Last Thursday saw the opening of Dan Fords first solo exhibition, All Killer No Filler, at the Moot gallery in Nottingham. Dan graduated from Nottingham Trent last year and has since been fairly quiet whilst continuing with his practice in Devon. For me to describe Dan’s practice without waffling on, is practically impossible. I see and understand what he does, but its one of those which is hard to put into words neatly! So rather than explain it (and do a terrible job!) here’s how Moot describe him….

“Dan Ford examines the industry design aesthetics found in disparate pockets of visual culture such as knitting patterns, S&M magazines, sauna brochures and comic books. From this, motifs are taken and carefully reproduced  and repeated layered to creat painting, drawing and collaged works that expose the quality of their own medium against the artists sense of placement appropriation.”

The show consists of 13 pieces of work, all meticulously executed in their production and presentation, which have been commissioned by Moot. All the pieces within the installation are on a small scale, with the biggest only being around 30cm X 20cm, and vary from paintings and collages to sculpture.

Around the gallery each piece of work is small and intricate, and demands a bit of intimacy from the viewer. The longer you spend with each piece the more you notice, particularly picking out Dan’s use of layering from other elements in the show. You’ll notice familiar shapes emerging from drawings and cut out from packaging, colours swatches which aren’t always where expected and patches of collage on the sides of canvases. Dan leaves no detail untouched, everything he does is done with a certain amount of deliberateness, no pencil mark or ‘left over’ piece of masking tape is there by accident. Dan’s meticulous nature continues throughout all the elements within his show, all his canvases and frames (which are all made by the artist) are finished to such a high standard that they become beautiful objects in their own right.

I was massively excited to see what Dan has been doing since University and not even the huge down pour of rain and extremely wet feet could dampen my spirits. His first solo show is full of pockets of pleasure, and is an abundance of visual joy. I feel the only thing that it might lack is a bossier piece, like a painted wall, something that could pull the massive white space together a tiny bit more.

All Killer No Filler started on 7th of this month and runs until the 30th at the Moot gallery in Snieton, Nottingham. If your in the area its definitely more than worth the visit.

For more information, head over to Moots website.

To finish off, look at the size of this pencil!  That’s going to make it’s way on to my to do list. Bye for now. x