This past Saturday marked the opening night of my first in-person gallery exhibition. I finally got to see my art up on the gallery wall, open to the public for viewing (and sales!) It was an experience unlike any other I have had.
I think any artist's first exhibition will be an emotion-filled moment, but this to me meant more than I ever thought it could. My first exhibition was cancelled almost last minute as it was due to open up in May 2020, and we know the reason that didn’t go ahead. Granted, the 2020 exhibition moved online so my work was still available for viewing, but having prints framed and physically hung on the wall is a whole different kind of experience.
In the prep for the exhibition, which included things such as cutting mounts and working out the order of display, we were tasked with hanging the work ourselves. This project is something I hold very close to my heart and it has allowed me to grow alongside my practice in ways I didn’t think were possible for me. Once my frames were hung and all the work was done, I ended up just sitting in front of my gallery space and looking at it for over an hour and a half. A bit like that scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where Cameron is focused so intently on Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, but with less existential dread and more pride and accomplishment. It’s hard to put into words exactly how I felt except that it was intense, in a good way. I don’t want to keep repeating myself by saying it was all so different, and exciting, and positive, but it was all of those things and more.
Come the day of the private viewing, the opening night of the exhibition, I was more nervous than I thought I would be. My mind racing with worries on how I should act, when I should make conversations with viewers of my work, when it was appropriate to hand out business cards to prospective collaborators and clients. Once I had gotten in there (and had a glass of wine), I realised I was getting into the swing of things and adapted surprisingly well to a situation I hadn’t ever been in before. Two of my close friends accompanied me as my guests, supporting me each step of the way whilst also getting the fantastic opportunity to see the MA and third year BA work on display in a lively and excited atmosphere. To be able to exhibit my work amongst my peers brought me closer to them all. There was such an amazing variety and standard of work on show, and even with those students I had only met in passing, it felt like a bond was formed with this showcase of our work.
I got an overwhelming amount of positive feedback for my work, not only from tutors and fellow students but people from around the world who had come to see the show! Strangers coming up and talking to me as if we had been life-long friends, asking questions about my concept and process. I was thriving off the conversations. I’m not normally one to slip into social situations so well, but I could talk about art for days, so to have a full day of nothing but art related talk was incredibly invigorating, I was certainly riding the high of the exhibition for days after.
I will be showing again at the Aberystwyth University School of Art in early September and have been looking at other galleries and open calls I can submit my work to in the meantime and beyond. I’ve gotten a taste for it now and don’t think this is ever something I’ll want to or be able to kick. I’ve been bitten by the physical exhibition bug and I love it! My work for the September exhibition will be a continuation of the same concept that bore this collection of work, but where it will lead and how it will end up looking is as much your guess as it is mine, and that is something I’m looking forward to discovering.
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