Chaosmos | Culturepool Photos

Culturepool artist talks at Chaosmos II exhibition at the ViewTwo Gallery

Photos by Vinny Lawrenson-Woods 

It was great to see familiar faces amongst the members of the audience who returned for this second Chaosmos artist talk. The first was when I was a student in 2006 when Culturepool was just starting out.

Culturepool is unincorporated non-profit organisation with charitable aims. It was co-founded in July 2006 by Luan and Vinny Lawrenson-Woods and is based in Liverpool, England.

It was founded to improve participation and to provide an environment where people feel comfortable to share, discuss and reflect on their experiences of art & culture as well as support local artists and performers.

Chaosmos & Boyd | Interview with Victoria Samantha Smith

Photo by Matthew Devine

Chaosmos and Boyd
Interview with Victoria Samantha Smith

In 2006, Chris curated and exhibited in Chaosmos at the View Two Gallery. This was a highly successful show that platformed the contemporary art of several recent northwest graduates. Boyd exhibited a range of work in this show, but it was his signatory film ‘The Calling’ that grasped the audiences attention.

A digital video short that combines the sense of high art on par with Renaissance culture and digital media. The film portrays a sequence of undulating bodies like a sea cascading to culminate into a spiral; as the scene changes and moves outwards it transforms into a galaxy. A profound, ethereal and thought provoking digital short that touches on the meaning of existence.

Early 2010, Boyd commenced with creative and curatorial research to organise Chaosmos II. He consulted with national and international artists whose work imbued the philosophies of Chaosmos. In conjunction with this, as lead artist, he created  a new series of art to be launched in this show . Chaosmos II is a cross-disciplinary initiative where artists from the literary, theoretical and visual arts sector come together.

The  Chaosmos II programme consists of an array of alternative events from Live Art, VJ Performances, Artist Talks and a collaboration with Culturepool.
I attended the exhibition and interviewed Chris Boyd.

VSS: What are your early professional developments as an artist?

CB: I wanted to make moving paintings. The short videos I made were visceral cathartic experiments and I was experimenting in sound composition. These felt like symbolist self-portraits and included materials that I associated with a Eurasian inheritance. Many of the eccentricities in the work came from dream imagery and drawings. As a student, I was commissioned to make music videos and involved in other productions where I gained further insights into its exclusive skills. These I would use later in merging production with my philosophical preoccupations.

VSS: What are the ideas that form your work?

CB: At university, I established a groundwork for concepts and themes which I’m now working on in a video installation project called Accelerated Self. In this work, I began marking myself as an author into my own work. I discovered that my ideas fell naturally within the Deleuzian theoretical approach to Chaosmos. My work deals with the idea of space and liminality, how these move and interchange with each other in different contexts. I’m interested in these hallucinatory planes, the blurring of reality and representation, glitches and marks where content mutates into form and materiality.

VSS: Brian Sewell called you ‘an undisciplined genius’ during the judging for the Channel 5 Big Art Challenge UK Art Prize when you were selected as joint winner. How did you feel about his comment?

CB: He was very enthusiastic and interesting to talk to. His feedback was immensely helpful and I felt it was a confirmation and recognition of what I was trying to achieve. It has helped me move forward with an assurance that I didn’t have before.

VSS: Can you explain more the genesis of Chaosmos as a curatorial project?

CB: It started in 2006 as an exhibition launched in the View Two Gallery during the Liverpool Biennial. The aim was to bring forward a group of recent Northwest graduates who touched on a range of creative concepts and techniques. I was one of the artists, but also worked as the Curator to organise and manage it. The title was very much an extension of the theoretical interests I pursued in my work and one that can be opened up to potential detours. It was always my aim to follow up with another exhibition. This took a while as I spent time between the music industry and creative industries on commissions in the UK and US. By 2010, I  started researching other artists whose work fell within the remit of the Chaosmos ideas. The exhibition was  organized into thematic levels corresponding with each of the galleries floors. The first level was a material starting point. The second level deals with bodily and socio-political boundaries and the third level with virtual spaces, invisible forces, digital, metaphysical and entropic states. These were corroborated with an intentional religiosity. The spatial rhythms are reflected in the iambic pentameter in the haptic poetry for each of the levels and the content with the other this visual language.

