I attended this public event, an artists talk by Turner prize nominated artist Nathan Coley. I have been looking at his work for a while and it worked out really well because the talk had been put back due to strike action and was now held on the Friday that the opening night was on for the Odysseys exhibition. So it was a case of going to the talk in the afternoon and then going to the opening night, so an interesting day out in the capital. The talk was part of Edinburgh College of Art’s monthly event titled ‘Thing of the month’.
The works he talked about were:
The Ballast Project (2011)
The Same for Everyone (2017)
Gathering of Strangers (2007)
In Memory (2010)
The Basic Material is not the Word but the Letter (2018)
Coley was very relaxed and very much in control. Despite the fact that he has been making art work for 25 years now, he is very down to earth with both feet on the ground. I really enjoyed listening to him talking about some of his works. This is the first time that I have come face to face with him in person. I did try and record the talk, but something happened and the recording seemed to disappear into thin air. I did make some notes and these will be used. The important thing was that I asked him a question at the end (only 1 of 3 questions) and he talked at length in his answer and thanked me afterwards for the question.
My questions was roughly this:
Looking at ‘In Memory’, you mentioned crossing the threshold into this enclosed space, which appears to be a sealed off spiritual space. You have previously mentioned that you are interested in spirituality and made a work titled ‘Urban Sanctuary’ and also that you are more interested in the spaces in-between architecture, rather than the buildings themselves. I wonder if you have a sense of ‘In Memory’ and your other works being an in-between space and if so what kind of messages do you think that in-between places communicate?
