Veronica Vickery - Portfolio DYCP

1. Preliminary Research

Dead ships, diatoms, microscopy and performance: complex cycles of life and extraction.

Through the Looking Glass

(Above) performance to camera, Purton Ships Graveyard, 2021).

Micro-ecologies research supported by the Brigstow Institute Ideas Exchange, University of Bristol 2022.

(Below) Research images.

Diatomaceous Life

(Above) Microscopy performatnce with Chris Neal

Diatoms are single celled organisms found in a mud sample collected from the River Severn 'Ship's Graveyard' at Purton.

For something so tiny, these transparent diatoms are incredible beings. They are responsible for 40% of all photosynthesis, a source of food for other life forms, make up a significant part of the oceanic fossil record (and oil reserves) and are a major contributor to the health of the Earth's ecosystem - and human survival.

2. In the studio, 2021 - June 2022

Dead swans, detritus, micro-ecologies and a fast flowing river

1) Series of large paintings focused on micro-ecologies
2) Creative text
3) Diatoms, microscopy and dialogue (funding: WEVAA bursary, Brigstow).

The Swan

Oil on canvas, 150 x 180 cm, 2021

Studio

Auger for taking mud cores, drawing-text, ceramic tiles from foraged estuarine mud, map & drawings (above), drawing-stick, water/mud samples, found object, painting, source images (right to left)

And now the river in spate | endless turgid brownness

lugging flood-washed debris | a cargo of deadwood and spilth

slopped out foam | of dis-care

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each*

I do not think that they will now sing to me

no viral boundaries | this skin

this tin can | leaks like a sieve.

*TS Eliot Love song of JR Prufrock

3. Previous work

Fractured Earth: Unsettled Landscape Through Art Practice

Art-practice-based PhD in cultural geography, University of Exeter.
Funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, 2012-16.

Tectonics

(Above) Performance-to-camera, a collaboration with poet Anna Mace, 2016. Commissioned for the Enemies Project, SW Poetry Tour

Screened in The Pavilion, Hauser & Wirth, Somerset 2016S and for
'In the Open' Bank Street Arts / SIA Gallery, Sheffield, 2017

Best of Bristol Living, 2020

Solo installation comprising BRISopoly & God's Garden BS1. Centre of Gravity, Old Soap Factory, Bristol. Funded with ACE Emergency Funding & CoG. Also linked web project BOShomes: Urban Chic | Rural Retreat.

BRISopoly

(Below left) Participative floor game installed painting, reused constructed steel 'fence', Centre of Gravity, Bristol, 2020.

Fractured Earth

(Above, left) Installation, performance-lecture & public discussion, presentation of practice for examination
Porthmeor Studios St Ives

God's Garden, BS1

(Below right) Screen-shots, performance to camera
screened at Centre of Gravity, Bristol, 2020.