Mik Godley

I am a painter. I'm interested in digital and internet explorations from pixel to painting and back again, and my project “Considering Silesia” examines issues of conflicting (Anglo-German) heritages, cultural memory, identity, displacement and migration. These themes are observed in the context of our evolving relationship with the internet and new media - our digital “way of seeing” - focusing on “virtual expeditions” to my mothers’ homeland (Lower Silesia - a place I've never been to) preparatory field studies, and the very “analogue” activity of painting, or - increasingly - digital work on an iPad, iPod or mobile phone.

In development since 2003, Considering Silesia has been aided by the EU funded research M.A. Creative Collaborations at Nottingham Trent University, a full year bursary from Arts Council England and has been exhibited from Baltimore and Bangkok to San Francisco and Zagreb, featured in several publications, regional TV and radio, received awards and critical acclaim.

I am currently working towards a large solo exhibition creating a 'digital survey' of a ruined Nazi Mausoleum for the Attenborough Arts Centre of Leicester University.?

Education

M.A. (Distinction) Creative Collaborations, Nottingham Trent University, 2006

B.A. (Hons) Fine Art, Leeds Polytechnic, 1982

Lecturing

1990 to date – Lecturer (0.4) Fine Art, Directorate of Academic, Digital & Creative Industries, Chesterfield College (Foundation Course in Art and Design – Life Drawing, Drawing & Painting, Illustration & iPad drawing, FdA Creative Practice).

2017 Temporary Lecturer 0.6 Fine Art, Extended Diploma Level 3, Leeds College of Art. 
2014/15 Visiting Lecturer, Drawing, B.A. (Hons.) Product Design, De Montfort University, Leicester.

2013/14 Visiting Lecturer, Drawing, B.A. (Hons.) Fine Art, Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent.

From1983 – part-time and visiting lecturer, Fine Art and Life Drawing at The University of Nottingham School of Continuing Education (7 years); Nottingham Trent University, BA (Hons.) Theatre Design – drawing (2+ years); Oldham College; Halifax College; Wakefield College (2+ years); Watford School of Art (2 years); Djanogly Art Gallery, The University of Nottingham; Angel Row Gallery; Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, New College Nottingham.

Mentoring

Mentored award winning painter Steven Ingman for the Arts Council sponsored project to create work for his first public solo exhibition Night Lights at Derby City Art Gallery & Museum, 2010

Mentored Alison Whitmore for the Derby University post graduate programme Connect Group Exhibition, Fishmarket Gallery, Northampton, 2010, and preparing for her residency & solo exhibition at Thoresby Gallery, 2011

Recent Exhibitions etc.

Solo: 2015 “Considering Silesia: iPad & phone work”, Leeds University Fine Art “Portrait of Hockley, St Anns and Sneinton” City Arts, Nottingham
2014 "Field Study 365" Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery
2010 "Nazi UFO's @ TotalKunst", TotalKunst Gallery, Edinburgh Art Festival 2007 “Greetings from Silesia”, Bend in the River Gallery, Gainsborough

Group: 2017 "Visualising the Network" Moss Gallery, Nottingham 

2016 “Abbeyfield’s Golden Gallery: Art & Soul” Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery 

2015 (detail) The Usher Gallery, Lincoln
“The Movement of the Line” NCN Lace Market Gallery, Nottingham
2014 (detail) H-Project Space, Bangkok & Transition Gallery, London
From A Dizzying Height - "Document Sudetenland" presented at Primary, Nottingham, with Rebecca and Katy Beinart
2013 'Spring Break' Primary, Nottingham
'The Mark' Harrington Mill, Long Eaton
2012 Summer Lodge, Fine Art research event, Nottingham Trent University
2011 ‘Counterpoint’, Platforma festival, London
“Home Insecurities”, The Great Central, Leicester
"The Bookmark Project", Nottingham Contemporary
“Digital Canvas”, Autodesk Gallery, San Francisco
“Beyond the Horizon”, Embrace, University of Leicester
“Beacon Bimonthlies 8”, presentation, Wellingore, Lincoln
2010 London Art Fair 10, Bend In The River
Nottingham Open, Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery
“Occidental Dimension”, University of Brighton Gallery