VSS: What do you hope to realise from the Chaosmos II exhibition?

CB: Chaosmos is very much an ongoing initiative. It is something that formulates some of the ideas behind my own creative practice, but extends into how art is viewed and experienced. After the 2010 exhibition, there are prospects to develop this curatorial theme, as the feedback from both the past and current Chaosmos exhibitions has been positive and constructive.

VSS: What are your future plans?

CB: I will be focusing on a new collection of video art and a series of sculptures. One of the narrative projects I’m moving forward with is a meditation on violence. Chaosmos will continue .

VSS: What do you want your legacy to be and to be remembered for?

CB: If anything I would like people to remember my work.

VSS: Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Good luck for the future. I will be watching the space of ‘Chris Boyd’ for new and exciting projects.

CB: Cheers.

Chaosmos II runs until Saturday 30 October 2010 at  the View Two Gallery on Mathew Street, Liverpool.  It is a strong exhibition with a range of art that will give you food for thought.

Art in Liverpool Chaosmos Chris Boyd Interview

Chaosmos: Acrylic, gouache, glass, hair, volcanic ash (Mount Pinatubo eruption, Philippines), holographic film, digital print, compact discs, mica, charcoal and graphite on canvas.

Chaosmos | Review by Gayna Rose Madder | Nerve

Chaosmos II is curated by lead artist Chris Boyd, who won Channel 5’s Big Art Challenge, Fact’s Microwave Award and the Priestley prize. He bears the mixed blessing of having been described as a ‘genius’ by Brian Sewell, an art critic not renowned for conferring faint praise (or, often, any). His arts initiative here shows the research and development of a gamut of artwork in different media, animations, video and live art.

Chaosmos, a Joycean coinage describing the paradoxical combination of order and disorder, integrates a range of traditional artistic and artisan skills with cutting-edge post-production techniques. The exhibition features a fascinating collection of international and renowned art in a thought-provoking, sometimes startling array.

James Roper's large paintings give an insight into the complexity of this show. Like Rorschach tests his images ask to be interpreted in many different ways. A group at the exhibition variously identified one image as a 'Morrocan leather statuette', a 'nun' and a 'ghost', while another was a 'series of underground tunnels' and an 'umbilical cord.' The internecine plots lie somewhere between fractal computer imagery and forensic diagrams.

This is a departure even for the innovative View Two gallery, and well worth a visit even though there is so much to see in this Biennial. A huge exhibition over three floors, put some time aside to do it justice.

Review by Gayna Rose Madder

Chaosmos | Lucia Sweeney displaying Art in Chaosmos exhibition | R&N News article

A RUNCORN artist who takes inspiration from her love of archeology and science is having her work shown at a top exhibition.

Lucia Sweeney - who goes by the pseudonym Lady Lillith Leveigh - is having her work featured alongside international artists in the Chaosmos exhibition, part of the Liverpool Biennial 2010.

A woman of varying talents, Lucia has been an artist for the last 20 years and her sculptures have formed the basis for sci-fi and fantasy gaming figures.

She has also had her art and written work published in archeology magazines.

She said: “I come from a creative family and my work is combination of several professional experiences and personal interests ranging from art, science, philosophy and archaeology.”

She added: “The exhibition itself is part of the Liverpool Biennial and features artists both local and international, so it’s a large prestigious exhibition!”

Runcorn & Widnes News article

Chaosmos | Culturepool Artist talks

When culturepool sprung into life in 2006, one of our first forays into the art world was with a young artist from Warrington called Chris Boyd as part of the years Independents Biennial. Back then Chris was not long out of Uni but has since continued to build an impressive reputation and résumé. So four years on we jumped at the chance to join Chris again on his return to Liverpool.

Even if you’ve been to the View Two Gallery before, this is a chance to see the new gallery spaces opened up for this exhibition. It’s the View Two Gallery as you’ve never seen it before!

Check out the View Two Gallery and join culturepool, Chris Boyd plus some of the other artists who will talk about their art and the exhibition on Saturday 18th September @ 1pm.  The event is FREE, so just pop along and join us for a cuppa, a bit of art and a chat.

Culturepool works with a broad range of artists, venues and communities to develop more inclusivity within art and culture through promotion, education and support. This is achieved by engaging people in art and culture whilst providing an environment where people feel comfortable to share, discuss and reflect on their experiences.

