Gabrielle de la Puente (lecture and tutorial)

Gabrielle is only the bloody creator of the Output Gallery and I’m so psyched we got a lecture from her and I had a tutorial with her afterwards and it was so useful because I was literally in the middle of co-curating my own exhibition the ‘flat mat cat exhibition’, In fact I think meeting with Gabrielle was actually two days before the show.

In the lecture Gabrielle discussed the Output galleries values such as wanting to get artists from and based in Liverpool involved and the importance of listening and taking suggestions from others (especially other artists), therefore shaping the identity of the gallery. I think this is amazing and I feel like I kind of related this back to my exhibition and how it was a mixture of multiple artists and art historians input to create the show we had and this definitely made the show what it was and not to toot my own horn, but it was a sick show.

Some advice that Gabrielle mentioned in the lecture was that some things such as criticism, exhibitions and creative discussions can be more important than art itself and I really do agree with this. I feel like communication and the bringing together of creative minds and having the space for creative flow is so important. Exhibitions and crits make this able to happen and often the contributions and thoughts given can really change and take the artwork to that next level.  

Later in the tutorial with Gabrielle she also gave some useful advice towards my upcoming show and my performance installation that I am currently working on. Gabrielle expressed the importance of keeping communication with those in I guess you would call it the “art scene” and how in the future this will benefit us and our future shows, which I agree with. Just got to keep up the bubbly chat and keep in contact with people from shows etc. At the ‘flat, cat, mat exhibition’ I spoke and exchanged social media accounts with a lot of people and it seems to have paid off, a lot more people are recognising me as a performer and I have since been asked to perform with other people in there shows.

Overall if you couldn’t tell, I loved my tutorial with Gabrielle and I want to be her.