Gaia Project: Art & Landscape - Recently Updated Pages

The Earthworks

James@Gaia-Project — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:27:42 CDT

The Pilgrim's Rest
Media: (site specific) gritstone, heather, red ribbon

Tide Map
Media: (site specific) leaves [various tree species], sand, sea water.

Rune (for Andy Goldsworthy)
Media: (site specific) dandelions, rocks, moss, water.

Leachta (altar stone)
Media: (site specific) gritstone.

(between)
Media: (site specific) ferns, rocks, water.

seam/route/trace (quartz)
Media: (site specific) sheep wool, gritstone.

Migration
Media: (site specific) poinsettia leaves, wild barley, sand.

the point from which... (cairn II)
Media: (site specific) gorse & heather roots.

Media: treated map (graphite pencil)

Boundary / Sketch (line) / Path / Contour / Edge / Ancient Shore / Limit
Media: (site specific - Stanage Edge, Peak District)
600ft red silk ribbon (3.5 inches wide)

Alpha (larvae)
Media: (site specific) oak leaves.

Remains (root drawing)
Media: (site specific) heather roots, peat.

Ceremony (the arrival)
Media: (site specific) razor shells, bladder wrack seaweed, sand, sea water.

Exhibitions - Projects - Events

James@Gaia-Project — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:01:36 CDT

*Forthcoming....

...all this could be lost
Buxton Museum & Art Gallery - Derbyshire
Solo exhibition (video installation)
Autumn 2008

www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/buxton_museum/

*Past....

Artranspennine08
Cross-regional (Pennines)
13 June - 15 August 2008
http://atp08.blogspot.com/2008/03/brady.html

Gaia Museum: Phase 1
Edale Valley - Peak District National Park - Derbyshire
one-day exhibition event
Saturday 19th May 2007

When Anything Looms
Chapman Gallery - University of Salford (Arts Unit)
Group exhibition
17 April - 4 May 2007

www.arts.salford.ac.uk

Gaia Project: The Video Paintings
Cornerhouse - Manchester
Solo exhibition
2 - 12 April 2007

'James Brady is a North West based artist and independent curator. Working across the mediums of painting, photography, video and sculpture, Brady’s recent projects focus on the exploration of landscape and organic materials. His Gaia Project video-works, screened here, attempt to address the phenomenon of what is a conceptual divide between ‘geological time’ (deep time) and ‘human time. Brady describes these works as sitting somewhere between video, painting and photography and draws parallels between his work and the British landscape tradition in Western art. '

Helen Wewiora - Cornerhouse Media Curator

www.cornerhouse.org

Being here - Being there:
Landscape, Memory, Identity
Zion Arts Centre - Manchester
Group exhibition
26 February - 17 March 2005

www.zionarts.com

Exhibition conceived & curated by James Brady

Contributing artists:

Neal Dawson (photography)

www.photoboxgallery.com/nealdawson/2657247

James Davies (poetry/text)

www.matchbox.org.uk

Tim Williams (photography)

www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11215

Peet Earnshaw & David Burns (sound)

www.wearepolytechnic.com/

Andy Leyland (painting)

Chris Buckle (photography)

James Brady (organic sculpture)

this page is regularly updated....

Welcome to Gaia Project....

James@Gaia-Project — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:40:00 CDT

Castell y Gwynt: Home of Urizen (still) - 2008

"The artist must come out of the isolation of galleries and museums and provide a concrete consciousness for the present as it really exists, and not simply present abstractions or utopias. We should begin to develop an art education based on relationships to specific sites."
ROBERT SMITHSON (1972)

Runes (still) - 2007

"According to the Gaia Hypothesis, we are parts of a greater whole. Our destiny is not dependent merely on what we do for ourselves but also on what we do for Gaia as a whole. If we endanger her, she will dispense with us in the interests of a higher value - life itself."

VÁCLAV HAVEL (1994)

______________________________________________________________________

Gaia

/gi / (Ge)

• noun the earth viewed as a vast self-regulating organism.

— ORIGIN coined by the English scientist James Lovelock (b.1919) from the name of the Greek goddess Gaia.

______________________________________________________________________

Solus (still) - 2008

"The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears, and to speculate about the consequences of our own presence here."

JAMES LOVELOCK (1979)

"We are seeing the natural world through the eyes of men who died three or four thousand years ago, and for a moment or two we succeed in entering into the minds of the dead. Or on some desolate English moorland it is even easier to feel this identity with the dead of the Bronze Age who lie near by under a piled-up cairn or under the heathery blanket of a burial-mound."
W.G. HOSKINS - The Making of the English Landscape (1955)

Maen-du r Arddu (still) - 2007

Welcome to Gaia Project

I have created this website with the intention that it will have a multi-purpose. Over the coming weeks, months and (hopefully) years this will gradually develop as a 'platform' for the delivery and exchange of information related to:

my own practice as a visual artist and exhibition-maker.
the practice of other land & environmental artists based in the UK.
the interface between landscape, environment and the visual arts through an accessible 'open' discussion forum.

