Tim Skinner
London
Questioning Newtonian time and exploring depression during lockdown
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- PowerInTheLand
As the virus storm turned into a blizzard we all sheltered, we holed-up, we waited it out. An eerie crisp dawn beckoned, a raw dark event horizon, spawning fresh ‘pre’ and ‘post’ dual parlances; pre-covid, post-covid; pre-lockdown, post- lockdown. As confinement continued to rumble, the ‘pre-covid’ or ‘pre-lockdown’ discourses faded, submerged in a dense fog - a strange bizarre sensation of feeling like the events of a month ago actually occurred many years ago. Time was behaving obtusely, our new cave-dwelling internment was crystallising our inter-relationship with structured time. The suppressive, coercive weekly linguistic loop (days of the week) mutated, becoming irrelevant, null-and-void, obsolete. Certainly from my own perspective from the outset every day radiated that melancholic, dreary Monday feeling, the week refusing to splutter into motion. Constant exposure to bleak global news helped to commission, to certify, to authorise one’s own dark thoughts. Dwelling on one’s own mortality became step one in the book of how to deal with a pandemic; reviewing ones own life was step two. Whilst listening to Robert Macfarlane’s Underland (via audiobook) a line ironically glows brightly, “Here in the shadows, space and time spill into one another”. When normal life is interrupted and paused, time’s choir sings an array of diverse pulses, without rhythm, and we can start to listen to time’s true identity.
Pre-lockdown my work had been drenched for years in dialogues surrounding repetition. I was fascinated with multi-layered aesthetics and mesmeric semantic-satiation, but through the bleakness of my fresh reality, repetition would be stripped back to its underlying component flow, ‘time’. My aesthetic focus shifted to interrogating that interplay between constructed time used to govern our existence (which I would dub as ‘anthropomorphised time’) and the poetic breathing complexities of organic time; mechanic versus organic.
Qualifications and training
2021 - MA, Contemporary Art Practice: Moving Image, Royal College of Art, London
2003 - BA Hons Fine Art, Colchester School of Art and Design, Colchester
Solo exhibitions
2011 - Fallen (The Seasonal Sound of Senescence), Writtle College, Essex
2010 - Footfall, Benham Gallery, Colchester
2010 - Untitled, Kings Place Theatre, London
2006 - Echoing Ur Sound, The Benham Gallery, Colchester
2004 - Sonic Circled, The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex
2004 - Sonic Circles, Hay Gallery, Colchester, Essex
Group exhibitions
2021 - Oriel Lockdown, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales
2021 - Everything Forever, Online (Everythingforever.net), London
2020 - WiP RCA, Royal College of Art, Battersea, London
2017 - Phantom, Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge
2017 - Power in the Land, Bay Arts, Cardiff, Wales
2016 - Power in the Land, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales
2016 - Power in the Land, Oriel Davies, Newtown, Wales
2015 - Shell, The Old Spode Factory, Stoke-on-Trent
2014/5 - Butterfly Effect, firstsite, Colchester
2014 - I Like This Place and Willingly Could Waste My Time In It, Main Gallery, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales
2013 - Kast Et Blik, Kunstpakhuset, Ikast, Denmark
2013 - Open Studios, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, Wales
2012 - Journey To The Podium (Arts In Parliament), Westminster Hall (Houses of Parliament), London
2012 - Soundworks, ICA, London
2011 - 17 Days, Frostic Gallery, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
2011 - 17 Days, The Brett Llwellyn Gallery, Alfred State College, Alfred, NY, USA
2010 - Journey To The Podium, Colchester United FC, Colchester
2010 - Journey To The Podium, Gibberd Gallery, Harlow
2010 - Media Facades Festival, Collegium Hungaricum, Berlin
2010 - Outside 2010, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester
2010 - Swimming Without Water, Moseley Rd Baths, Birmingham
2009 - 15 Days, 15 Artists, Firstsite, Colchester 2009 - Essex Summer of Art, Hylands House, Chelmsford, Essex
2009 - Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam IFF, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2009 - Transition, The Bargehouse, London 2008 - An Emotional Journey, Mansfield Museum, Mansfield, Notts
