Marie Jacotey

0:06Good evening everyone so thanks a lot for the nice introduction so my name is Matthew Dakota as I've written here again I'm going to present tonight my latest series of work works called mourning defeats it's composed of like three different things first of all a series of dry pastel drawings on Japanese paper of various form from quite small scale to like bigger scale I mean just that's the actual size with my in between my hands and a bigger textile installation.

0:53So I'll come to that afterwards and a book comprising those pastel drawings and introducing a collaboration of mine with the poet's Rachel Allen the reason why I'm presenting the three bodies of work together is because they are all linked and also the rules there were all parts and forming my show my latest story my latest solo show at Hannah berry gallery in Peckham last October so I want to start with the series of pastel drawings so the series itself is called mourning defeats which gave the name to the show. And I mean all of my work is usually based on human relationships or like an observation of the intimacy of people I'm really obsessed with that stories of people. Basically everything there's a bit disturbing or you know people would prefer hiding I guess that's the thing I'm trying to draw and I'm trying to talk about a lot of my previous work has been really talkative in the way that I'm always working with images and words together. And well.

2:18That's pretty that's a pretty obvious example for instance so this quality of my work remains in some of those drawings but a lot of them became more silent and I think I'm trying to like explore this new thing I think like Alex presented me saying that I had like people that seen probably a lot of my colored pencils in the past and I guess that's quite right because I've been working with very traditional mediums so for instance call it pencils on paper and drawing with dry pastel is quite a new thing for me I've only started doing that last year. And sort of allowed for a more painterly approach of drawing basically. And I guess I mean overall all my practice I like to work on very different materials and mediums and I mean the glimpse we just heard of like this big textile installation is a good example of that I'll show you some more details at the end of this slideshow I mean obviously the title morning defeats is a bit fat or hint hinted late yeah quite a lot of sadness but I guess I mean I did say that I was really obsessed with you know human relationship and what remains hidden but I think a lot of what remain hidden our problems and sadness I mean I don't know maybe I have like a great group of friends but they're really good at expressing happiness and I think like what is a bit uneasy and what's a bit sometimes I don't know how to say that in English is also so it's like I'm sorry cringing maybe ya cringing is a great word I'll take it so what's the big cringing in relationship I'm interested in basically. And I think I mean that's my interest after what you take from the image is quite different and I'm also interested in that you know in hearing the feedbacks and for some reason. And I think maybe it's because I've been putting loads of words with my drawings and and trying to express emotions that we maybe all have felt and not really dead talking about I get a lot of feedback from people writing for me you know emails or like coming to me at shows and saying well I think you've actually drawn this drawing for me it did you know it's my story and and I've had you know like women coming to me and and talking to me about like really dark subjects and as much as I I like that I'm not really comfortable [Laughter]

5:17I'm not really comfortable with that please please do by all means but I I have no I have no answers but that's what I mean I'm struggling with the same things.

5:28But I'm really touched that you know if my drawings can actually reach out people in that way I think like you might have seen from like this just like few drawings that I work a lot in quite similar ways I mean I would describe it as a collage in the sense that like all my influences for images are coming from a lot of social media sources and actually I mean that's a lot of content as well you know regarding like human relationships and what we post about ourselves and you know the captions and all that so text wise but also just like image Roy's and I mean for instance just the image on the right is a good example of a collage as I call it as in like the background so the landscape at the background was a zoom in like in a picture that I took myself from like the Croydon Park I was visiting for a project.

6:25And I mean yeah Creighton Park is quite funny sometimes and then.

6:34And then the picture of the man is like the picture of module I'm sorry I don't remember his name that I found on Instagram and the text was just like you know just like some scribbles I had on my notebook and all of it came together in this one image and I think I've functioned like that with everything like narratives and images and that's what I kind of enjoy like creating attention by bringing together maybe two three four things that are not meant to be together and for this particular list like particular series of work I was kind of obsessed with like billboards and you know landscapes and having built both in in a landscape you know you pass it like in a car and I mean it always like tells you like some stupid stuff about advertising I mean maybe not so stupid but who am I to judge anyway I was I wanted to use like this like really punchy graphics to like you know tell some stuff that were more kind of hints usually or lake yeah remains veiled so this bring us I mean not you this bring us to the collaboration with Rachel and I probably should have said that before showing you the series of pastel drawings but basically we started collaborating way before I started making those dry pastel drawings and that's a well a colored pencil drawing a poster I made for this magazine called art leaks and basically I made this poster double-sided and they asked me if I knew of a writer who would who could write some you know nice words to go alongside my artwork.

8:35And I knew of Rachel Allen and I loved her work.

8:39But I didn't know she'd want to collaborate with me.

8:42Anyway I brought to her she said yes I was happy and and so she wrote this to friends to go with but not only did she write super and she wrote about like 20 of them. And we only like got published two in the in the magazines but I read them.

8:59And I absolutely adored them and came about this idea of actually making a book of this series of poems and works of mine and she had wrote like she had written all of the poem from all the drawings of mine and I decided for like this book to actually make a new series of work. So it was kind of like a Chinese whisper sort of thing maybe it's not very good reference but anyway.

9:25So I had like those all drawings she made like this text and then.

9:27I made this like new series of pastel drawings and maybe the reason why I didn't introduce that fact before hand is because like part of the text within like those dry pastel drawings was mine and her poems even though like the word they're in like you know the forefront of my mind they were not like I was not actually trying to illustrate them.

9:51So it was really like a collaboration that sense that I was trying to kind of get a sense of the atmosphere she pushed in those bones and made a series of works I was kind of just you know sort of hinting at her texts that's sorry I should have said but that is just like the design of the book as it is that's like the graphic designers spread so it's like kind of a recycled paper on the left side where all the poems were written on. And that's just like my drawings printed on like a white sort of a bit thicker paper the feel of the book is really nice and you can buy it at test centre calm have it on your bedside table one night when you feel too happy her boobs are actually funnier than my drawing sir and that brings us to this last piece of work.

10:53So this is an actual shot of the installation in the gallery and so you can see like the drawings on the wall I should have mentioned they are they were framed in a kind of like question I want to say exhausting but that's not safe I say anyway in an exhausting manner by this a couple of friends of mine cause of Barack with kind of elastics frame from silicone frame that holds like the glass a bit away from the mounting board and which is why they look a bit kind of Wiggly like that or like organic shapes so that the drawings were exhibited on the wall.

11:36And then within the space of the gallery had like I had this massive curtain of about 8 meters long and 350 meters high that I all like hand roll so it was drawn with like wax crayon and paintings and felty pens but especially made for textile it looks like silk it's polyester and then it is disappointing but no worries no one is gonna wear it.

12:05So I think that's fine and it's double-sided so the back was like a lot more minimal as you can tell and the reason why I'm showing this piece of work at the very end of this talk is because every like single drawing was kind of referencing like a bit of a poem they of the drawings that were in the show and a bit of all the influences that were around me during the year I was we were working together on the book.

12:33And I was making those drawings and I made it appear as if I had like torn apart like loads of bits of my sketchbooks and kind of put it all of them on a big wall hence the kind of like architectural sense of the piece of installation itself and I live you on this last slide of a detail of that curtain thank you very much for listening you