18th April 2008

Its good to be back painting again and it seems to be time to revise some old work. I've been keen to get using some strong colour after all the subtle greys of the Negate series. I'm reworking two older pastel pieces. .The originals are both quite small abstract landscapes and I've ben thinking for a while that they would be good on a far larger scale. This first one is complete.

I spent a long time adding excessive amounts of paint, trying to exactly match some colour-scheme elements of the original. By the end, huge creases of heavily-textured oil paint had accumulated. Normally, I'd try to minimise this and keep as flat a painted surface as possible - but not this time. I decided to stick with this for the next one - still ongoing.

I've built up some areas of texture deliberately, angling the panel next to the window to catch in the light the heaviest areas. I've mixed oil with acrylic to produce granulated areas, added oil to latex and even introduced a mass of natural fibres and dried tea.

It feels good to be deliberately messy for a change.

Finally, on the subject of reworks, a customer in Tribe has a new tattoo. I drew up a rose for her foot before going on holiday. When I got back, I found out that she'd gone with a different design, one of my other large rose paintings. Didi's work here is great. No hard outlines and some beautiful grey shading - it'll be fantastic when its healed. Now all she needs is another rose on the other foot.

 

_______________________________

24th March 2008

I've had a very busy time. I've been working on various people's sites (including this one for the new Diversions Film Festival), finishing this year's portfolio, putting the final touches to the end of the Lepris project, and finishing a load of artwork for the tattoo shop. That also means I can get back to doing some designing for my own skin - about time too. I had all this pretty much wrapped up before going on a much-needed holiday.

I was in Borovets, Bulgaria. There's not much to say other than it was a glorious time of skiing, heavy drinking and weird things happening for charity. A local orphanage is in sore need of a new heating system. The resort has many regular visitors who all stay in contact online and they decided to try raising funds in a number of different ways. A week of events culminated in some of them skiing in fancy dress for the residents and Bulgarian television. They managed to raise about £11k for the orphanage but I think the cause's exposure was even more valuable - "exposure" being the operative word. Here you can see my friend Rob getting his kilt lifted on Bulgarian television. One way or the other, I'll definitely be going back. Skiing has only ever been a very occasional novelty for me but this recent time away has been so rewarding that I know that I want to keep pushing myself on the slopes more often. Either my confidence will peak or I'll end up with a mouthful of pine-cones.

Anyway - Lepris. The project was nearing completion to coincide with the portfolio and it proved a real test of trying to figure out how to present it all. I needed to draw a line under the whole project. It was becoming a little all-consuming and distracting. So, I took the remains of his casing and the table, took it all up onto the roof and set fire to it. I also have a new rose plant up there in a pot so I transferred the ashes into the recently spray-painted receptacle. I'm still enjoying the video editing so that made it onto film too.

So now that's done with, I feel liberated. I'm not sure what work's coming next but I'm looking around, taking in whatever I see and I've started a new sketchbook. I had some time in London and took the opportunity to see some of the latest exhibitions in the Tate and National Gallery. I thought I'd see what grabbed me, what might put me on a new path. Typically, it was something else that caught my attention. I was crossing the river to the Tate Modern in bright sunlight to see the grid pattern of the bridge beneath my feet. I couldn't get it out of my head and the mental image was only amplified by the crossing branches of the huge trees in Bulgaria.

There's something in all this repetition, something mathematical that is demanding my attention. I've started a series of small drawings of grids. They're very fine detail - executed with a 0.05 fineliner. I have no idea where this is heading but I think the precision is a reaction to all the chaotic aimlessness of Lepris.

    

Which isn't to say that the Galleries weren't good. It was great to see Alison Watt's Phantom in the flesh. The overt serenity bothered me a little but it was very well presented - nice to see how heavy some of the brushwork is. Better still was Velazquez's Venus at Her Mirror. There isn't a painter who can't gape in astonishment at his portraits, but this painting hammers home the presence of his overall skill. Considering the era in which he worked, the loose brushwork is very daring. For me, discovering this painting was one of those rare moments when the presence of the original addicts me to the reproductions.

_______________________________

24th January 2008

Well, that was that - Lepris is no more.

