Critical studies guest speaker: Mik Godley
Mik is a practising artist and a HE teacher, primarily teaching life drawing and painting, based in Nottingham.
Hid most recent exhibition included work spanning 18 years that unfortunately was launched during lockdown: 'Considering Silesia' exhibited at The Attenborough Gallery in 2021.
He started as an art student and then regularly went abroad to create large scales murals in Europe.
He was inspired by his origin story and the origin story of his Mother, who came from Silesia. He experienced racism as a German speaking child at school and this also inspired him.
Because there is a lack of information about the geographical area online, he started using Google earth to try and interpret the landscape. He enjoyed the limitations of the tech at the time and replicated the pixelated/ low res quality of images at the time.
He uses a mixture of media but mainly paints.
He likes using media that tells the whole story of his mark making like watercolour. There is no possibility to edit and do it is honest in that way.
After talking with a friend who relayed what David Hockney was making using his ipad, he started painting and drawing using apps on his tablet and phone. He uses Procreate, Sketchbook and Concepts.
These are sketches drawn of a mausoleum in Silesia created using a tablet and digital stylus.
He uses Google street view to explore areas, zoom in and or crop landscapes and then paints them.
He seems fascinated by WWII and the propaganda that infused the conflict. He has focused a lot of work researching the German Nazi mausoleum called Breslau that is now across the Polish border. It had been left to rewild and it completely screened by trees as the Polish government don't want anything to do with the monument and the German War Graves commission are not allowed access. He sees this as a kind of propaganda itself, just pretending something doesn't exist.
He relates the conspiracy and propaganda techniques used in the 1940s to what's happening today and is offering a lens on that. He's passionate about this conversation.
He also painted landscapes of the local area, having never painted a landscape before. So he was really testing the medium as well as how to use it to imply the image. He said it was a lot of fun doing this.
He would create multiple versions of the same image to experiment and learn. This feels really free and I am inspired by this approach. It's about uncontrived process, and leans into process.
He also turned his attention to the people of the area, sourcing images from really interesting places like dating websites and escort agency websites.
I like his freedom with the media he uses. How he allows the paint to express its natural quality on it's ground. He's really into mark making. It's visibly affirmative making.
He is communicating important political conversations. But he's also clearly driven by fascination and joy.
