A mere 2 days later after arriving into London on Sunday night, I was heading off to Birmingham in pursuit of other art related adventures.

Prior to the opening of Ikon Gallery’s Hamish Fulton and Sarah Browne’s exhibitions, I spent the afternoon in an artist studio in Digbeth.

This is a tiny sneaky peek of Alexi K’s studio which is not too far away from the old Minerva Works. It’s a really cool space, with masses of natural light illuminating the room. We ended up talking about conceptual art for about 2 hours, and then went onto a rather lengthy discussion about whether or not the medium of painting has completely vanished from today’s art scene. I was quite gutted afterwards really, because the day I went back to London they held a discussion on this very subject at Eastside Projects.

I hope Alexi won’t mind me putting this photograph on too…

 After wolfing down the last remaining handcrafted cupcakes we shared, I went along to Ikon’s exhibition opening. I didn’t get round to seeing much of Sarah Browne’s work, as I spent most of the evening admiring Fulton’s work on the top floor. 

I really like Fulton’s work. Born in London in 1946, he actually didn’t commence his long walks until 1971. This work created for Ikon is rather outstanding, but I’m quite big on his early practice too. There’s this notion of walks being incomplete, which is rather odd to be honest (how can a walk be incomplete?). I came across this little snippet of a conversation between him and an interviewer from many years ago:

Interviewer: What is the connection between the walking and the photographs?
Fulton: The connection is that they are opposite, the walk is the country and the artwork is the city

I’m still musing over what that means…

P.S, I’m going on a walk with Hamish Fulton on Easter Sunday. Wee bit excited already.

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http://alexik-artist.blogspot.co.uk/

www.ikon-gallery.co.uk