Actually, I still have his charred remains and a cracked lump of ice in pretty bad shape - but he's "spent", as it were - no longer capable of anything he once was. Once again, not wanting to pre-guess any outcome, I took a lot of photographs and recorded some video footage. The definitive "finished" work is brewing. I can feel it even if I don't see it just yet. In the meanwhile I've edited together some of the visual material in the form of a short film. Its a kind of summation of Lepris so far.

A little background: we took Lepris out into the country - way out of harm's way and into an area remote enough to cause minimum disturbance to anyone or anything. However, there were some cattle way in the distance. You'll hear them lowing in the background of some of the audio tracks, sometimes in reverse. When we arrived, there were some dead cattle lying bloated by the end of the country track. Their corpses seemed to insist themselves into the project - a little deathly counterpoint to Lepris' own demise. Anyway, enjoy.

_______________________________

20th December 2007

Lepris is now getting old. The ice is melting, the petals are showing through, his body is ageing and accumulating scars. Well, by that I mean that I have had so many people scribble on his outer-casing that he resembles a plaster-cast around a broken limb. I've been out and about with him, as ever. Although it has been a pain to cart it all around and has drawn a few odd looks from people, I've included the antique table that serves as his plinth. It is on this table that he will meet his end. One of the most shaping influences of this whole project has been the input of other people - not just their contributed scrawling but their reactions and suggestions. It has startled me that some of the more "creative" people I know seem utterly oblivious or distant to the concept whereas others have fastened on to the idea with an enthusiasm that has made me re-assess my own motives. Like I mentioned in the previous entry, I have caught myself falling into familiar patterns of attempting to control the outcome rather than letting it become, public property. For example, I took Lepris to the viewing room of the Lighthouse Gallery - they were good enough to allow me to arrange photographs. I happened to meet an elderly gentleman from London who was enjoying the view as much as Lepris was. When he asked me about the project, he seemed particularly keen on the prospect of accidental detonation in a public place. As a blitz-survivor, his attitude to this implied violence was very thought-out and compassionate. Consequently, he wrote his own little philosophical contribution on Lepris' shell. Its uncomfortable to think about, but I'm exploring the potential of casual violence - or the happening of the unexpected in a public place. Whether its a bomb, a violent act, a loud noise, or simply inappropriate behavior, we all entertain thoughts of the possible and outlandish. Lepris' final act of destruction is for the object alone - it will not harm anyone. In a way, it will be a self-absorbed act, sanitized in its isolation, much like the death of most human beings in the western world. And yet, Lepris' existence serves as a reminder that he could have manifested the beautiful and the horrific at any time - if only the ice had melted or the fuse had been lit. Still, from a more practical point of view, I'm figuring out ways of recording the project. What actually is the physical "art" of this or is it all just exploration? Well, aside from photographs I will (or someone else will) be filming the final moments. I can't really see it becoming solely a video-piece. Such works always feel a little banal and cursory to me, relying as they so often do on the concept alone. The sketchbook and drawings are ever present but I'd like to mix the photographic and paper-based material a little more. One thing that produced pleasing results so far are two "scans". I used a similar technique to Paul Caponigro's Allies series, rolling the cylinder of Lepris' casing across the scanner bar as it moves. This produces a flat and slightly distorted image of the exterior of the 3D object. I used this technique once before for the peripheral material that contributed to The Blister Exists. It has produced a "birth scan" - Lepris at the point of completion - as well as a final scan which shows the quotes, drawings, etc. that people have contributed. I'll catalogue and display these with a key that attempts to identify them all.

_______________________________

30th November 2007

I've been preoccupied with one thing: Lepris.

This is the name I have given to an object - a human analogue that is basically an explosive cylinder, approximately 40cm high with a rose encased in ice at the top. The small sketchbook I've been keeping - the deliberately haphazard one - has produced a series of ideas and motifs that have firmly gelled into "Lepris".

