OVADA Associates Feature Artist: David Barron

Associate Q&As with David Barron

Introduction

I've done quite a few jobs in my life, including working with Vietnamese refugees, being a social worker, and, most recently, working as university academic in the field of sociology. My artistic practice, which I am now working on full time, mainly involves drawing and printmaking. As a sociologist, I'm interested in the ways in which various forms of social interaction come about and what their effects are. In particular, I'm interested in cooperative and mutualistic interactions, which I think get too little attention compared to competitive interactions despite their being vital. One way I have incorporated this into my artistic practice is via work involving the natural world, where we are only now beginning to understand the vital importance of such interactions, for example in forests. This is interesting in itself, but is also a useful metaphor and model for human societies.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on a life-size drawing of a fallen tree in Wytham Woods. I'm working on it in sections, each of which is 1.5m long. I work with the paper placed directly on the ground beside the tree, and I'm doing drawings of both sides of the tree. Eventually, the drawing will be about 10m long and 2m wide; it's half completed at the moment. The work was inspired in part by the Maya Angelou poem, When Great Trees Fall. I also regularly take part in an online group activity where people take it in turns to pose for other artists to draw their portrait, go to life drawing groups, and am preparing for a group exhibition in London in July with the Nature as Witness collective.

Where do you create work?

I currently work either at home or outdoors, but will have shared studio space at Oxford Brookes next year as an MFA student.

What are you hoping to achieve over the next year?

From September I'll be focussed on my MFA but until then I am going to continue to develop my work in, with, and of nature. Being part of a group show in London in July is a very big step for me, so I'm also going to be working on making it a success.

Describe the last time you felt inspired

I'm involved in a collaboration between artists in Oxford and Bonn, Germany (one of Oxford's twin cities). One of the things I decided to do for this was spend an afternoon in the Botanical Gardens in Oxford (the results of the collaboration are going to be shown in Bonn's botanical gardens), listening to and recording sounds. It was quite an experience; I've never really paid attention to the sounds there before and it is amazing what you hear when you do! Birds singing, kids playing, punt poles clanging, sirens going off, helicopters overhead, conversations in so many different languages, fountains gurgling, gravel crunching, wind in the trees, people playing cricket. One of the results of doing a lot of observational drawing is that it transforms how you see the world, but it turns out that the same is true of hearing.

How does Associate membership benefit you?

I've taken part in quite a few activities at OVADA, like the Artweeks MOOD show and a number of workshops. I do like to feel like I'm contributing something to the community. Plus I like getting 10% off!

How do you feel the arts benefit society?

Can you really imaging a society without the arts? No music to listen to, no cinema or TV to watch, no books to read, no visual art to see? Life would be very impoverished, wouldn't it. A very high percentage of the UK population engage in some sort of creative activity, even though few of them would classify themselves as "artists," "musicians," or whatever. Clearly, engaging in these activities gives a great deal of personal satisfaction to people. In addition, many of these activities are communal -- singing in a choir, going to the cinema, participating in a life drawing group, playing in a band -- so they contribute to people's social lives, increasingly important as we understand how bad social isolation can be for people. It's disappointing, then, that there often seems to be a view that the arts are a luxury, something that only a "cultural elite" cares about.

You can see more of David’s work at:

Website: davidbarron.art

Instagram: @mothsailor