If you would like to contact me please feel free to email: james_gaia_project@yahoo.co.uk

James Brady
March 2007

Across Wool Packs
Media: charcoal drawing

(rock) painting

Media: gritstone & water.

Note: you can navigate this website simply by using the menu at the top-left of the page.

James Brady: Artist's Profile

James@Gaia-Project — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:15:57 CST

I have a practical background in the visual arts, although over recent years my academic and professional work has focussed mainly on its theoretical and historical aspects. I studied Art History at the University of Plymouth in the late '90s and since graduating I have worked widely in the museums and galleries sector mostly with collections and exhibitions. In 2005 I independently curated a successful multidisciplinary group exhibition at the Zion Arts Centre in Manchester, titled Being here – Being there: Landscape, Memory, Identity.

Over recent years I have begun to focus on my creative abilities and explore my artistic ideas and interests related to landscape and organic materials. What has manifest from this artistic exploration are a number of projects in different mediums - painting, photography, video, earthwork, installation and organic sculpture.

Woolpacks (still) - 2006

At the very heart of all my work lies a search for some kind of spiritual or divine order in nature, and furthermore an exploration into the empirical tensions between the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’. My works are essentially concerned with an investigation into organic processes and states through ‘man-made’ intervention and representation of ‘landscape’. The vast conceptual divide between ‘geological time’ (deep time) and ‘human time’ is a phenomenon which I attempt to address through my practice, especially in my current Gaia Project video-works.

My own personal Celtic ancestry and heritage is also a significant source of inspiration for my work. Either literally or often abstractly, I have chosen to associate myself with Celtic folklore and the spiritual legacy of my ancestors. Many Celtic (pagan) beliefs, rites and rituals are rooted in the landscape and the natural environment, and I derive my own identity from the same source as these ancient peoples. To walk the same land as my ancestors once did is a constant fascination for me….

I work with landscape (or at least the ‘idea’ of it) because to my unfailing awe and wonder, I suppose that I don’t really understand it (and my relationship to it) – hopefully I never will. So if my work has any value and purpose at all it is to be an elusive guide to assist me in comprehending the natural environments I encounter.

There is one specific question that I wish to ask (a crucial concern in my own work):
How does Landscape inform and define our personal and collective identity as human beings?
…I’m sure we would all have a different answer to that.

I am a member of:

Arts In The Peak
The Green Party
Cloud Appreciation Society

Drawings

James@Gaia-Project — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:13:58 CST

Gaia Museum

James@Gaia-Project — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 06:18:14 CDT

GAIA MUSEUM

(Phase 1: Peak District)

Uniting the landscape, visual arts and the expanded museum concept

The Peak District National Park

Edale Valley - Derbyshire

Saturday 19th May 2007

10am-10pm

In association with:

Museums & Galleries Month 2007

European Night of The Museums – La Nuit Des Musées 2007

Peak District National Park

24hourmuseum.org.uk

www.24hourmuseum.org.uk

www.visitpeakdistrict.com

Conceived and curated by James Brady

Concept

Gaia Museum (or ‘Earth’ Museum) is a unique site-specific multidisciplinary visual arts project. This inaugural phase will take place outdoors on one day, over a twelve-hour period in the Edale Valley at the heart of the Peak District National Park.

A small number of artists and other creative individuals who work within visual arts education will take part in the project.

The two specific topographic points of interest are the Woolpacks on Kinder Scout and the Bronze Age Hill Fort on Mam Tor. Both locations possess a commanding presence on high ground either side of the Edale Valley in Derbyshire.

Artists’ Brief

All contributors to Gaia Museum are invited to engage with the environments they encounter: to explore the landscape, to intervene, to respond intuitively and to express their experiences through their chosen medium(s).

As this is a multidisciplinary project it is envisaged that the following mediums will be employed: sculpture, performance, sound, poetry/text, video, photography, drawing and painting.

Philosophy

Gaia Museum is a museum ‘without walls’. It embodies a concept of the Museum that is physically ephemeral, changing, nomadic and always temporary. ‘Place’ becomes the Museum, it’s context and often it’s medium.

Gaia Museum is a 'public' extension of Gaia Project. It is not an officially recognised museum because it is very much an 'experimental' concept.

The ethos of Gaia Museum is rooted entirely in the outdoor place(s) where it occurs i.e it doesn't have a building. However, it does have a sound educational objective and also has (or will soon have) an ever growing 'permanent collection' of art works and documentational material.

In many ways Gaia Museum exists to challenge the preconceived ideas and definition of the 'Museum'. The concept may be rather unconventional, but I believe that is part of it's beauty.

This is an experiment in the production, display and interpretation of visual arts in the context of ‘The Great Outdoors’.

Just as museums are ‘open to all’, then so too are our National Parks. The public are informally invited to visit Gaia Museum and encounter artists creating work in response to the immediate environment around them.

Gaia Museum’s humble educational objective is to employ the visual arts as a vehicle to raise public awareness of the importance of protecting our rich natural heritage. Contributors to the projects will work in a dedicated pursuit to promote an understanding of our National Parks, coastal areas and urban 'green' spaces in terms of their value, environmentally, culturally and economically.