2008 - InterAlia, Exploring communication, Empty Shop, High Chelmer, Chelmsford, Essex 2008 - Over Bakke Og Dal....., Mosting Hus, Copenhagen, Denmark
2008 - Posed3, Images shown on advertising hoardings, Cork High St, Cork, Ireland
2008 - Sound:Space, Digital Media Centre, Reading, Berks 2008 - The Streming Festival, streamingfestival.org, The Hague, Netherlands
2008 - Traditional Technologies Harmonizing With New Media, The Lloyd Gill Gallery, Weston-Super-Mare
2008 - Urban Screens 08, Fed Square, Melbourne, Australia
2008 - Wide Open: Pixel Pops, The Krannert Art Museum, Illinois, USA
2008 - Winter Lights, The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex
2007 - Cuckoo Farm Studios Show, Naze Tower, Walton-on-the-Naze
2007 - Enclosure, The Benham Gallery, Colchester, Essex
2007 - Mini Print 2007, Artlink Gallery, Hull
2007 - Replenished, Saltburn Artists Project, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Redcar
2007 - Video Showcase, Key Arts, St Marys, Ipswich, Suffolk
2007 - Worldwide Moving Image III, Video Shorts, E32, East Village, New York, USA
Degree shows
2021 - RCA2021, Cromwell Place, London
2021 - RCA2021, Online
2003 - Free Range, Old Truman Brewery, London
Curated projects
2011 - Open Studios Exhibition, Benham Gallery, Colchester
2009 - Outside 09, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Cuckoo Farm Studios
2008 - Surrounds: Outside
2008, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester
Artist talks
2021 - Everything Forever, Online
2016 - Power in the Land, Mostyn, Llandudno
2016 - Power in the Land, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth
2016 - Power in the Land, Oriel Davies, Newtown
2015 - Power in the Land, Modern Art Oxford
2013 - Aber Arts Centre AIR, Aberystwyth Art School, Aberystwyth
2013 - Artist In Residence, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth
2012 - Hear What You Want To Hear, ICA, London
2009 - Cross Mentoring Scheme:Outside 09 Talk with MA Students , Cuckoo Farm Studios, Cuckoo Farm Studios
2009 - Cross Mentoring Scheme:Outside 09 Talk with MA Students 2nd yrs , Cuckoo Farm Studios, Cuckoo Farm Studios
2009 - Firstsite's - Pecha Kucha, The Benham Gallery, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester
Residencies
2013 - Artist In Residence, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth
2011 - Re:place, Level Centre, Rowsley, Derbyshire
2010 - Fallen (The Seasonal Sound of Senescence), CADE (Centre for the Art and Design in the Environment), Writtle College, Essex
2010 - Footfall, The Benham Gallery, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester
2009 - 15 Days, 15 Artists, Firstsite, Colchester Public commissions
2012 - Soundworks, ICA (nominated by firstsite), London
2009 - Journey To The Podium, 2012 Legacy Team, Essex County Council, Essex
Projects
2020 - RAMxRCA, Royal Academy of Music, London
2014 - 2018, Power In The Land, Anglesey, Wales
2015 - Llosgi Gwynt, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth
2011 - Firstsite Crit Group, Firstsite, Colchester
2009 - Cross Mentoring Scheme:Outside 09, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Cuckoo Farm Studios
Competitions, prizes and awards
2014 - Butterfly Effect, Grants For The Arts, ACE, working with firstsite.
2011 - Fallen, Arts Council Grant, CADE (Centre for the Art and Design in the Environment), Writtle College, Essex
2009 - Arts Council Small Grant, for Cross Mentoring Project, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Cuckoo Farm Studios
2003 - Graduate Scholarship award, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester
Publications
2016 - Power in the Land (book)
2015 - CCQ online
2012 - Wallpaper.com
2011 - A N
Other
2011 - Gallery Curator and Events Manager, Cuckoo Farm Studios/The Benham Gallery, Colchester
2008 - Colchester and Tendering Open Studios 08, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester, Essex 2008 - Prelude Art Fair, Spitalfields, London
2007 - Colchester and Tendering Open Studios 07, Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester
2006 - Colchester and Tendering Open Studios 06, CFS, Colchester, Essex
2005 - Colchester and Tendering Open Studios 05, CFS, Colchester, Essex
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