Simply, Lepris is an example of analogous qualities in a single contained unit. Initially, Lepris was decorated only with a single half-lidded eye. This is an image that has insisted itself in the sketchbooks and intuitively feels part of his / its identity. I like to think that some human dignity and /or intelligence is represented in the frozen rose - yet the ice is so vulnerable. It is susceptible to ageing and I suspect that before he meets his end, Lepris' uppermost extremity will be represented by the defrosted flower, wilted. Countering this vulnerability, the analogue conceals a violent quality - a potency or volatility in his internal workings. Lepris' interior houses a not inconsiderable quantity of gunpowder and a system of fuses and detonators. In effect - Lepris is a bomb. Now, I have a plan for Lepris and I feel it is important to point out that he is NOT designed to harm anyone. He contains no sharp fragments and is pretty much a giant banger. When he reaches the end of his life-cycle, I plan to detonate him somewhere extremely remote. I have a tricky time following my own train of thought but I'm instinctively drawn to the idea of him interacting with the city. He goes to the places I go, meets the same people, "sees" the same things, etc. I have invited the public to deface his body; drawing and writing on his surface. Whether it is platitudes, philosophies or graffiti, I don't really care.

Part of the promise of creating this substitute human is that I have to prevent myself from getting too precious. I should not be the master of his destiny and a certain degree of random exposure and chance damage seems appropriate. Of course, Lepris ages. At every step on the way of his existence, he gains marks and scars. The ice slowly melts and I know that he will soon look a shadow of his former self. At that point, he becomes a master of his own destiny and ends his being from within. Mechanically, I don't know if he will go out with a bang or a whimper. I am no seasoned builder of explosive devices and I wouldn't be surprised if the promise of volatility is actually an inert mass. Still, there's a human analogue in that too. Lepris is nothing but honest. Wherever this project goes, the results will be intuitive. I'm following this with my nose and heart; not trying to plan too much out. Allowing public input into something that smacks of "alter-ego" is exciting. Lepris reminds me of Ernst's "Loplop Presents" - something clearly vital to the artist's identity but somehow hidden from the viewer.

I'm pleased to be working with something that resonates so personally in an uncomplicated manner. Lepris harbours contradiction. He exhibits complexity and animal violence. He has a public exterior and a vulnerability common to all people yet contains an ever present potential - a promise of violent outburst. One way or the other, he is not the finished work. This project is producing rich sources - plentiful lines of inquiry. He is a representation of being. His end is as assured as his beginning. He'll gather the marks of his passage through time and he'll leave only fragments of his experience among his remains.

_______________________________

15th November 2007

It is so rare that one artblog entry arrives on top of another but I'm firing on all 48 cylinders right now and there's a lot on the go.

I've barely had time to sit in the studio for more than 2 hours at a stretch and my work has been confined to sketchbooks and custom drawings for tattoo. Considering that so much recent work has been very carefully considered and enacted from a primary source, I have been keeping a very small tertiary sketchbook that has been strictly given over to scrappy drawing - material that is mundane, aggravating, highly abbreviated and not at all as observed and controlled as the rose material has been.

It was an experiment, a deliberately unlovely exploration of primitive influences and interpretation. Common themes of faces, mouths, torsos, weapons, antagonism, violence and an unnerving detached calm have leaked onto these small pages. I am now at a stage where the common themes and congruent intentions of other projects are coalescing into something entirely new in my experience but, I am told, is eerily reminiscent of some of my very earliest efforts. Instinctively I feel this can only be a good thing. I suppose I wouldn't mention its existence otherwise.

The components within this image have been stamping their presence in the little sketchbook for some time now. I took no great time or effort in arranging the composition - the grinding of the ballpoint pen seemed to find its own purpose.

I have utterly rejoiced in the unexpected savagery of this final image - partly because its manifestation has been so unexpected, partly due to the repeated deadpan utility of the line-drawing but mostly because I have seen further evidence of a subconscious manifestation. I am fairly baffled as to the intent of this "drawing" - a friend described it as an "observation" - he said it was a "dispassionate glimpse of the world; full and brutal" Sounds good to me.

_______________________________

13th November 2007

There's a whole load of little things going on at the moment. In amongst all the websites, sketches, gigs and events, I'm putting in a lot of time at the shop while I'm being trained up to do the body-piercing thing. My dear friend Patsy has been floating the idea in front of me for over a year now. What with changes to her schedule and my availability, its making sense. In any case, I've assisted in so many procedures already that I'm picking up the rest pretty quickly on the way. I'm enjoying it.

