Lucy Algar

In April 2017 I was invited by Tania Kovats to be the Artist in Residence at the Centre for Drawing at Wimbledon College of Arts. This gave me the opportunity to reflect on my recent work with Kirill Burlov, particularly the performance we made at Acts Re-Acts, and on the drawings and photographs that I made whilst on my March/April trip to Beijing. Initially I worked alone, collaging and folding photographs and drawing in concertina sketchbooks. This work then acted as a catalyst for the performed drawing Kirill and I created towards the end of my residency. http://centrefordrawing.org.uk/

Acts Re-Acts, a laboratory of performance, new media, workshops, lectures, discussions, events, interventions, seminars and installations, took place at Wimbledon Space Gallery from 20 February – 17 March 2017. Dancer/Choreographer Kirill Burlov and I were artists-in-residence from 13-17 March. http://events.arts.ac.uk/event/2017/3/3/ACTS-RE-ACTS-4-Performance-Lab-3-March/ http://www.kirillburlov.com/ We spent the week creating THE LINE, an immersive performance, helped by some amazing Wimbledon College of Arts students and practitioners. We experimented with drawing, movement, digital projection, mark-making, gesture and sound and finally, on the 17th March, we performed a 20 minute long show. The gallery was transformed into an extremely dynamic, but thoughtful space. Please find the film of our residency here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cy4qsXJ7m0      

On the 28th April Tania Kovats and I ran a drawing dance workshop in the Wimbledon College of Arts theatre for our students. Tania is the Course Leader for MA Drawing at WCA so her students joined my BA Theatre Design students for an incredibly inspiring day drawing dancers Aaron Vickers, Oxana Panchenko and Kirill Burlov perform. We were also joined by students from MA Painting and MFA. Here is a comment about the day from MFA student Frederic Anderson, I was very pleased to be invited to take part in this workshop. As someone with a background in figure drawing I know what a rare privilege it is to be able to draw from trained contemporary dancers. They have a unique energy and presence and in my experience this translates into drawings with unique qualities.

These are just a small selection of the drawings I made recently of Akram Khan's dancers in rehearsal for UNTIL THE LIONS which received its world premiere at The Roundhouse on January 12th 2016.

Wimbledon College of Arts will open its doors on the 13th June for the Undergraduate Summer Show. My BA Theatre Design students have been working hard and have created some fantastic work…so please come and have a look. The show is open from the 13th – 21st June. Mon – Fri, 10-8pm. Sats 11-5pm. Closed on Sundays.Find us at Wimbledon College of Arts, Merton Hall Road, London, SW19 3QA. Images of work- photograph by Martha Webb and model by Ruby Gaskell.

Designing the Ecocentrix exhibition has been a fantastically rewarding challenge. The work on show is incredible and it has been a privilege to meet and  work with the Ecocentrix artists. More info in news section.    

In 2005 I was commissioned by PM Gallery to create Please Touch The Artwork. This installation exhibition aimed to break down barriers between artwork and visitor. 8000 visitors saw, touched and participated in this colourful show.

THE DOLLS HOUSE photos formed the practice element of my final dissertation for my MA Art & Design in Education. This is the statement that accompanies the images.   Despite a production being a collaborative effort, the designer is a very lonely animal  Ralph Koltai There are so many methods that lend themselves to academic research, and yet artists may not feel comfortable without art practice being part of their investigations. In my case this is certainly so, for my practice is embedded in the happy accident, the fortuitous mistake that years of experience and experimentation have taught me to let happen. For me, my symbolic artefact, namely a slightly battered 1960s dolls house, has become the catalyst for productive questioning and, sometimes uncomfortably, contemplation.  I have named it my ‘provocative companion’. It has undoubtedly led me to thoughts and feelings that might not otherwise have emerged. By locating the dolls house in different spaces I have been encouraged, even forced, to consider the parallels between the different spaces in which I work. The performance spaces that exist in both the theatre and hospitals have become my artistic home. And yet, why? The dolls house, situated in isolation or congregated in the photographs, brings about affective responses, even practical insights, often unexpectedly. It is this element of surprise that artistic practice can bring to academic research, exactly as experimentation in all fields should. Please encourage your gaze to wander to and fro across my dolls house photos. What do the images reveal for you?    

In 2006 I was commissioned to create steel and perspex sculptures for the new entrance at Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham.

Please follow the arrows on some of these images to take you to the associated videos. For more info please contact me.

Drawing performers enables me to understand the body in space and the shape of the performers body under the costume. Without frequent drawing I simply would not have the ingredients I need to fuel ideas. Drawing has always been the process I turn to first to investigate and think through ideas. Encouraging others to do the same reveals all sorts of different understandings. The last image here is of a student of mine drawing with flour and charcoal. This allowed questions about volume, space and scale to emerge.

My grandmother Nancie Isabel Stephenson (1901 - 1995) wrote 'off to plot' many times in her diaries. Whilst I know that this means that she was going to her allotment I enjoy the notions of planning, conjuring, storytelling and inventing that this phrase suggests. The images here are of my own plot.....

In 1997 DAISY AND TOM 'The Store for Children' opened in Chelsea. I designed the interiors, from initial concept to finished shop.

Here are a few images of my theatre design projects. The first image is from Lenny Henry's LOUD, the second DIDO AND AENEAS

Costumes designs shown from THE BIRDS, THE NUTCRACKER , THE THREEPENNY OPERA & DIDO AND AENEAS

Susan Loppert (Art Consultant & Valuer/Arts in Health Consultant) commissioned my work for Chelsea and Westminster. I have found all my hospital projects to be incredibly rewarding despite as a child saying to my parents, who both worked in hospitals, that I would never work in one.

In 1989 I was asked to be artist in residence at Salisbury Festival by the then artistic director Simon Halsey.

These huge silk covered light boxes and twisted silk sculpture provide a much needed blast of colour in this huge entrance hall. At night they can be seen through the glass front of the building. I used silk to honour the fact that for many years silk weaving was Macclesfield's main industry.

In 2010 I created all the artwork for the Keats Children's Outpatients Department at North Middlesex Hospital. I worked with local primary and secondary schoolchildren on this project. The theatrical style models allowed the children to tell me stories as we created the images. I collaged the images for the 'Butterflies over London' light boxes from my own photographs and actual artwork from Northumberland Park pupils.

In 2005 I created all the artwork for the Rainbow Centre; the new paediatric department at Central Middlesex Hospital.

In 2007 Candice Hurwitz, NWLH Hospital Arts Director commissioned me to make seaside themed model boxes for the Paediatric A & E.