Tonight is the opening of 'Time and Fire destroy all things' at WHITEWALL in Milton Keynes

The private view is from 5.30 to 7.30 all welcome!

Details can be found here:

http://www.miltonkeynescontemporary.co.uk/MK%20contemporary/nigelgrimmer.html

Today I did an interview with Joseph Cattell from BOYZ magazine, for the section on people and their passions. We talked about my work, inspirations, influences and my relationship to art education.

The magazine will be out next week.

The Norwegian fashion terrorist Kjell Nordström blogged me on his site today,

"Nigel Grimmer is one of the most interesting artists in modern art."

http://baronvonbulldog.blogspot.com/2008/07/nigel-grimmer-roadkill.html#links

For the last few months 'Roadkill Family Album' has been projected in The New Life Shop gallery in Berlin; my work was selected from the wooloo website as part of their New Life Visuals project.

On Saturday 28th June from 9pm until late the whole of The New Life Visuals project will be displayed, and there will be a closing party.

The gallery address is:
New Life Shop
Choriner Strasse 85
10119 Berlin - GERMANY
U-bahn Rosenthaler Platz (U8)

www.wooloo.org

I spent the week in Berlin, catching up with friends and checking out the Berlin Biennial. I've never been to a Biennial before and they   are such a major part of the artworld.

The show was truly awful; I can still hold out some hope for future Biennial visits though as the general consensus is that this is really poor in relation to previous shows. So Venice 2009 here I come!

I don't think I'll even mention any of the work in particular, as two days after my slog round the Biennial I've already forgotten most of the pieces and I'd prefer it to stay that way...

Today I went to the degree show of the students I had in my seminar groups earlier in the year; I went begrudgingly as I was tired and was meant to be packing for Berlin. I was soooooooooooo glad I went though, I had a really nice time and some of the students really made my day! I was surprised that some of them had really paid attention to what I had said, and felt it had made a difference with their practice. It was the first experience I'd had of job satisfaction for a looooooooooooong time.

It's made me more determined to hunt out some more lecturing for next year.

It was nice to finally meet Alison Dalwood who organised the seminar groups for me. It was a great surpise to bump into Rod McIntosh who I knew from my degree in Sheffield, he's now the programme leader for the Continuing Professional Development course at the University.

Kimi, Adam, Vicky, Liz, Bonnie and Anna Marya good luck for the future, and see you at your show in the Truman Brewery!

I've done quite well with my resolution to just get on with my practice and to ignore any applications, proposals, statements and even this blog! I've just worked on new photographs for the Milton Keynes show for the last eight weeks. My only slip was accidently sending portfolios to Photoworks and Foam magazines; there was hardly any writing involved though... Both operate open submission programmes, check them out!

Today Lisa Gee, the director of The Harley Gallery in Welbeck, contacted me to say the gallery is going to take the tour!!! They will show Plastic Life next summer, at last another summer show!! All my private views have been in foul weather lately! I'm glad the tour will carry on after 20-21 in Scunthorpe. It would be nice of we could fill one or two of the gaps in the schedule, Bedford Creative Arts stills hasn't got back to me...

www.harleygallery.co.uk

I've done quite well with the things I've applied for lately, I got almost everything except the show at Elevator Gallery. I got the show in Southampton, my Arts Council Grant and the show at Icetwice.

Now I've decided to be a bit more selective about the things I apply for. I don't think I'm going to apply to be in anymore group shows, unless they are in London. I'm also going to only apply for things that will really make a noticable difference to my life as an artist. If I get asked to do things that's a different matter, I just want to start getting more work done and ditch some of my paperwork!

I've seen residencies in Tokyo and Vienna that sound really good, and I've applied for the Artsway residency, and put in an application to Whitewall gallery space in Milton Keynes.

This evening I was at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum for 'Artist Question Time with Nigel Grimmer'. I was on a panel to answer questions from new artists, mainly about funding, getting shows and living as an artist.

Also on the panel was Sian Prime from StArt, an organisation that provides business support for creative practioners, Jessica Morgan who is now the curator at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum and Monica Fernadez who is their Arts Development Officer.

