Years of art training, months of creating, destroying and recreating work going hand-in-hand with microscopes, telescopes and a fascination with the workings of the brain: not the usual ingredients of an art exhibition. But local artist John Byrne (jb) has brought all of this to ‘tinybiSHen’ which opens on Monday 28 July at new space Basement in Church Street, Douglas
The title reflects the insignificance of man in the universe as well as describing the relatively low awareness of jb’s work outside the Island’s artistic community. But ‘tinybiSHen’ will change that.
You might not know his name now, but you soon will – ‘tinybiSHen’ is your opportunity to get in on the ground floor of what is set to be a glittering career: not only has jb produced canvases, photographs and examples of digital art for this exhibition but he is about to start a three month residency at gallery I-A-M Zentrale in Berlin and has been invited to submit a number of works to London’s prestigious Brick Lane Gallery.
jb began his education in County Galway, Ireland followed by the Art Foundation course at Isle of Man College and then a degree in Visual Communication from Leeds School of Art and Design. Since graduating, he has been concentrating on developing his art and ‘tinybiSHen’ is the result. jb spends hours looking at the sky, or closely through his microscopes, delving below the surface of what can be seen with naked eye before being inspired to paint – works he then often destroys to recreate as something completely different.
“I hope that visitors to the exhibition like what they see, but it will be hard to let go of some of these works,” says jb. “Each piece is very much ‘of the moment’. There is no real end: I know how each work began its life, but I now have to see it as a new entity with a new owner in a new place, who will project his or her own life and emotions on to it. The life of the work continues.”
As well as paintings, photographs and other digital art, ‘tinybiSHen’ includes an audio/visual showreel entitled ReSho bPa which shows the process of burning old used canvases to then reform into new ones, for new work.
Most artists want their art to speak for itself, but jb takes this further:
“what I see in a painting isn’t what you see. I know how the work began – what’s beneath the top layer, what I rejected to get to this point – but the viewer brings his or her own preconceptions, even their emotions and moods, to it.”
If you would like to bring your own preconceptions to jb’s work, ‘tinybiSHen’ continues at Basement, Church Street, Douglas until 3 August. Entrance is free, apart from the evening of Saturday 2 August, when there will be an audio visual journey, a vj/dj installation from jb’s sample banks, and a small charge will be payable on the door.
Basement is the brainchild of Andrew Otten and Ben Jones who have set up a pop-up exhibition space in what used to be Bushey’s basement bar. A welcome addition to the growing number of eclectic cultural venues in and around Douglas, jb’s ‘tinybiSHen’ is their first major event but Andrew and Ben plan to build on this with other contemporary art exhibitions, and intimate music events. Events will be publicised in the usual way, and anyone interested can ‘like’ www.facebook.com/corkwing or check out www.corkwing.im and be kept up to date with future events.
