Mandy Webb | The Work
Statement
Mandy Webb's work has always been to raise awareness about situations she have encountered, predominantly, her HIV Positive status. What started off as quite a negative and ugly situation has turned into a Positive/Empowering position to be in…
Webb works with many mediums to fit the concept of each individual piece of work, sometimes using nails and pins to represent the pain that she have endured either due to ignorant remarks or hospital treatment. Also the use of bright coloured jewels to maintain the aesthetic quality needed to draw the viewer in but on getting up close realizing the content and sometimes made to feel a little uncomfortable…something Webb likens to the reaction to when she has disclosed her condition.
Most of the pieces in the collection time consuming. Time is paramount as Mandy Webb has been lucky to be given extra time by the medication and treatment she receives and wanted to show this through the work she is producing, almost obsessional in the way that these original pieces are produced. The HIV meds continue to evolve and Mandy Webb reproduces these either using air drying clay or plaster to make them as authentic as possible, knowing that to use real medication would be unacceptable when so many people around the World are still unable to gain access to them. Webb also uses out of date/expired condoms in her work and has created bold statement quilts in the style of the ‘Memorial Quilts’ that were made as a Legacy to all the people that have died since the 1980’s due to Aids related illnesses.
Humour is also essential in a lot of Webb's work…sometimes a little dark, sometimes a little vulgar but always in an ornate style. Many Artists have influenced her including Marcel Duchamp and Meret Oppenheim to name but two. Surrealism has had a major influence in her life and text also plays a huge part in her work as she loves to play with words and different associations with words.
Mandy Webb started looking into the Propaganda Art of the 1940s/50’s and the way it was used in the workplace and any area that had large numbers of people seeing it and this because a focus for an exhibition in 2010 displaying strong powerful and hopefully unforgettable messages on canvas. Webb continues this style of work but now uses the text on fabric - sometimes to look like Bed sheets as this may have been the root of the position she is in or from the hospital bed that she felt my world slipping away from her. She felt a loss of control, a loss of independence and knew she didn't have any control over the virus in her body. But she does have control over the way she decides to use it.
It has been cathartic but mostly it has been empowering for Mandy Webb and hopefully to all the others who are affected by this disease for hopefully changing people’s attitudes as this can happen to anyone Gay, Straight... it doesn’t discriminate. Neither does it discriminate Age/Gender/Race!
The work produced is always about Raising Awareness as Education is vital if things are to change in the amount of new cases being diagnosed each year.
CV
Solo Show
2010 ‘The Museum of the Loss of Practicality + other Peculiarities’ (The Next Chapter). Gallery Art Space, Portsmouth
2010 ‘The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre’…Gallery Art Space, Portsmouth.
‘The Museum of the Loss of Practicality + other Peculiarities’.
Group Shows
2011 ‘Flora, Flora’ The Kings Theatre Southsea
2010 ‘The Signature Art Awards’ DegreeArt.com Gallery London(Finalist)
2010 ‘100 Artists for Pride’ Brighton
2010 ‘Left in Vision 4’, University of London
2010 ‘Lakeside’ Portsmouth
2010 Art Space Portsmouth 30th Anniversary
2010 ‘Diversity’ (One World) University of Portsmouth
2010 ‘Facebook Friends’, Art House 2. Havant
2009 ‘Art in Mind’, The Brick Lane Gallery. London
2009 ‘Left in Vision 3’, University of London
2009 ‘C-R-A-C-K’ Marie Lloyd Bar, Hackney Empire, London
2009 Alumni, University of Portsmouth
2009 Arts Trail, Hayling Island
2008 ‘When it’s gone, it’s gone’ (Degree Show), University of Portsmouth
2007 Ox jam, Castle fields, Portsmouth
2007 Arts Trail, Hayling Island
2006 ‘Positive Pictures’, Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth
2006 ‘Positive Pictures’, Cathedral of Portsmouth
2005 Southampton Art Gallery
Awards
2008 Fine Art Graduate Award. University of Portsmouth.
Education
2005-2008 B.A. Fine Art, University of Portsmouth
2004-2005 Access to Art, Design & Media, University of Portsmouth
2003-2004 City & Guilds: Interior Design, Highbury College, Portsmouth