The rose work is reaching its eventual conclusion and some ideas are gelling in that familiar (and relieving) manner that so often accompanies months of seemingly aimless artistic meandering. Oddly, much of the source-work of this "flower portraiture" is combining with some very anarchic, primitivism sketchbook work to produce something that is, for me, really quite bizarre and unexpected. I have a series of expanded drawings underway - also photographic and video work that is more conceptual than anything else - something I'm not totally comfortable with quite yet.

One of the final paintings is much looser and freer in its application of paint, despite the original source's hard lines. This is the same rose that has been frozen in ice. Although I haven't worked out the finer details, that little frozen ice-casket is going to make up a central portion of the final "project" - a grand finale involving desolate landscapes, the all-seeing eye and a small and completely safe explosive device. I'm rubbing my hands with glee at the thought of what is yet to come.

And at long last, I'm working towards a new version of this site. I've had so many people pointing out that the "Artblog" is not really a blog in the true sense. Yes, I know. Well, the new version of the site will feature the real deal - you'll all be able to submit comments and images, etc. For a long time I've been thinking that it would be nice to open it up to more people. It should be up and running within the next two weeks - new look, new images, new blog. Yay.

_______________________________

8th October 2007

A curiosity has developed into literal preservation. I took the petals and froze them in ice. In stages - I poured water and petals into a mold, froze it, added another layer and repeated the process. Allowing light to fall through the icy structure has brought out the abstractions of the structure - all this is enhanced by the random obfuscation of the bubbles within the ice, distorting each layer in turn.

And so, finally, I took the next logical step - to freeze an entire rose in ice. The photographs have produced some good results. They provide what can only be described as a useful start to abstraction. Knowing that the rose series is beginning to lose its appeal for me - knowing that I'm being drawn in new directions - I feel no rush to develop these abstractions. After all, everything has been neatly preserved.

_______________________________

28th September 2007

Colour is trying to creep back in. After all this experimentation with Payne's Grey, tonal variations and so on, I was taken by the Geraniums growing downstairs in the stairwell. A single flower, combined with the water vessel and sunlight made a strong but very conventional composition. More interestingly for me, it led to usage of a very potent red - it has an extremely high content of pigment which, I find, makes it virtually unusable because it is so overpowering. A tiny amount mixed with other oils still produces a devastating red hue. I'm overly sensitive to its use especially after all this deadpan treatment of rose images. By contrast, the license to use this powerful red hue infiltrated the final composition of the most recent rose painting. Payne's Grey led the way to a more cerulean tinge and I eventually allowed some abstract hints to develop into startling red abstractions behind the current portrait of the rose. The rose in question is complete - more precise than the rest.

I have started on another rose - another grey composition - but I've polluted the original recipe somehow. Downstairs, the geraniums are shedding petals as the autumn creeps in and I am saving them. the petals keep their colour and I feel a need to preserve them.

_______________________________

3rd September 2007

Its a nice feeling to be in Autumn again - the wet summer has produced all these flowers and I'm making the most of them before they decay. I seem to have little interest in the natural colours and shades within the structure so I tried a little experiment. I took one flower and sprayed it with black, white, and blue paint to try to emphasize shadows and hilights. As with all my little ventures with spray paint, I got unpredictable results.

Still, the single images are a great starting point to extract material for abstract compositions. More and more, I'm using the macro settings on the camera to look deep into a structure.

Besides all this, I'm continuing to work on the latest large panel. The flower in this one is a little more restrained. It doesn't fill the entire surface area so its placement is a little more considered. This time, I'm going to avoid introducing a "strip" of co lour across the petals but will introduce coloured hints elsewhere - possibly some of the ridiculously over-saturated red that I can't seem to mix with anything else without it overpowering all the other pigments. And in one other little aside, I've attempted my first naturalistic colour paining in a long time. Its just a little oil-sketch of a friend's baby. As a birthday present, I think she'll like it - although unfortunately I can't transport it until the thickly-applied paint has dried.

