Shopping Trolley Review

There is definitely something in the water. Lets just recap for a moment. The island now has not one but two music festivals, attracting the likes of The Who, Bowie, The Charlatans, Basement Jaxx, Fatboy Slim, blah blah, blah blah to these shores. We also have not one but two major label recording artists, The Bees and Drew, both of whom have released superb albums this year (Free the Bees and Songs from the Devil’s Chimney, respectively) that are picking up international critical plaudits by the shedful, and particularly in the case of The Bees, increasing commercial success to boot. Talking of international, there’s also Paul Armfield, currently off gallivanting around the lowlands of Europe in support of his excellent Song Without Words album. We’ve got the playwright Graham Macfarlane, who returned to the fray after a lengthy “sabbatical”, with a new production of his play Writers’ Block at this years Ryde Arts Festival. He’ll be off touring the country with his new theatre company, Universal Taxi, next year. And then there’s the myriad number of painters, film-makers, dj’s, musicians and sundry creative oiks lurking in every cranny and hedge of this weird yet beautiful island, some of whom took part in Shopping Trolley, a multi-media art exhibition that took place at the Quay Arts Centre on Sunday the 2^nd of October. These are such things as scenes are made of and our small lives seem to be surrounded by anything but sleep……..

About two hundred people turned up to witness this showcase of island talent and those that did were rewarded with an evening that mixed The Factory’s eclectic aesthetic, with a very 21^st century update. Paintings wrestled with films for attention, as anonymous musicians hid behind giant screen prints and soundtracked the spectacle with wondrous noisescapes. Dj’s filled in the gaps, whilst people literally didn’t know where to look. Giant moonweasels threw down shimmering bolts of purple haze from atop ski-ing cows wearing Hendrix wigs, and jewellery designers showed super-8 films. Throwback, fast forward and enjoy the trip in between. I swear I’ve seen nothing of its kind on the island before. If this had taken place at the ICA the chattering classes would have chattered to those cows had stopped ski-ing. But this wasn’t London. This was the Isle of Wight. It’s the last place you look sometimes……

So, a few details, a few (faded) memories. There appeared to be quite a number of painters on display, with a variety of different styles at work. These included the striking use of blue and yellow in Aaron Fletcher’s abstracts, the garish post-modern movie poster designs of Paul Brown and the startling red enigma of Christ (or was it Charles Manson?) by Kitty Linnington. There was also the clever subversion of Cedric Wells’ giant stamps. However, my personal favourite was the stretched faces trying to escape from the canvas, like trapped goldfish, in Hannah Wray’s emotionally powerful work. Sophie Honeybourne’s tasteful street-jewellery designs were innovatively displayed, with models larking about on super-8 footage and Gianpaula and Mica Giancovich’s video seemed to capture the spirit of Ventnor perfectly, with its mix of Bees concert stuff and clips from any number of house parties. It was good to see photography represented as well, in the form of Reuben Boudewijn’s large-print portraits. The lighting and composition presented the various people photographed in a truly iconic way, particularly the one of Sorbonne Chandaman, a noted Island artist, who unfortunately was not able to show this time. Then there was John Cattle’s excellent hour-long skate film that was shown on the giant screen in the theatre upstairs. A sizeable crowd were transfixed by some top-notch skating footage from both the island and around the country. This was inter-cut with John and his mate’s surreal video-diary of their trip to the States; pretty cool, I thought. I remember going back downstairs after the film had finished and finding the main room absolutely heaving. There appeared to be folks everywhere in the building! The Giancovich’s film was showing on the video-projector, whilst from behind Darrin Cooper’s tasteful screen print, The New Ambient Workshop, featuring Tom Gardener and Anthony Truckel from Drew, Rupert Brown, an old stalwart on the Island music scene and someone called Jack, were making beautiful instrumental music that fitted perfectly with the overall vibe. It was also good to see Kath spinning a few sassy funk and soul tracks at one stage. And I noticed various members of the infamous Ventnor dj/producer collective PUSH laying down some “angular techno noise”, which was as it should be.

So, there u go. Quite a night, for sure, and the first of many hopefully, since the abundance of talent on the Island certainly warrants a residency somewhere. Its very encouraging to see The Quay Arts Centre finally playing the kind of role in the community it was intended to, since it first received an influx of lottery cash a few years ago. Credit must go to Steve Munn, the new artistic director, for having the foresight to step out of the boat a little and try something new. I think the high attendance (and bar takings!), not to mention the quality and innovation on display, justified the decision in spades. Shouts out to Laura Partridge, Raff Raphael and Hannah Wray as well, the three curators of shopping trolley. Some serious co-ordination must have gone on and without their behind-the-scenes efforts I doubt the event could have taken place. Finally, then, any criticisms? Well, a couple, but they are more observations than anything else. I think there was room for some spoken word material. This was probably the only art-form that wasn’t appropriated, but it would have lent itself well to the film and music, I reckon. However, I understand this is on the agenda for the next ST in April. And maybe one could argue that there was a certain Ventnor-Niton bias, but then again, the area is going through a real creative renaissance at the moment, which any bringing together of island artists is bound to reflect. I guess it’s up to those cranny and hedge-dwellers out there to come forward and be counted. Mere quibbles, though. From music to art and everything in between, the island’s got it covered; dream on, tune in and long live the scene.

The Polecat