We got quite a few questions, and it was good fun. I really enjoyed it, and was very pleased I'd taken some time to revise my knowledge of the different funders I've worked with.

It was nice to meet everyone, and to see the staff of RAGM again. It was good to meet Jessica, she may have already found a potential new venue for the tour! Sian and I went for dinner afterwards, and nearly missed the train back to London which could have been a disaster!

For information on Sian's work at StArt check out

http://artworks-mk.co.uk/start/

Today was the opening of the group show I'm in called Everything You Never Cared About at Arlington Arts Centre. The show was in Newbury, I'd never been there before so I went and looked round the town for a while. I didn't find anything I could use for photos in the junk shop, but I did some clothes shopping! After a massive dinner I met up with Matt Lippiatt and we got a lift to the Arts Centre.

It was cool to see Matt again, he's always entertaining; it meant that we could have a chat about the group show we hope to do with Craig Fisher. I got to see some more of Matt's work in the real world, this time the series of tiny placards he's made, produced from photos of dozens of different protest marches from various points in history. I liked the tiny scale, and know that this kind of work will go really well with my own.

We watched some amazingly accomplished films by students from Bournemouth Arts Institute. It was a really long day, but I was glad I went!!

Everything You Never Cared About

Mon 21 January - Sat 15 March
10am-4.40pm Mon-Fri, Sat 10am - 1pm

Is it really better to have loved and lost? Do the best things come in particularly small packages? If you really ever cared about something, should it be set free? We’ve brought together a group of diverse artists whose work reflects our everyday hopes and fears, our dreams of escaping drudgery and our love for creating ephemera, which we adore and discard with equal passion. Featuring mixed media and animated works by Adam Bridgland, Clive Dillistone, Malcolm Ellison, Nigel Grimmer, Aysin and Ali Halil, Matt Lippiatt, Vikaas Mistry, John Williams, Patrick Wray, students from Mary Hare and graduates from the Bournemouth Arts Institute.

Free Entry

Today I was mentioned on the Eyestorm website, they had a copy of The Guardian review by Robert Clarke. They described me as "Aspiring", "Emerging" and "Possibly one to keep an eye out for this year?" I wish they would pay me for work I sold through their website in AUGUST!!!

Today I saw myself on the cover of The Pink Paper, with a doll of Big Gay Al from Southpark. The photo was taken to promote the opening of The Gay Doll Museum at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. Sadly they got both the name of the gallery and the contact e-mail address incorrect, so I don't think it will help publicise the show as much as I'd hoped!

Weirdly enough the first ever time my work featured in the press was exactly ten years ago this week, on the cover of The Pink Paper! A gay doll from my installation Passing was used for the first ever colour cover!

Today I discovered that I had been mentioned in a real grown up book! The installation I created in St. Martins windows in 1998 called Passing was mentioned in 'The Tropics of Desire - Interventions from Queer Latino America' by Jose Quiroga. I presumed the book must be new as I'd not know about the mention before, but it was actually published in 2000. I'll have to check out a copy!

http://books.google.com/books?id=QcB4vCm2TAkC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=%22nigel+grimmer%22+latin&source=web&ots=eqw_428WGC&sig=jIpyjkekhX7X6E8WImdu0AaGXcc

Today I posed for a photo for the cover of next weeks Pink Paper.
The  photo will be used to advertise the opening of The Gay Doll Museum at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum.

Tonight was the private view of my touring show Plastic Life opening at Rugby. It was a shame I couldn't get any of my mates to come along, but the train prices and times from London were awful! Luckily I was showing alongside local artist Eric Gaskell, so he had a posse with him.

I chatted to the staff who work in the gallery who are all pretty cool; Vicky Mitchell and The Jackson Twins, who work as gallery assistants, and I had our photos in the local paper. We were outdone by the photos of Rugby's first page three stunner though... 

The weather was so awful I couldn't beleive it! But it was still a nice evening, I got to meet the mayor of Rugby who was the most enthusiastic person in regard to my work who I can remember meeting for a long time!

There was a review of the Rugby exhibition in The Guardian Guide today!!

