Climate Anxiety, Creative Costumes, Devil Drawings, and a Garden Within
Welcome to your November edition of Signified
Art is a great talking point. Why not start a conversation by forwarding this newsletter to someone you know who shares your love of art?
Announcing the November exhibition at : six : shot : gallery
Sharon Stone on ‘In My Garden’
“I created these works to understand the essence of pure creativity that comes from heartfelt truth, to let go of the noise, the judgements, and the pollution of our societal pulls. We do know that when we teach young people art, there is less recidivism in the prison system. It stops young people from going to prison. Yet, we’re taking it out of the school system…”
Continue reading and see the art at : six : shot : gallery
Recently ‘Boosted’ in Signifier:
Dressed-up in Art
Clearly, there are overlaps between the worlds of high fashion and fine art, both sharing significant antecedents. Perhaps one of the earliest examples of wearable sculpture were the costumes designed by Oskar Schlemmer for the 1922 performances of The Triadic Ballet / Triadisches Ballett. This was at a time when Modernists were very interested in art from outside the Euro-centric academic traditions and were looking to indigenous cultures…
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History of Devil Drawings and the Subcultures of Japan
Culture is always a collection of subcultures, each vying for dominance, and in popular-culture the huge influence of anime and manga has placed them at the core of many people’s entertainment. Myths, ancient gods, folktales, and folklore have developed into modern fantasy creatures, demons, and other strange things in our contemporary media. What people used to be in awe of are becoming familiar and more accessible…
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Kapoor and Me, Now and Then
I remember my first essay as an artist about an artist. Sure, I did art before college but that elective step into post-compulsory education in art is a good marker-point of when I self-declared commitment to being an artist, for real. It was one of the first college trips to London and of course we had a ‘suggested’ itinerary plus a written assignment. The main essay was to be about an artwork of our choice, experienced first-hand…
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Art to Calm Your Climate Anxiety — finding resilience and resistance through art
As we plummet towards climate, ecological, and societal collapse — the consequences of which we are already seeing across the world in deadly wildfires, droughts, and heatwaves — you may well be feeling overwhelmed and powerless. In fact, it would be more concerning if you were not feeling panic or grief in the face of what is happening…
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Popular Signifier (ICYMI)
Spotlight on one of our most popular or trending articles…
Science Through the Art of Glass
It’s hard to believe that the super-detailed scientific replicas, collectively known as The Blaschka Models, are made from glass. Firstly, the mind boggles at the sheer skill and precision. Secondly, one wonders how they’ve survived for a century or more. I mean, imagine handling one of the life-size jellyfish models, or the magnified models of microscopic single cell radiolarians with their hair-fine spines. Imagine making one!
‘Winter’: from the archives of Signifier
In this regular feature of our Signified Newsletter, we select a few choice articles from our archives linked by a monthly theme. In the northern lands, the leaves are leaving and the breeze is chilling…
The Melting World
Art can be a powerful mode of cultural democracy and has pushed for meaningful engagement alongside political debate on many subjects of great importance. One of the most ambitious and eloquent of those past responses was by the Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson. For the first iteration of Ice Watch, in 2014, he organised the transport of 12 huge blocks of glacial ice, recovered from the sea off the diminishing Greenland ice...
Yuletide Greetings Across the Centuries
Hunters in the Snow is an icon of Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and rightly so. Skillful in its composition and use of colour, it seems a bridge between the medieval ‘book-of-hours’ and our modern ‘graphic-novel’ sensibilities. It’s considered the first large winter landscape of European art, often reproduced as a popular print — especially at this time of year…
The Ashes of Nash
Secluded in an area of private woodland is ‘Cae’n y Coed’, where a circle of 22 Ash trees stand. They have been growing under the gentle guidance of artist David Nash for more than 40 years. Over the decades he has gradually manipulated their growth so they have bent in towards each other in a vortex that has now met to form a living dome...
Signifier can only go forward with your support
Medium have recently introduced new algorithms to reward and encourage writers of top-notch content. So, please, remember to tap the ‘clap’ button a few times for articles you enjoy. Commenting, highlighting, and following writers you enjoy also helps signal their value. This is a kindness that costs you nothing but can really brighten a writer’s day, how cool is that!
Whether you’re a Medium subscriber or not, you can also help spread the word by sharing the articles you enjoy on your social media. A little reader support goes a long way and is always appreciated. We have just launched our presence on Bluesky social, so find us there, follow, repost what you like, comment, and join in the art-related conversations.
Our Redbubble online store offers three collections of artistically taste-tested objet and there’s even a button badge of our distinctive Signifier/Signified dynamic diagram for all you media theorists and students of semiotics!
If you know anyone who enjoys reading “imaginative fiction at its best”, you can further support our editor and curator by recommending or purchasing their latest novels in the series, This, That, and The Other, written by Remy Dean with Zel Cariad and published by The Red Sparrow Press.
“Bursting at the seams with magic!”
“…will be enjoyed by fans of fantasy of all ages, particularly those who like classics, like the ‘Narnia’ saga.”
Calling All Artists - Six Shot Showcase Slots are Available for 2024
We are now inviting submissions for The Signifier : six : shot : gallery. Every month we showcase just six images by each artist, or creative entity. These six images are linked in some understandable way — perhaps from the same project, series, or dealing with related subjects. They may be linked by aesthetics, techniques, processes, philosophies, formal or conceptual elements. The six images are accompanied by an artist’s statement that does not necessarily explain the work but lends insight into meaning that informs deeper engagement.
As we approach the close of our third year, you can read an overview of the gallery’s first two years here.
The art must be the sole creation of the artist, or creative entity, and intended to be viewed as a 2D image. No sculpture or 3D work will be considered at present. No NFTs. Acceptable media include, fine art, photography, drawing, painting, collage, prints, illustration, mixed media, digital, etc. The curator favours concept-driven work that is visually adventurous.
The Six Shot Gallery is hosted on the Medium platform, so the administration and maintenance costs are met by the reader and member contribution, not the exhibitors. Therefore, it will remain free to submit for the foreseeable future and no ‘virtual hanging fee’ is charged. Artists may include a single link to their personal website, agent, dealer or preferred sales site — we charge zero commission for this.
If accepted for exhibition, the six images should not appear elsewhere in the digital realm for the first month of their online exhibition. Exemptions to this rule include social media promoting the exhibition, artists’ personal websites, and any related press coverage. Apart from this agreement, Six Shot Gallery has no further control outside of the scheduled month of exhibition and copyright always remains with the author of the works. Layout and presentation is at the sole discretion of the curator.
The host and curator is Remy Dean and initial contact should be made by leaving a comment on the most recent exhibition showcase published in The Signifier : six : shot : gallery, or leave a private note on a recently published article written by our editor, Remy Dean. (A familiarity with the Signifier : six : shot : gallery — demonstrated by following, claps, and comments — is advisable.)
Please note that there is a maximum of 12 exhibition slots available per annum, so don’t be disappointed or discouraged should your work not be selected. Also note that we receive very few submissions so, right now there is less competition. (Nearly all the six shot showcases so far have been at the direct invitation of the curator.)
We look forward to receiving some exciting art from you!
There are example exhibitions to see here.
Missed any of our Signified Newsletters? They are now archived here.
Thank you for your continued support. Our Publication updates every week, so visit often!
