Curated by Nicola Singh

Circles by Nicola Singh

Earlier this evening I drove down to the ocean and got a big shock when I saw the moon. It was dusty pink. Two thirds visible. I got into the water and watched it turn into a full peach. The light of the moon looked like honey on the water. 

Patrick Swayze's gaze melts me, like hot honey. He looks out, dressed in double denim, from Lesley Guy's artwork 'Patrick.' Felt tip pen circles around circles encircle his photograph, which is part of an newspaper obituary chronicling his death. There’s something comforting and low-level exciting about the artwork and its relationship to grief. I would like to have it on a wall at home.

John Bull's 'Sphera mundi' is a musical work, notated in the form of two concentric circles. It's from Renaissance time and then they called it 'eye music'. Irene Rogan's response to this, a series of paper-based works 'SPHERA MUNDI SERIES 'PERFECT C', shows suspended concentric circles burning up. It’s forensic of sorts, and silent. 

Lucy Stevens 'Pigeon Clock Wheel' reminds me of the feelings wheel or circle graphs of the menstrual cycle. Stevens observed courting pigeons every Wednesday over a year, counting and recording them. I lose myself in the aesthetic of the wheel's clock face, which is inspired by toulet clocks used in pigeon racing. I don’t register the information in the artwork as much as Stevens' commitment to re-organising time around the horniness of the pigeons.

Google maps streetview registers a blue spectral figure that seems to be crouching or laying down in the middle of a crop circle. The figure gets dubbed the ‘Blue Rider’. Julian Claxton shares these images, and extends the paranormal activity by taking on the identity of the Rider and producing new images and videos. Crop circle research focuses on the mechanical, rather than the organic nature of these sacred geometries. I recall the restorative feeling of drawing with a spirograph. In crop circles the plants appear to be bent, not broken. 

Documentation of Jaykoe’s work ‘ANAM CARA REMIX (SHEEBEEN I / PIRATE STATION’ shows a gang of musicians and their instruments. Each has a different drum. Circular drum heads struck by hands, sticks and mallets. In Jaykoe’s write up about the work they describe a loose, circular structure for the performance that mimics conversational frameworks used in community organising and therapeutic contexts, which prioritise our ability to listen. I recognise the dhol drum, used in Punjabi folk music and dance. I can hear its deep bassy sound. A spectator watches, clutching onto a basketball. I hear it bounce too, and see myself smile.

I’m greedy for all these perfect and imperfectly round things and feels.

“Embellished images and badges. Shown in Persistence Works, Sheffield, as part of ENDGAME. 'Patrick' was part of a series titled Necrologies, which were drawings and paintings on newspaper obituaries.”

“Commission for SoundWave, Cumbria part of a series of proposals for wall pieces in their offices. I based my research on Rene Descarte's 'Musical Scale' diagram of a tempered diatonic octave diagram and John Bull's 'Sphera Mundi' circles which echo the cyclic form of music and represent the heavenly and earthly spheres suggested by its title. SoundWave is a 'not-for-profit' music organisation based in West Cumbria with a mission of Transformation Through Music, delivering a programme of inspirational music projects, including performances, events, festivals, and a large participatory music-making programme.”

“Between 2010 – 2011 Stevens observed and fed pigeons in Leicester every Wednesday, counting and recording the colours of courting pigeons to support scientific research. Pigeon clock graph shows the average number of pigeons per month over a year and the shape is based on the idea of a concentric circle graph. The image was layered using toulet clock faces from an automatic pigeon clock, used for pigeon racing.”

Images sourced from public online posts referencing Google Street View. “..this mysterious figure, dubbed the 'Blue Rider' by crop circle and conspiracy sites, has again been seen during the 2014 crop circle season. These images come from the posts of those reporting the phenomenon during 2014.”

“This work explores sound as a form of connection, a meeting point between people, place, and memory. Developed as part of a wider project reflecting on a one-year residency at Metroland Cultures in Kilburn, the piece brought together a circle of percussionists that echoed through the space, creating a shared pulse between performers and audience. Each percussionist took a turn to lead, each one having the opportunity to be heard, reflecting on exchange, listening, and equality. The layered percussive sounds become a medium for dialogue, between cultures, generations, and histories, transforming the space and the streets outside into a resonant space of collective energy and sound.”