Exhibition (Outcomes)

The products/artworks/events of Gaia Museum will be exhibited across three different platforms:

Outdoors in the landscape on Saturday 19th May 2007.
On the Gaia Project website.
On the new Gaia Museum project DVD.

All three spatially different platforms will be accessible to the public. Gaia Museum will exist essentially only for a single day, however it will be documented on-line and on a specially produced DVD that will be available to the public through the Gaia Project website.

Gaia Forum

James@Gaia-Project — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:29:13 CDT

How do you think 'landscape' informs your identity as an individual?

Discuss....

Gaia Project: The Video Paintings

James@Gaia-Project — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:03:08 CDT

The Great End (still) - 2006

These images seem to occupy a satisfyingly unstable position somewhere between video, painting and photography.

Filmed in mini digital video these artworks take a contemporary perspective on ‘Landscape’ most dominantly through a neo-Romantic sensibility and interest in the concepts of the sublime and the picturesque. I regard these representational ‘images’ of landscapes as having a specific historical relationship to the ‘British landscape tradition’ in Western art. I draw my inspiration from 18th and 19th Century landscape painters such as Richard Wilson, John Constable and J.M.W. Turner; and furthermore from the 20th Century and contemporary landscape artists Paul Nash, Hamish Fulton, Colin Prior and Richard Long (amongst others).

Through the Gaia Project video-works I am attempting to ‘re-work’ the canonical imagery associated with British Romantic painting.

The work of British ‘pre-industrial’ era landscape artists was created with a concern for ideas and issues such as: academic artistic tradition, land ownership, recreation, the ‘picturesque’, personal, local and national identity. My work shares very similar concerns (historically) but also reflects more contemporary attitudes and interpretations of the ‘landscape’ subject related to: environmental pollution, ecological conservation, urban encroachment, land misuse, sustainable systems etc. The Gaia Project invites a subtle ‘re-interpretation’ of landscape by uniting traditional pre-industrial (romantic) ideas with modern ‘environmental’ concerns.

Yr Wyddfa - between Heaven & Earth (still) - 2007

Although the Gaia artworks attempt to capture the topographical characteristics, changing qualities of light and the ephemeral weather conditions of the locations, I regard them more as paintings (or ‘video paintings’) rather than specifically as ‘videos’. These images essentially have more in common aesthetically with landscape painting for three key reasons: 1) Static ‘framed’ image (even though produced in a time-based media), 2) Due to the fact that these are not high definition images (in digital terms) they appear abstractly more ‘painterly’ and visually textured, 3) Rigorous ‘composition‘ employed in each image.

Ideally these works are intended to be displayed as large-scale ‘wall size’ installations in order to emphasise their dramatic qualities. A certain amount of patience and sustained curiosity is required to be invested by the viewer - they are invited to engage in a subtly ‘temporal’ experience.

Sty Head: the descent (still) - 2006

Each Gaia image has unique characteristics different from the next. One may possess strong ‘atmospheric’ qualities due to rapidly changing light and weather, whereas another may appear very ‘still’ but have a strong topographic compositional quality. It must be stressed that I do not regard these images as accurate recordings of specific places, spaces and times. I prefer them to be seen merely as ‘representations’ of a particular experience. In a deliberate attempt to emphasize the idea of a kind of pastoral organic purity these landscapes or 'wildernesses' are devoid of any human presence and any (obvious) human intervention.

Invariably these images are not necessarily ‘ends in themselves’. They are the product of a much larger process. More specifically this process is the act of walking through landscapes and exploring natural phenomena- ‘being’ in a place and interacting with the land in a physical way (inextricably linked to my Earthworks). In most cases the process in which I am engaged, in retrospect is ephemeral, hidden and un-recorded. Only the images exist as a kind of ‘trace’ of the act.

Y Llymllwyd (still) - 2007

In Situ: Gallery

James@Gaia-Project — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:27:01 CDT

An ever growing pictorial catalogue of my adventures in the great outdoors.... Hellvellyn (August 2006)
Wirral coast (September 2006)
Scarfell (August 2006)

Sefton Coast (March 2007)

The Gaia 'Really Useful' Guide

James@Gaia-Project — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:47:26 CDT

Websites

National Geographic
www.nationalgeographic.com

Cloud Appreciation Society
www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

Ramblers Association
www.ramblers.org.uk

Peak District National Park
www.peakdistrict.org

Lake District National Park
www.lake-district.gov.uk

Scottish National Parks
www.snh.org.uk

Snowdonia National Park - Wales
http://snowdonia-npa.gov.uk/

Friends Of The Earth
www.foe.co.uk

The Big Ask campaign
www.thebigask.com

Greenpeace
www.greenpeace.org.uk

Landscape Studies
www.landscapestudies.com

Centre For Landscape & Environmental Arts Research - University of Cumbria
www.clear.cumbria.ac.uk

this page is currently still under construction....