To all my Art Students. I have put together an Art Group for us on facebook. I wasn't sure what to call it, if any of you have a better name I'm up for changing it : }

I'm adding all our art to it today and progress images. I have taken so many over the years and I feel I need to organise them all in one place. Might not be all in the right order but all our images will be there.

Here is the link-
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pennysartstudentsgroup/

https://www.peneloperosecowley.com/pennysartstudentsgroup.html
 

 Picture: left to right - Jean, Filomina, Me, Otobong, Lloyd and Bill

National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Wales

My art students and I had the pleasure of meeting the Artes Mundi 2019 nominee earlier today, Otobong Nkanga. She took the time to explain her beautiful, intriguing, delicate amazing work. Of a levitating rock, a massive tapestry with Milkyway space dust explosions, images of tear gas combustion and riot control water jets, a magical tree,  map of the world with all the borders and a journey of time. Full of textures and deep meaning of the macrocosm and microcosm of human interactions and collisions, the drama of the universe and the drama of the human in equal measure.

I was overwhelmed by her charisma and wealth of knowledge, skill, and exuberance of this wonderful woman. I feel so honoured and humbled. My students listened intently and ask questions about her work Otobong was eloquent and engaging explaining in detail the methods she used, expressing the limited colour palette of 8 threads that could be transformed into over 2 million different varieties of shades, tones and textured weaves with the use of modern loom digital technology.

Otobong accounted on the history of tapestry in Nigeria and the expression of power in the weave. Of the connections to the Silk Road, the threads of silk woven into the power stories of families and the hierarchal meaning behind the quality and feeling of the materials used. Of modern materials and the transformation this brings for all to have intricate patterns.

Otobong has a wealth of knowledge from the ancient crafts to transcendent concepts in the electromagnetic physic phenomena finding a balance between - now, then and the future.

Artes Mundi 8 has outdone it's self this year. I was suprised and enthralled by all of  the work and Otobong Nkanga was most certainly well deserving to win, which I thought she had. We all congratulated her, it may have been a misunderstanding but either way to be exhibited and nominated would still be great I'm sure, but I wish she had won. It truly was my favourite, she had me at levitating rock... anyone who knows me, knows I love things that float on a magnetic field, merging art and science in all the ways I love, she's an inspiration. Just incredible.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul was the winner with a simple, atmospheric video work. As Bill said, 'it was very calming'.

The names of all the nominees are: Anna Boghiguian (Canada/Egypt), Bouchra Khalili (Morocco/France), Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria/Belgium), Trevor Paglen (USA), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand). Read more about all of them herehttp://www.artesmundi.org/exhibitions-prizes/artes-mundi-8

Artes Mundi 8 is on till May is well worth seeing.

My students and I also saw the Kyffin Williams exhibition which we enjoyed which I will discuss more another time for now here are some pics from our visit today.

Penelope Rose Cowley x

  (original post 2/25/2016) Yesterday the three paintings for Cardiff School of Physics and Astronomy department were put up on the wall in the new coffee area for permanent display. It's wonderful to see these three settled in their new home. When Dr. Dan Read and I first met we were in the Pier Head building for Cardiff Science Festival 3 years ago. He had his marvelous magnetic demonstrations and I had some paintings up displaying Diffusion Tensor Images of my brain. A year later I'm down in the basement Labs of the Physic department with some canvases and paint and Dan with his liquid nitrogen setting up the Messiner  effect, showing me the 'monster machine', explaining about Magnetic Monopoles and Cane, Charlie and Danny Phd student popping in demonstrating all sorts such the Levatron , see the video below its very cool! I'm very much looking forward to continuing working with the department and yesterday I met Prof. Steve Eales, Dr. Richard Lewis and Prof. Mark Hannam.  We discuss the colliding of black holes and gravity waves and this may well lead to some very interesting new cutting edge artsci work... Richard briefly explained about capturing the trails left by neutrinos and I'd love to talk with him more about this.  
Emily Garsides wrote article on the Wales Art Review to read more about the paintings click the link below. 
Dr. Dan Read and I will be continuing to work together in collaboration with the 'New Signals' project for the new Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Center CUBRIC more on this later...... 

http://www.walesartsreview.org/art-meets-science-magnetic-monopoles/