“2010: The Year We Made Contact” (curated and exhibited) Exchange Arcade, Nottingham Cunningham-Godley-Hockney, Triton Gallery, Sledmere House, Yorkshire
2009 “Face to Face – Contemporary Portraiture”, Richard Attenborough Centre, Leicester London Art Fair 09, Bend In The River, and Arts Council England “Own Art” stands “Penned”, Lump Gallery, Raleigh, NC, USA

2008 “Buy Art Fair”, Bend In The River at Urbis, Manchester
"No Letters", Nettie Horn Gallery, Vyner Street, London
"Penned" Artscape/Pinkard Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, USA
2007 “Planchette” The Residence Gallery, London
“in the echo of a shadow”, University of Leeds, with Henry Tietzsch-Tyler, for the conference “From Perpetrators to Victims? Constructions and Representations of ‘German Wartime Suffering’”
“Parade – Terra Incognita” Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham and “Parade” book launch, The Drawing Room, London
“Nottingham Open” Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham
“The Redemptive Beauty of Life After Death” Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University 2006 “When Men and Mountains Meet” Gallery 01, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb “yes I said yes I will yes” 1851 Gallery and Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University “Drawingspace” Southwell Arts Space, Southwell

Recent Commissions

2016/17 Commissioned by Bolsover District Council and First Art to create an animated iPad drawing video focussed on the Derbyshire village of Tibshelf and the Black Dyke Band, with a soundtrack composed by Jonathan Bates in response to the film, and launched by First Art as a world wide webcast concert at Tibshelf Community School 

2015 “Unexamined Lives” documentary iPad drawings for Wash Arts and Ockbrook & Borrowash Historical and Archaeological Society funded by Arts Council England
Light Night Festival “Portrait of Hockley, St Anns and Sneinton” - iPad on site "field study" of people and places to create an animated film of the iPad drawings for projection in Nottingham's Sneinton Market Square for City Arts, funded by Creative Quarter/ERDF
2013 First Art - iPad on site "field study" of people and places (Nottinghamshire and North East Derbyshire coalfields) for the Arts Council England funded Creative People and Places programme

Publications & Media

2015 BBC East Midlands Today, feature (2 minutes 30 seconds) “Portrait of Hockley, St Anns and Sneinton”
NottsTV interview
BBC Radio Nottingham interview

East Midlands Visual Arts Network, Meet the Artist (interview): http://cvaneastmidlands.co.uk/mik-godley/
Nottingham Post, review “The Movement of the Line” NCN Lace Market Gallery
2014 Representations of Flight and Expulsion in East German Prose Works, Bill Niven (Prof. School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University), Camden House, Rochester, New York USA, front cover painting

(detail) Transition Editions, London, exhibition catalogue
Left Lion, interview by Kayt Hughes: http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/mik- godley/id/6780
2013 Anthropology & Aging Quarterly, ed. Jason Danely, Anthropology, Rhode Island College, USA - portfolio Portraits by Mik Godley
2012 Winter Fires - Art and agency in old age (illustrations) by François Matarasso, published by The Baring Foundation
Trent Sound (internet radio) interview
2010 Nottingham Post, review of “2010: The Year We Made Contact”
Nottingham Post, feature on Nazi UFO’s iPod exhibition at Edinburgh Art Festival 2009 STAPLE 71: The Art Issue, text & image project
Nottingham Visual Arts, internet magazine, Nottingham (article)

Nottingham Visual Arts, review of Marek Tobolwski’s exhibition Continuum at The Hive Gallery, Barnsley
2008 “/seconds magazine 9”, the online journal of contemporary art and its research, London, www.slashseconds.org

“Soul Food, and Music: Research and Innovation for Creative Business”, (interview) by Kim Errington, Neil Maycroft and Jim Shorthose, NCN Nottingham
Art Review Online, review by James Westcott
2007 “The Redemptive Beauty of Life After Death” Bonington Gallery (catalogue)

“Parade” Angel Row Gallery (catalogue)
Saatchi Gallery Online, review of “Parade: Terra Incognita” by Matt Price Untitled Magazine, review of “Greetings from Silesia” by Peter Suchin

Awards

2015 Chesterfield College, Continuous Long Service Award
2008/09 Arts Council England, East Midlands, one year Research Bursary
2007 Future Factory Fellowship (School of Art & Design, Nottingham Trent University)

Additional Activities

2003 to 2015: Board Member of Nottingham Studios Ltd (charity) creating Primary, a contemporary visual arts studios and galleries complex, with support from Arts Council England, ACME, The New Art Exchange and assisted by ArtReach Consultants. This has entailed a wide range of duties from participating on Arts Council England Capital Networks travelling European Research Conference on new contemporary art venues and museums – Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; SMAK, Ghent, Belgium; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, and presenting talks to the joint Arts Council England / ArtReach Consultants “Open Studios and Artist Workspaces Regional Workshop Days” in venues in Nottingham, Leicester and Wellingborough as representative of Nottingham Studios.

