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Blackpool and its treasures- Unique Bath towels.

Klaudia K
    Having a breakfast in HIVE in Blackpool made me realise that art is coming out of galleries on bigger and bigger scale. It makes me really happy that artists have a platform to show and sell their work in a day-to-day environment, in a café, which  makes art itself more approachable. Four paintings hanging on the walls, two still life and two landscapes ready to be purchased, reminded me of Collector plan in welsh STORIEL, “own the art you love” project, which sympathised with the idea of art education on a daily basis, which is also being pursued by the artistic locations on the map of Blackpool and I count HIVE as one of them, because of putting effort in promoting & spreading awareness about local art. While on the subject of artistic locations , I also want to mention the Abingdon Studios. The parallel between them and HIVE is the everyday they bring to art. Garth Gratrix, the founding director of Abingdon Studios Ltd, whom I had the pleasure to meet, employs everyday and DIY materials such as wood, concrete blocks and found objects. He created a modern atelier studio, providing safe space to represent art, especially in lenses of sexuality and social identity. According to the artist, the studios were called by some as “messy space for messy people”. It addressed the problem of commissioned and independent art, the dialogue the today world has with commissioned gallery and autonomous studios. Modern artists do not just “sell” the art  they produce , but also the personality that goes with it. They have to built up an appearance not only in the artworld but also in the business industry. Gratrix said he had to negotiate, while building a certain level of importance to who he was as an art representative, to not be seen just as a “messy” owner of the new propriety. Personal details can affect the way you are perceived. He mentioned the “joke in the room” problem, when he felt as it was expected from him as a queer man to be joking rather than having a business conversation. I think like a constant reminder of that was the page of an article in one of the studios called: “ Are You in the market for Art?” hung within a newspaper-like composition on the wall. The practise is questioned not only by potential patrons but by the audience criticality, too. They are more interested in the process of making art, answering the question of what drove the artist to create this piece, the experience rather than the importance of aesthetics. It feels more personable this way, the viewers try to minimalise the unfamiliar in the mysterious figure who calls himself an artist in the 21st century. The audience is curious, trying to find a safe space, a sign or a moment that will allow them to bring an artist to a less intimidating form. What I find surprising it’s not the art that’s a component of relevance for a modern viewer, but the person who produces it. It’s a very Duchamp-like approach (art cannot exist without its creator, who is not only valuable, but the most important component, : ‘I don’t believe in art. I believe in artists.’) The place gathering all the arts is obviously an art gallery. While my staying  in Blackpool, I went to Grundy Art Gallery, an important place in Gratrix’s life: “ When I was a child I thought, this feels like environment I want to be in, to be a part of “. He was everything his art was, playful, intelligent and with ready wit. Well aware of his heritage, the artist fulfilled the art viewer’s desire of getting to know him as a human being not just as an artist by introducing us to two male figures in his life, grandfather and father. Frivolity of taking a bath in “Shy Girl”, interfere with  aesthetics related to the darkest times in history of human kind (horror of concentration camps his grandfather experienced), consequently the artwork’s philosophy is more comparable to Susanna and the Elder’s bath than to seeming wantonness of summer holidays by the seaside. Even though the bath towels respond to the marine space and seeking for material relationships between them, it has a lot more to it. By making revolution in art through simplicity and play, but adding to it conceptualism, Gratrix again explores the artworld in very Duchamp-like way. Yet, Blackpool- located artist remains exceptionally original, adding to his art a part of himself- a pinch of comedy, he’s creating a unique three-way dialogue between us, him and the past. Then we laugh and notice that the past is also the contemporary ( from the 1940s to now, the importance of pink triangle symbol within LGBTQ+ community perceived back then as shame mark) we are the artist (moving the towels, by touching them we invade their constancy; a similar concept in “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even”, M. Duchamp) and the artist is the viewer, watching us from a distance. The UK society is mostly working class and “Shy Girl” is about a middle-class leisure time on a beach, but just as in “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” by G. Seurat, it has a “ugly side” to it, revelling imperfections of society (monkey suggests the women’s a prostitute and this piece refers to sexual discrimination). The pink triangle, here a white triangle, being a part of the artistic narrative, makes the artist himself more approachable by drawing upon a personal anecdote and bringing it in the aesthetics. Sense of authenticity is additionally deepened by the fact Gratrix is a gay male artist, using his artistic voice and space given as a platform to speak out. Composition of “Shy Girl” is made of three bath towels, two of them are spread out, whereas the third one is crumpled. As we already know, they provoke a conversation about sexuality and identity but what I found especially interesting is that within the making process, the thought came first before the playful colour palette. The artist mentioned  the issue of identifying gender with colour- “feminine” or “ladylike” paints used for the art objects act really bold, standing in the way of stereotypical gay men portrayal, reminding me of increasing gender issues awareness welsh art exhibition: “ Button it up” in STORIEL, Bangor ( I found out that Roy Gratrix, the artist’s grandfather, played for the Bangor City Welsh Club, too!). The exhibition informs that pastel coloured children clothes began to be made from the middle of the 19th century with the start of cultural expectations given at birth. Language of colours is again linked to the narrative. “Cottage by the sea” towel, dominated by different light shadows of blue, purifies working class labour, makes it to be more elegant than it actually is, without pointillist monkeys and biblical duplicity (Seurant, S. & the elders). The artwork is  personified by the choice of its placement. Seen from every angle by an opening in the balcony upstairs and by being able to rearrange the towels, it truly resembles a shy girl trying to cover herself from a male gaze. Maybe we are the noisy elders in this situation? But the artwork’s purpose is to be seen, even watched and questioned and seeing Gratrix reaction when my professor accidentally left a pencil mark on the medium makes me understand the spirit of “Shy Girl”. After all it really has a positive, playful charm and impishness, which can not be forget as being a true essence of the artwork. - K.W
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