DECADE is the 3rd Space Studios show at Surface Gallery.
The works exhibited are the last paintings I have at present.
I have struggled to exist as a painter in this city since I arrived and before that for 20 years I virtually ceased painting as I had no studio or money for materials.
I will not stop painting and drawing but I see any viable future in the illustration/ comic/ graphic novel area if anywhere at all. Abstract painting is not viable in this city..fact.
I would like to personally thank Steven Ingman for his support over the last ten years ( I moved into 3rd Space in 2010) and hopefully both the studio and myself can flourish in the years to come. We have managed to survive ten years which in current financial climate is an achievement.
I have not been updating this painting blog for at least a year. In fact the last painting of any note I completed was probably in Jan-Feb 2018 before the OS Notts open studios as shown below. This is because of traumatic and life-changing events which have led to my current divorce. Slowly I am picking up the pieces and sadly painting was something that took a back seat whilst life well and truly got in the way.
On a more positive note this last Saturday I had the pleasure of visiting a show in Dover Sreet Mayfair co-curated by old freind David Stephenson. The show revolved around Robert Fraser’s legendary sixties galleries. David also produced a double vinyl Lp of songs about the artists involved which included Peter Blake, Ed Ruscha and Basquiat.
As well as visiting the Gazelli show I also saw a great Rauschenberg show, a crazy Martin Creed show and popped into various Cork Street shows with David which after many years away from the ‘international art scene’ was fun.
We opened for the Bank Holiday weekend in May and numbers were OK but not spectacular which lead to us reconsidering participation this year. I was able to show the Poetry Festival banners.
Once again I showed some abstract paintings in my old friends the Hitchmen’s front room..was a pleasure and they liked the sequence of six so much I left them on their wall:-)
It is that time of year so here this year’s entries in the annual Nottingham Open. For various reasons it may be my last entry for a while because rumour has it the Open will be on hold whilst the Castle is turned into a Robin Hood visitor experience..
Where I will be living by the time that finished could be interesting but it will probably still be within the Midlands ..possibly not Nottingham though.
The reason will become clear in due course.
Meanwhile here the almost pitiful output from this year. What was going to be my great painting launchpad was derailed by some pretty serious PhD submission work.
What here shows work in both acrylic and oil ( thank you Spectrum oil paints however as the website now down and facebook not updated looks like gone out of business which sad….sending me some free paints may have been their last act…)
I started the year inspired by the use of digital preparatory drawings by Dan Perfect in the Castle show. I then developed a sparser abstract mark-making approach out of the digital drawing. Then I turned to oil which by its nature was more viscous and harder to get used to again.
After a cock-up with leaking linseed through using wrong ground with oil paint I repainted the canvases ‘Summer’ and ’96 tears’ again from photographs. These were directly influenced by the lightness of touch of David Jones’s watercolours in the Djanogly show.
As it summer time to round up my previous painting work over 2015-16 and start a new set.
This year I have been spending a lot of time concentrating on developing a workable PhD art history/cultural geography proposal. This is now well advanced and should have some concrete news about that by the end of August. Meanwhile the Tracking Time Blog details where that going….
Here two new Summer Paintings
96 Tears – Acrylic on Canvas 18″ x 18″.
Summer – acrylic on canvas 18″ x 18″
Here is a pdf downloadable catalogue for my last year of abstract painting and drawing.
I painted these three canvases after Spectrum paints very kindly sent me some new tubes of oil paint. Sadly my ground wasn’t suitable and the linseed leaked into the support dis-colouring the painting. I painted over.
However I am re-painting the main and to my mind most successful image above right alongside a new set of abstract paintings and watercolours inspired by the David Jones exhibition at the Djanogly Gallery which I visited last Saturday.
I was always influenced by both his landscapes and drawn lettering.
The new works will hopefully be shown in the autumn in Nottingham venue TBC.
Update September 2016:
These abstracts will be on show at Doctor’s Orders in October 2016