Nigel Grimmer and Eric Gaskell – Rugby

Nigel Grimmer takes the stuff of personal and pop obsessions and builds up narratives that are as touching as they are daft. His raw materials include action figures, comic books and trash film stills. Carefully collaged together, these become components of tableaux that are then recorded with digital photography. His Roadkill Family Album (pictured) consists of prints of stretched out humans masked variously as foxes or badgers. Grimmer is good at pop pathos. The accompanying Community Space exhibition The Family Line features paintings, prints and drawings by Eric Gaskell in which old tombstones and census records are composed into semi-abstractions.

Robert Clark

Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, Tue 15 to Mar 9

Today I went to Rugby to see The Plastic Life exhibition get hung up. I also installed part of The Gay Doll Museum in the museum, I think it's really cool that they are showing this. Everyone was really nice and helpful.

Today it was confirmed that I will give my lecture at Camberwell College on the 6th February. Afterwards I'm going to give tutorials to some of the photography students. I'm really looking forward to it! Now I have to think of some other colleges to contact!

The Head of Photography, Martin Newth, had the show before me at Focal Point. He took some photos of tube stations at rush hour, he used such a long exposure that the stations look empty, cool! He also took long exposures of suburban houses at night-time so they end up looking like they are taken in the day, but the streets are abandoned.

Today I got a small award from the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust. The award means I'll not have to carry my pictures between galleries any more and will be able to get taxis! The charity gives awards to artists over the age of thirty who are of British descent.

www.oppenheimdownestrust.org/downloads/oppenheim_application_form2008.pdf 

The comments on the internet page for The Brently Weekly News are really making me laugh!
I hope they get some more!

http://www.brentwoodweeklynews.co.uk/mostpopular.var.1906192.mostviewed.headlights_shine_on_dead_animals.php

It was nice to sell a copy of the girl with the telephones from the "Be Careful of Things Left Behind" series today.

There is a short article on the last page of Christmas The Big Issue, the one with Take That on the front.
There are nice photos of my Mum and Pasminda inside...

Snapshot
Roadkill Family Album

Roadkill Family Album is an ongoing project by the artist Nigel Grimmer. Each photograph depicts a member of Grimmer’s family, or a close friend, lying, apparently dead, by the side of a road wearing the mask of an animal.

Although explicitly staged events, the images conjure up feelings of abandonment and sorrow within those viewing the pictures. The animals seem to have expired, or to have given up the will to live, but the underlying human presence creates a curious tension.

Helena Drakakis

I've had a few people ask to buy my work in the last few weeks. I think in the new year I will produce some multiples. The multiples will be cheaper than my usual work, but may be in larger editions.

I'm being quite inspired by the defunct Canadian art group General Idea at the moment, they were kings of the multiple! I think I will start with a jigsaw puzzle and one of those concertina postcards that you used to get at the seaside. This could also be a good way to use some of the images I've made lately that don't fit into any of my series of exhibition work.

Today  my exhibition at Focal Point was reviewed by the local newspapers.

http://www.brentwoodweeklynews.co.uk/mostpopular.var.1906192.mostviewed.headlights_shine_on_dead_animals.php

Today I was the visiting lecturer at South East Essex College, Southend. The lecture was part of the education programme accompanying my current Plastic Life tour; this was my second lecture with tutorials   in the programme, the first was at The University of Hertfordshire. I'm so glad to be finally getting experience   of something I've always wanted to do. I've previously found the entry into the education circuit completely impenetrable, it's so nepetistic.

In January I will be giving the third lecture in the series at The University of Northampton, with a day of tutorials. I will also be giving a lecture and artist's surgery at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. In February I'm going back to Hertfordshire to give tutorials for a few days.

In the new year I think I will begin to contact other universities, not just the ones near the touring venues.

When I found out that Matt Lippiatt was in the Bump in the Night show with me at 20-21 in Scunthorpe I sent him an email. I really like his work, and told him so! I was so pleased when he wrote back and we have kept up a dialogue; I finally met him at his group show on Redchurch Street on Saturday, he's a really nice bloke!