2005: UK visual artists delegate to UNIMEI European Artists Conference Amsterdam – “Why artists are poor” supported by NAN bursary from a-n Magazine.

2005/06 Member of the steering group of Sideshow Fringe Festival to “British Art Show
6” (working with Arts Council England, Nottingham City galleries and artists to create artist- led exhibitions and events for the Hayward Galleries “BAS 6” tour to Nottingham.

2004/05: Arts Training Central “Headstart” Development Programme (funded by Arts Council England)

2003-05: Studios Liaison Officer - organised Open Studios event across five Nottingham studio groups, of over sixty artists, including the Harts Nottingham / Arts & Business sponsored Artists Studio Tours, with event at Harts (the East Midlands premier restaurant and hotel); Regional Curators Studio Tour; art-directed accompanying outdoor Beamer digital projection of 45 minute multimedia presentation of 29 artists work, with subsequent public launch event at the Broadway Media Centre, Nottingham, as part of the You Are Here Festival.

2002: Arts Training Central, Leicester, Mentoring Scheme funded by East Midlands Arts with curator Kate Brindley as mentor, to assist the development of projects for Leeds City Art Gallery and Wakefield Art Gallery.

2002: Demonstrator for “Drawing Power: Draw the World” National Campaign for Drawing, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, with Sir Peter Blake, Quentin Blake, Ralph Steadman.

1995/01: Developed a series of large paintings (walls, ceilings, panels and hangings) for the Château de Coat an Noz, Belle-Isle-en-Terre, and Manoir du Cleuziou, Louargat, in the Côtes D’Armor, Brittany, France.

Selected Critical Reviews

Enigmatic landscapes charged with psychological resonance.... An impressive combination of methodical observation and technical draughtsmanship matched by a mature understanding of the medium and just the right amount of spontaneity and freedom give these studies a real sense of urgency, energy and vitality.

Matt Price, critic (Flash Art, Art Review), saatchi.gallery.co.uk February 7, 2007
Review of “Parade: Terra Incognita”, Angel Row Gallery

The building up of the image through thousands of small squares and dashes of acrylic paint gives these works a vibrancy of surface that is both intriguing and unnerving. There is a ghostliness about these paintings that both attracts and yet is candidly uncanny, cold and crisp like a detail in a story by M R James, apparently trivial but in fact exactly to the point. Peter Suchin, critic (Art Review, Frieze, Art Monthly)

Untitled, June 2007
Review of “Greetings from Silesia”, Bend in the River

Mik Godley suggest[s] that pixelation is the pointillism of the twenty-first century. ... Today's most famous photographic pixelator, Thomas Ruff, similarly attempts to touch the mysterious in his porn photos (though with more cynical subject matter), but to really make the leap into the uncanny you have to change medium as well. Godley's seductive and slightly sickly painting Ana takes us into this uncomfortable realm.

James Westcott, artreview.com, February 2008

Mik Godley’s drawings of scenes glimpsed from buses in north Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are the dominating feature of the gallery.
Godley has become one of the best, and best known, exponents of drawing using iPhone and iPad apps in the region and this work ably demonstrates that his drawing talent is just as expressive on a screen as it is on paper or canvas.

Mark Patterson, Nottingham Post, January 28 2015
Review of “The Movement of the Line” NCN Lace Market Gallery

Artist Websites

http://www.weareprimary.org/people/mik-godley/

http://mikgodley.wordpress.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/ConsideringSilesia

Referees

Kathi Chamberlain

Head of Learning, Design and Visual Art Sheffield College
Granville Road, Sheffield S2 2RL
0114 260 2600 kathi.chamberlain@sheffcol.ac.uk

Madeline Holmes CEO
City Arts
11-13 Hockley, Nottingham NG1 1FH 0115 950 5251 madeline@city-arts.org.uk