Design Event North East 2010

Design Event is an annual Festival Held in the North East, it is open to anyone who wishes to attend.  The event hosts Art in galleries, shows and talks.  Running rom the 21st to the 31st of October i would strongly recommend a visit, especially for anyone with a creative streak.

 This years theme was all about conversation, something which Karen Nairstone the festival director feels we have lost in the new age of technology with the vast population of England regularly using the internet and text rather than traditional means of communication.

This year the bulk of the events were held in Newcastle with Gateshead, Sunderland, Durham and Middlesbrough also holding events. I attended some of the gallery exhibitions in Newcastle.


My first point of call was a favourite gallery of mine, tucked away in an alley just off a busy Newcastle Street, an Urban and modern small gallery with a shop attached.  Electric Sheep presented an exhibition by Craww named 'Droodlings'.  


I found this piece particularly inspiring and interesting, I loved the attention to detail within this piece.  The texture in the background gives quite a gothic and blood like effect.  I like the way the figure is shaded to make it look like it stands out more against the background, but yet the wings fade slightly into the background making the piece appear more fluid.  I particularly like the way the piece hasn't just been forgotten about and put in a glass frame which reflects no personality or uniqueness, the frame reflects the piece and compliments it well with it's rustic feel and the colour even compliments the colour pallet used within the piece, I feel this really finishes off the piece.


Out of all of the exhibitions I saw throughout Design Event 'Droodlings' was by far in my opinion the most inspirational.  I found these pieces quite gothic yet modern, with much attention to detail.  Below are some more pieces from 'Droodlings'.

Next on my tour of Design Event was Newcastle Arts Centre, also known as Details, who were hosting an exhibition called 'Exquisite Corpse'  which took inspiration from a visual game of Chinese whispers, were individual artists came together to produce an overall work of art.

This is my favourite piece from the Exquisite Corpse.  This piece caught my eye because i felt it stood out from the rest of the computer generated pieces in the gallery, I felt this piece seemed to have more personality.  Compared to the other pieces in the room this piece had more within it and wasn't sparse although I did like many of the other pieces in the room.  


I felt this piece stood out through it's old and worn colours, making it appear almost antique like.  I like the way this piece uses a pen and ink effect to make it appear like a tattoo.  I really like the colour pallet used it makes the piece feel rustic.  I also like the pattern at the bottom of the piece which gives the impression of waves, I like the way the sea hasn't been portrayed in an obvious way with block colour, instead different opacities have been used.  I also like the way the mixed media has been introduced with the waves and the hand drawn effect, it isn't over powering.  The blue is again introduced at the top of the piece within the clouds which pulls the piece together.


Overall i found this exhibition quite interesting, with an array of different views on the concept.  Below are some more pictures from this exhibition.