When I went to 20-21 to document the show   I was surprised to see Craig Fisher's work in the show, he's another of my favourite artists. I wrote him an email too, and didn't really expect to hear from him. It was so cool that he wrote back!   The three of us have now formed a mutual appreciation society and are discussing showing together,   with the show possibly curated by Dominic Mason from 20-21.

I think our work would go so well together, so I'm really excited by the prospect! In the new year I will try to find a space in London who would be willing to show our work.

http://www.rokebygallery.com/matrix_engine/content.php?page_id=394&image=713

http://www.mattlippiatt.co.uk/

My new assistant, Patrice Lovelace, started today.
We worked on a brand new series of work.
We worked on photographs I took when I was in Italy in the summer.
I think the series will be called 'The Autographed Landscape', it's quite different from the rest of the work I've been doing...

The website has had 1000 hits!
Thank you to everyone who has checked it out over the last  three and a half months!

I intend to add images to some of the text pages, and to finish off the archive.
Hopefully the shop will appear soonish!

Come back soon!!!

For the first time ever I had two private views on the same day.
At lunch time I went to the opening of my touring show at Focal Point in Southend.
In the evening I went to the opening of Think Pink in The Arts Forum in Hastings.

It was nice to see some old friends at both venues, and it was cool that some of my friends made the journeys with me. I met some teachers from schools and colleges who are running workshops with their students about my work, getting the children to either dress as roadkill in front of blue screens or making masks to act out different characters outside.

Laura Bowen at Focal Point and I discussed further venues for the touring show, I'll send out some more touring brochures next week.

It was a really long day, but it was good fun and both shows looked really great.

A complete stranger told me   that my work reminded them of Miranda July's work.

I've only seen her feature film 'Me and You and Everyone We Know', and while I liked it I couldn't see the connection. The stranger told me to read one of her books, that they reminded him of my text based work.
So I've started reading   'No-one Belongs Here More Than You', and I love it! I usually loathe short stories but this book is really cool. July always talks in the first person, but creates so many characters that she plays out with complete sympathy, a real achievement, especially when some of the stories are only 4 or 5 pages long.

Thank you for the compliment and the recommendation!!!

Today is the final day of Roadkill Family Album at The Margaret Harvey Gallery in St. Albans. The exhibition marked the first stage of The Plastic Life tour, the work will move to Focal Point in Southend next week. I've taken photos of the show and will post them somewhere on the blog when I have time.

The exhibition has been a good experience. It was good to meet both curators, Sanna Moore who initiated the project and Matthew Shaul who helped with the completion of the project. Matthew is going to help publish The Roadkill Family Album book. There were some cool people at the rpivate view! I also got to give my first proper lecture, and met lots of cool students. Hopefully I'll get to go back for some teaching.

Today was the private view of the gaywise festival's Visual Arts Exhibition at The Drill Hall in London. I exhibited one of the images from the Places I Call Home series, and it sold straight away! Hurray!

The show is on until 30 November, Mon - Sat 12-8pm, Sun 11-6pm

The Drill Hall, 16 Chenies Street, London, near Goodge Street tube

www.gaywisefestival.org.uk

Today I gave my first ever visiting artist lecture at a university. It was at The University of Hertfordshire in conjunction with my touring exhibition. It took such a long time to write the lecture! When I got there the lecture theater was massive, and there were more than a hundred   students in the audience! The students were second and third year degree students as well as those from the masters course.

It was quite hard reading out a lecture and trying to make it sound spontaneous! I much preferred the question session at the end, where I could tell stories and make the students laugh!

I was worried I'd been boring but lots of the students came and thanked me at the end. One student said it was the first lecture he ever stayed awake in!!!!!!! Several of the students asked for tutorials which I was really pleased about. The Head of Fine Art is trying to arrange for me to come back for a days teaching.

I'll be showing some work in the Christmas themed exhibition at Eyestorm Gallery.

The show runs from 27th November until 14th December 2007.

Eyestorm London
Unit 4 Bankside Estate
5-11 Sumner Street
SE1 9JZ
+44 (0)20 7928 8877

Opening times
Monday - Friday: 10am - 6pm

Today was the private view for my Roadkill show at The Margaret Harvey Gallery in St Albans.

