It's been a few months since the last blog and a busy period - I've been producing a lot of new work and it's been an interesting process switching between different media.  I'm currently editing the video that I began shooting in May and it should be completed soon - next month twelve stills from it will be exhibited as part of this year's Photomonth festival.  I've also begun looking through my photographic work since 1997 and selecting images for publication.  I was inspired by a friend who had produced a book but  it also seemed like a good idea to gather images together and see what connections there were.  It's surprising in some ways to see how consistent the interests and explorations of themes have been even when the execution and style has become quite different.  The first proof has come back for editing and I hope the final book will be ready next month.

 
l-r (c) Mandy Williams 1997/2010; (c) Mandy Williams 2010

October is looking busy with a couple of other shows in London and an artists open studio event. One of the exhibitions is at Viewfinder, a photographic gallery that was based in Greenwich but recently relocated to Brixton. It's a 3 person show called Home which was curated by Louise Forrester and I'll be exhibiting with Bill Jackson and Marysia Lachowicz. This is the first time I'll have shown this work, which is black and white infra-red photography inspired by the JG Ballard story, The Enormous Space, and the film, Home, written and directed by Richard Curson-Smith. It's less about horror though and more to do with exploring the boundaries between retreat, refuge and withdrawal.  The second show is the annual exhibition organised by London Independent Photography. This year the selectors were Paul Ellis from Photofusion and Lucinda Chua from Proud Galleries and I have two works in the show. The exhibition will be at the Strand Gallery.

Our open studio weekend will be a great opportunity to meet with other artists in the building and see different work. I'm really pleased it's been organised and hope it will become an annual event. It was about 3 years ago that they ran the last one and on that visit I thought it was a fantastic location, with studios looking out over the river - I didn't know then that I would be in one of them!  Far away from London, but also in October, MONA Detroit will be exhibiting an extended version of their Facebook show with many more artists and I'm happy to be included a second time.


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