2018 NADA
2012-2013 Part-Time M.A. in Drawing at NTU
Previous to 2010 I breifly had studio space at Oldknows Studios which became the Goldfactory Project Space and City Arts when they had offices in Radford. The Oldknows space in 2008 was the first studio I had ever had after leaving art college in London (Hornsey) in 1981.
An overview of OSNotts 2018.
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.
Here photos of my studio space and small show of paintings as Third Space Studios opened up for Open Studios Notts.
I managed to complete some new canvases in time for the second show of work at Doctor’s Orders Micropub in October.
This coincided with the annual madness that is Goose Fair so I called it my ‘Cock-on-a stick’ 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
Candy Crush A3 digital drawing 2016
Photoshop Cs3/XP on a 're-purposed' laptop base and Philips square screen. Medion tablet.
I have spent the week both preparing new oil painting surfaces and fitting up my home pc/ laptop and studio old laptop to use tablets. I have not done a lot of digital drawing..even Moogee was mostly scanned drawings but am learning.
Mostly I experimenting with lag (home 64 bit ironically slowest) Windows 10 laptop fastest depending on which tablet/pen I mix up. The nearest to a true drawing experience ironically seems to be laptop and CS3 maybe because of inherent latency in other versions.
I also tried printing out both A4 and A3 images scaled down just to see how looked which interesting. I think if printed on high quality printer at A3 with decent paper could be equivalent of prints.
As for subject matter like paintings I re-investigating notion of code or residual mark-making based on landscape. Filtered through an Arshile Gorky/Paul Klee lens so to speak. I presently reading ( have been reading for two years!) a biography of Gorky (see below). It a little romanticised but does give a good account of his migrant status and position in American society..hence the name change and pretense of being Maxim Gorky’s nephew.
Here three test images . First is a very basic drawn image. Second a stage pre-layers in photoshop and finally the completed image.
I was taken with the way Dan Perfect used digital ‘pre-drawing’ in his joint show with partner Fiona Rae at The Castle (above an image of his) and it somehow combined with my reading about Gorky.
So after 23 years I open a can of oil paint and start painting. First thought is why did it take so long. Is far nicer to work with than acrylic and whereas I appreciate the quick-drying facility that allows rapid over-painting there something too dry about acrylic.
Early days but have started over-painting a couple of series from last year that failed to convince me or the public. Most interesting thing is I started to work in references to previous drawing research and cartooning in a roundabout way.
Here the drawing from Nottingham Open two years ago it links directly to painting above.
I also connecting that with my early 1980’s decorative and aboriginal art influenced work. I do not feel the pressure of the career break any more and actually feel like this could be a career for possibly the first time ever. I have never been a part-time painter and I shall give it a good go for the next year and see what happens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/arts/design/15patt.html
Pattern and Decoration 1975-1985
New French Painting especially Figuration Libre was also an influence
crossed over with NY Grafitti art…..Haring and Basquait etc….
‘Moon Over The Downs’ oil on canvas 5′ x 5′ un-stretched canvas. 1993
In January 1993 things were pretty much as usual. I was still officially unemployed.
I received a ‘commission’ from my friend Pete Astor who was at that time living in Walthamstow with Sukie Smith. This was £150 for materials to paint a large canvas for their living room. It was a great boost after a bad year and I soon spent the money on oil paints and painted out my dad’s unused garage as a studio which was quite good.
The paintings below came from that brief period before I moved to London to be with Ana Fortun who I met on 3rd March 1993 at a friend’s birthday party. I gave the large barn canvas above to Ana when we parted 7 years later but do not have an image of Pete’s canvas sadly and I am not sure if it survived.
The rest of the paintings were ‘saved’ by Laura Stenhouse, an artist friend, who a year later picked them up to stop them getting damaged in the garage when I moved to Edinburgh. I know the Kew Gardens canvas went to Laura who sadly passed away a few years back. Her husband Bob Lindsay-Smith still has this painting I believe.
Kew Gardens 0il on canvas 24” x 36”
And this from same batch but painted over.. all dated January- March 1993
Red Barn oil on canvas 24″ x 24″ 1993
Old paint never dies….
In 1993 I was back home in Didcot, Oxfordshire and a musician friend Pete Astor who I had done record covers for commissioned a wall hanging.
He gave me a £100 and I said I would put in to materials…it was a friend’s gesture of support as I was on the dole at the time.
I bought the paint tins from Atlantis in London. I painted the canvas for him then…
I met a Spanish lady and we ran off to Edinburgh and the paints were placed in a suitcase in my father’s shed.
In 2013 I was clearing the shed following my parent’s deaths and the sale of their house.
I took the suitcase and this week opened them again for first time worried they would be dried out as had rusted over the years.
As can be seen from the photos the paint is still in perfect condition….I start painting in oil again next week…I been using acrylic for last few years….
Linseed oil smells great 🙂
Like me Spectrum is still going…
🙂