It was a pretty quiet opening, but the work looked really good in the space. Mark the technician did a really good job. I was pleased to see a few old friends who I'd not seen for ages. It was also nice to see some new people, especially the couple who traveled from Milton Keynes for the show. I'll have to try to get a show at The Milton Keynes Gallery and get them to star in some local Roadkill photos.

Matthew Shaul the gallery curator is going to help me publish the Roadkill tour book.

Even though they are sometimes stressful I think it's worth having your work on on-line gallery sites. I got work in Zoo through the Saatchi site,  on The Apprentice through Eyestorm and got exhibitions from people seeing my stuff on Axis or Britart. Today I got messaged from wooloo.org wondering if I would be interested in having some of my work projected in the Wooloo New Life Gallery in Berlin! I think the projects they run are really interesting!

Today I found out I got my funding from the Arts Council, second time lucky! The grant is to help produce new work for my touring show Plastic Life. I had all my files ready at the printers in case I got the grant, so I called them today to tell them to print everything! It means I will be able to show a few new works in each of the venues.

I've had a great response from the advert I placed with the University of the Arts.
All the students who have applied sound ideal.
I'm going to be really busy this week preparing lectures for the touring show, but I'll  choose somebody as soon as my writings done.

Zoo Art Fair opens  to the public today.

The Fair is in the Royal Academy this year, in the old Museum of Mankind building.
The Fair is open Thursday to Sunday 12-8pm and on Monday 12-5pm.
My work is in the Saatchi On-Line Exhibition gallery.

Today I got a message from  Arlington Arts Centre in Newbury.
They saw my work in the Cork Street show and wondered if I would be interested in being in a group show exploring contemporary and future ideas of Britishness. They said there was a  common element of 'doomed beauty' running through the work they've selected so far! Sounds like it will go perfectly with my work!

They also asked if I knew any sculptors who worked on similar themes to me, so  I've suggested Matt Lippiatt. I think it'll be cool to be in another show with him, I think our stuff will look good together.

Today was the last day of the Lautieri Moores Open exhibition. I'm very grateful to all the people who came to vote for my work during the show. Unfortunately I didn't win, but I did get offered an exhibition by someone who saw my work in the show. I also made contact with Vicki Kerr who is a cool artist I met a long time ago; she made my favourite work in the show and deserved a prize!

I'm currently advertising for a new assistant.
It will take the form of a work experience placement, probably from The University of  the Arts.
I need someone to scan my archive of work, and to  work on some paintings for me.
I'm spending too much time on administration and want to get some more work done!

Dear All

I've been short-listed for an art prize, along with nineteen other artists; I'm quite excited, as I've never been short-listed for one before.
Work by all the artists is being shown at 'The Gallery on Cork Street' this week.
Anyone visiting The Gallery is eligible to vote for who should win.

If you are in the area, and like the work I've submitted, please go and vote!
I've put some photos with anime/manga type characters in that I made in Tokyo called 'Be Careful of Things Left Behind'. I only got a brief look at the other work, but some of it looks cool.

There is a party with drinks and the prize-giving on Saturday, let me know if you'd like to come, cheers, Nigel

Lautieri Moores Open
The Gallery in Cork Street
28 Cork Street, Mayfair, London
October 2nd – 6th 2007
Open daily 10.00 – 5.30pm
Nearest tube Green Park
www.lmopen.co.uk
www.nigelgrimmer.com/page3.htm

I've been asked to host an Artist Surgery or Question Time in Rugby on  February 12th 2008.
I will be giving artists information and advice relating to getting shows, studios, funding, etc.
I think it should be good experience.

Things That Go Bump in the Night opens today at  20-21 Art Centre in Scunthorpe.
I'm exhibiting four images from the Places I Call Home series.
My touring show will be shown at the Arts Centre at the end of next year.

I got some good news today, Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea confirmed that they will take the Roadkill Family Album touring show. They will exhibit the show from 1st December to 5th January, they will take the show straight after The Margaret Harvey Gallery and deliver it to Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. We could still fit in some more venues between Rugby and 20-21 Arts Centre; slots between March and November 2008 are still  available.