Aims and Objectives

To encourage people to engage in the diverse range of arts and cultural events in Liverpool.

 - By organising and promoting various art and cultural events

 - By finding unique and interesting events

 - By gaining added value to events i.e.discounted tickets, meeting artists

   and performers

 - By encouraging a strong social network

To provide a safe, comfortable and inclusive environment for people to explore and share their experiences of art and culture in Liverpool.

 - By organising spaces for discussions within the venue visited if possible

To promote the accessibility of art and culture through reflection and discussion.

 - By facilitating the discussions in an informal and relaxed manner

 - By encouraging people to voice their opinions without fear of ridicule or

   intimidation and promoting respect

 - By providing workshops

To recognise Liverpool’s grass-roots and community arts and culture as being an integral part of its culture.

 - By building relationships with community networks

 - By organising visits to grass-roots and community art events

 - By promoting grass-roots and community art events

Culturepool Events

Chaosmos | Boris Zakic on the Liverpool Biennial

Here is the bigger picture of the Biennial. It is the largest and one of the most exciting contemporary visual arts events in UK. Within the time frame of September - November, Liverpool sees hundreds of thousands visitors, and with 960,000 visits last time around in 2008, it makes one of the best-attended art events in the world. Some of the highlights consist of 
The Internationals (http://www.biennial.com) 
The New Contemporaries(http://www.newcontemporaries.org.uk) 
The John Moores Painting Prize
(http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/jm2010)
The Independents (http://www.independentsbiennial.org) amidst many others other fringe events throughout the city. For me, this city is the perfect host for such an event: Mersey River, the coast, the music, the past, but especially the people. Since I flew-in yesterday, everyone at View Two has been wonderful. I can’t thank them enough, from Chris Boyd (his dad in particular) for hard work and treating my work with utmost care to James&co for hospitality, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Even with fast paced artists’ ins-and-outs at the last night’s VJ performances/screenings (as well as during project’s preparation), I had a chance to spend time and talk to most of the artists involved. And I was also glad to have roved around the Liverpool galleries with Masahiro Tomioka today, as he is off to Japan tomorrow. In fact, most of us will scatter this weekend, so I did manage to record some thoughts for the Culture Pool Artist talks and I will try to make myself available in the future, technology permitting. Somewhere still between jetlag and the newness of it all, I am excited to be part of this gutsy, magnetic as well as fluid group of artists here. 


Cheers from Liverpool--


Georgetown College Visual Art Department blog

Chaosmos | The 2010 Liverpool Independents Biennial starts here

CHAOSMOS II at View Two

The 2010 Independents start here.










CHAOSMOS has taken over all 3 floors of the View Two gallery and it’s excellent! I hope people don’t take it the wrong way if I say it’s typically Independents with its mix of paintings, sculpture, installation, video all so different, strange, unnerving but not just thrown together. It’s a high-spec well considered show curated by lead artist Chris Boyd.


Visitors are invited to turn the wheel on Masahiro Tomioka’s device to create swirling patterns in the liquid and watch the video of his other works that are somewhere between art and science.

We also took part in the social dream project run by C James Fagan using dream-catchers along with more hi-tech equipment.

There are excellent paintings by Jane Ward and James Roper as well as Chris Boyd’s own work and many others.

There are various events taking place including VJ and Screening nights and a talk in partnership with Culturepool.

Jane Ward 

James Roper

Chris Boyd

'Tutemae (Ex Infernis)' Sculpture by Lady Lillith Leveigh

Chaosmos Art in Liverpool review by Ian Jackson

Chaosmos | forms part of Liverpool Biennial 2010 | Liverpool Echo Article

Chaosmos exhibition at Liverpool's View 2 gallery forms part of Biennial 201


Liverpool Echo article

Chaosmos | Combining traditional & modern art techniques | Liverpool Daily Post Article

Chaosmos exhibition at View 2 gallery combines traditional art techniques with the modern 

A GROUP exhibition based on a word coined by Irish author James Joyce opens at the View 2 gallery this week.

The writer used the term “chaosmos” to describe a space between the past and present that presents new possibilities.

The show, part of the Independents strand of the Liverpool Biennial, features an array of mixed media art work, animations, video and live art

Liverpool Daily Post Chaosmos Article