Refractive Pool is a project exploring contemporary painting in the Liverpool area through events, exhibitions, print, and an online presence.
The Project is led by Liverpool based artists Josie Jenkins and Brendan Lyons. Check out the website here www.refractivepool.com
Refractive Pool has spent many months carrying out studio visits to local artists, featuring conversations on its blog and earlier this year the project delivered a ‘Contemporary painting in Liverpool Symposium’ in partnership with Liverpool Hope University.
Refractive Pool is now going into print and has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help make it happen. Head straight over to the Kickstarter page for great rewards to suit all budgets. Or read more about the book project below.
The aim of the Kickstarter campaign is to produce a book that will not only act as a snapshot and lasting document of Liverpool’s current community of artists, but will also be an exciting, creative collaboration between the different disciplines of painting, photography and poetry.
As artists themselves, project leads Brendan Lyons and Josie Jenkins are passionate about sharing the vibrant art scene in the City with a wider audience; revealing what a diverse group of people these artists are and equally, just how varied and wide ranging their output is, while still remaining under the umbrella heading of contemporary painting.
The book will not only help to strengthen the sense of community amongst artists, but also allow the general public to find and acknowledge this important part of the cultural fabric of their city.
The Book
Refractive Pool will be working with over 40 artists to produce a dynamic and creatively executed book, showcasing Liverpool based artists who make painting a significant part of their artistic practice. The book will present a diverse range of artists at different career points, who are working in and around Liverpool at this moment.
Each artist is producing a new painting for the book, which will be combined with a photographic portrait of themselves using an innovative technique to produce a single image that will represent them and their work in a unique way.
This will give the book a common theme that will run throughout, yet at the same time use the individual creativity of each artist to give every image its own visual character, enabling the variety of painting styles and personalities within the group to be exhibited.
Although the content of the publication will be heavily image based, putting an emphasis on the visual, it will also include original writing. Most excitingly it will include a new text by Liverpool born poet Paul Farley.
He will be writing on the dual subjects of painting and Liverpool. Paul is currently in the process of writing this exclusively for Refractive Pool and it will take the form of poetry and/or a prose essay and will add a new chapter to the catalogue of works by this award winning writer.