I read the new leaflet of forthcoming events at the University of Hertfordshire today.

My exhibition at The Margaret Harvey Gallery is advertised, as well as the lecture I will be giving on the 5th of November at 2pm at The University which is apparently open to anyone.

I also noticed that there is a children's workshop where they can make animal masks and then be photographed in the gardens of The Museum of St Albans! I think I may volunteer to be the photographer, maybe some of the photos could be used in my work or put on this website...

I ventured to Vyner Street today for the first time this year. On the whole it was a bit depressing; the galleries were all showing pretty similar stuff. Nettie Horn was the only one with a show I liked.

I’m glad that my work is now confirmed for Zoo Art Fair; two of the Annihilation by Blandness series will be on the Saatchi-Online stand. The fair is at the Royal Academy this year.

I was asked if I would submit a photograph for a fashion magazine called CeCi, but later found out that they were asking different artists, designers and photographers to create their version of the magazine cover. The project sounded like too much work right now, and I only wanted to do it if I had time to do it well; I can’t believe I turned down paid work!

Today I went to see  Blair Kelly sing in a gig in Kilburn.
Blair has written an EP based on Roadkill Family Album, with each song named after one of the animals in the series. It was the first time that I heard him sing one of them live. It was pretty cool, he also did an amazing cover of Amy Winehouse singing Back to Black.


Blair's songs  definitely hit the same kind of register as lots of my work, particularly Places I Call Home; lots of my texts could be lines in his songs. I really wish that we could both add one or two upbeat tracks/images to our collections, which would probably make the whole seem much stronger. In our work we both take a position of an outsider; observers of a broken world.

Blair is the latest model in Roadkill Family Album, and I hope to add him to the dunce series soon.

http://www.myspace.com/blairkelly

Hurray! I heard from the person who was interested in buying my work earlier in the week. He had gone to Eyestorm on Friday and bought a copy of Roadkill Family Album (Emma, Paris, 2006)   I should chase up a few of the other people who were interested in buying work.


http://www.eyestorm.com/search/keyword/artist/Nigel_Grimmer.html

Today I got an e-mail from the Saatchi on-line site, saying that someone was interested in my work.

I've never had any e-mails from them before and was surprised to find not one but two messages waiting for me on my Saatchi page.

The first was from someone wanting to buy one of the big Roadkill  Family Album prints, but the message was a few days old and they needed the picture this morning! I can't believe I missed out on such a big sale!!!

Secondly Saatchi sponsors Zoo Art Fair. Each   month a curator picks their top ten artists on the site, any artist that has been selected can show two works at   Zoo Art Fair in October. I got selected a few months back, so I've been asked to submit some work, I've never been in an art fair before. October is a bit tight because I'm already in three shows that month, but I think it'll be a good opportunity to sell stuff and Saatchi aren't taking a commission!

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk

Today I found out I got shortlisted for the Lautieri Moores Art Prize. This means that I'll be showing some of Be Careful of Things Left Behind   in The Gallery in Cork Street for the first week in October. The public pick who gets the cash awards.

http://www.lmopen.co.uk/

Today I got a call from the organisers of Homotopia Arts Festival in Liverpool. They are interested in showing some of my work. They really want to show Passing which I made about ten years ago at St. Martins because the festival has an underlying theme about homophobia this year. I've sent them some more images of my work as I'm not sure I want to do an installation.

http://www.homotopia.net/

I got asked if I would be interested in having some of my photographic work critiqued by Martin Parr on a new Channel 4 television programme called Picture This. They were interested in showing images from my new dunce series. As I wouldn't be there to defend it, and the section will be called The Viewer's Wall I decided not to participate; it sounds a bit like The Gallery on Take Hart!

Today I had a meeting with Medeia Cohan who is in charge of selecting new work for the art collection at The University of the Arts. The University is interested in collecting work by some of its Alumni, and I studied at St. Martins. She was interested in some of the new images from Places I Call Home, as well as the models from the Annihilation by Blandness series. She's going to see what her budget is and then get back to me.