_______________________________

20th August 2007

The band are hard at work. The single "Release The Lions" has just come out so there's been a lot of activity to promote it - lining up gigs, producing the accompanying video, all of which I'm happy to be involved in as little as possible. Not that all this isn't fun and exciting - but I'll turn up and play shows and let the other guys handle the "scene" stuff. They've been around the block more times than I and I'm content to let them get on with it.

So here's the video. It uses a mish-mash of Munchkin "artwork", video projection, green-screen, and who knows what else. The single is available at selected stores and itunes.

_______________________________

19th August 2007

I'm still persisting with the roses. I've been out and about, trying to capture as many images and impressions of roses as I can before the change of season does away with them. Without thinking about it too much, I've been taking pictures and drawing quick studies, not trying to arrange a composition but rather allow the random shapes to surprise me. Then there's some kind of odd selection process that is going on - some "compositions" of petals and shadows appeal enough to be chopped and changed digitally. Eventually, I produce something in print that might make it onto the panel.

The paintings have the intent of portraiture, particularly in the way I'm handling the paint, altering the context, etc. However, some of the drawings have become peculiar abstractions, reminiscent of a "Glasgow" style - part Deco and part Viennese secession that I'm not sure I like. We'll see where it leads.

I'm reluctant to have a go at working any of this kind of thing into a final piece until I have a clearer idea of what its all about. Also, it feels like a huge departure from all this painting to suddenly fly off on a tangent into such abstraction. It is as if these are two independent projects that just happen to be drawing from the same subject matter.

_______________________________

7th August 2007

The first big rose painting was successful - I'm really getting used to painting at these large sizes and I'm rarely entertaining the notion of any other format than the square. There's a tyranny of portrait and landscape that's hard to get away from and the square canvas lends a neutrality to the composition.

I've even been cropping my photographs to squares. Bearing in mind that I've been scurrying around the neighbourhood, identifying the people that really take care of their gardens and finding some spectacular roses. Anyone looking out their window and seeing me, camera in hand, could be forgiven for feeling a little paranoid. I'm thinking of printing out some nice reproductions of recent work and posting it through their doors with a little explanatory note.

This lot of work has been about finding a simple iconic image that dominates the canvas but still lets the composition employ the negative perspective markers of the Negate series. Rather than opting for actual negative images, I've let the digital tools come through on the painted surface - crop lines and moments of over-saturation within the petals of the flower - and occasionally amplifying the implied perspective with overlapping images. By using such natural images as a basis, I've removed the potential for loaded-meaning that comes with using my own body as a subject. Rather than using a human presence and approximate size on these large panels, I'm relying on a macro-view to bring out the detail of the plain subject matter - hopefully turning it into something monumental. And so it goes on - the studio has another large panel devoted to the same experiments.

_______________________________

23rd July 2007

There's some kind of slow distinct blending of the experimental to the finished work right now. I'm not going out of my way to produce a "finished" painting but am allowing all manner of preparatory work to distill themselves onto larger, more ambitious pieces. The quick and easy starting point is myself - using single images and sometimes composite ones to pack more poses and gestures into one effort.

I've had a notion for sometime - myself, leaning into or standing against a wall. I allow the image to lead the eye in and out again into the depths that the perspective allows. This is all fine and well but the overall composition in my mind's eye doesn't quite reach the conclusion I want it to. From a painterly point of view, I know I'll enjoy bringing out the play of light and shadow across flesh, particularly because I want to make the image monochromatic by way of mixing very subtle colours with no use of black or gray paint. I experimented more with source photographs, using the negative image to imply a different source of lighting - and then I saw that I could use negative perspective as well to mislead the eye and ultimately confront the subject's apparent attention with that of the viewer's.

Many of Bacon's paintings made use of a "perspective box" to tie in the jumble of brushstrokes into an apparently three-dimensional setting. By use of this "negative perspective", I've introduced a conflict of settings. I don't know if the viewer will see a disorientated figure, or if they themselves will be disorientated by the spatial contradiction of the composition. I could spend hours thinking of ways to describe what's going on here. These "negate" paintings are among the more psychologically penetrative works that I've done but I'm loathe to deconstruct them with words too much. As long as they retain that slightly seductive and disquieting quality then I'll pursue the theme. Maybe I should try a different subject - something non-human.