time, Mike Stubbs, established a hot house of artwork the likes I have never seen since. It was a remarkable time, with a great many topical, challenging and political artworks being encouraged and promoted.
By the mid to late 90s I was starting to make some inroads. In 1996, I achieved eccentric attention for raising concerns about the regional changes by walking backwards across the Humberbridge (pictures here on this page above). By 1998 and following a collaboration with Bernard Ostler, the National Allotment Champion, I pioneered Bloom98 (the national touring arts and allotments project), in which I orchestrated over 20 commissions to become part of two special one-off events; to illuminate and transform two allotment sites in the UK from day into night. It was highly successful and recognised as a leading large scale community arts project from that year.
By the end of 1990s, I received the full The Year of The Artist award in which I then undertook exploring the Hull river environs through art events and happenings. 2001 saw dramatic changes in direction and new works have since been created….Please see Archive 2000-09
