“If It’s OK With Rachel It’s OK With Me”
Inktense pencils and Ink on St Cuthbert’s paper 559mm × 762mm
This is a piece that I started maybe a year ago! I finally made time to finish it off. I suppose it fits in my colour field drawings but it has a closer connection to my Tidelines work
“Art-as-art, Art-as-art, Yeah!”
Pencil on Snowdon cartridge 59cm x 84cm
The title of this piece comes from Andrew Hamilton’s “For People Who Like Art” which I was listening to as I finished it off. The words of Hamilton’s piece are taken from Ad Reinhardt’s “25 Lines of Words on Art Statement” so my title is quoting a quote. I have been really caught by his music and I had already started work on an another piece (still in progress) inspired by though not trying to represent this composition, which I am calling “For Musicians Who Like Art”. Hamilton has a number of works titled, “For…” which echos some of the titles of another composer I admire, Morton Feldman. Notably, Feldman wrote “For Philip Guston” and “For Franz Kline” among other work about art or artists. So my title, “For Musicians Who Like Art”, is an echo of an echo. I will post more about this when i have finished it and have got some decent photographs. Andrew Hamilton kindly sent me the score of the piece and I am thinking about doing more work directly related to his music. (I also have it in mind to do some work responding to Meredith Monk’s work!)
If you want to hear my favourite recording of Hamilton’s “For People Who Like Art” by Crash Ensemble you can do so on SoundCloud
“X Marks The Spot Where We Buried The Hatchet “
Erased graphite, Magic Tape and stickers on Snowdon cartridge paper 59cm x 84cm
After a period when I could not work on large drawings because of a bad back, I am now back on form and have been working on a strand of the erasure work I began during my 50 Collages Before Christmas project.
“X Marks The Spot Where We Buried The Hatchet” – detail
Erased graphite, Magic Tape and stickers on Snowdon cartridge paper 59cm x 84cm
“Triple Double – Nothing Lost On Me”
Graphite, Inktense pencil and acrylic on paper 560mm × 760mm
I am delighted to be showing work in three places in Bath. The work above, “Triple Double – Nothing Lost On Me”, was selected for the Bath Society of Artists Open Exhibition and is on display in excellent company at the Victoria Art Gallery until 15th July 2017. It’s a show that is well worth a look.
I was also selected for the Bath Open at 44AD, part of the Fringe Art Bath festival, where I am showing another erased/redacted work, “Are We Nearly There Yet”. That show finishes on Sunday 11th June. There are lots of very interesting shows, installations, performances and events on in Bath during FAB.
“Are We Nearly There Yet”
ink and acrylic on paper 560mm × 760mm
I am also represented in the slimmed-down version of “The Transformed Landscape” exhibition that was at The Brewhouse, Taunton, Somerset earlier in the year, which has now transferred to the Norman Foster-designed Circle Hospital, which has a regular programme of exhibitions, until December 2017.
“Cogden Tideline”
Collage, watercolour and jetsam on Saunders Waterford Paper 559mm × 762mm
“Abstract Drawings for Dummies I The Tiny Section of My Soul”
Collage, ink, erased graphite, print and acrylic on Snowdon cartridge 59cm x 84cm
This piece, Abstract Drawings For Dummies I: The Tiny Section of My Soul marks the start of two series of work: Abstract Drawings For Dummies and 50 Collages Before Christmas. I had been adding small sections of collage into my erasure and redaction drawings and decided to include text – something I did quite a bit in drawings 45 years ago (including erasing the words and writing what I had done!) and occasionally more recently during my #Collage 365 and #Letter365 projects. I have always had a leaning towards the surreal and absurd with a bit of tongue-in-cheek conceptual thrown in. Influences from cartoons and illustrations, exploded diagrams and information boards, maps and instruction books and much, much more form a lattice of lunacy in my brain. Lay on to this the soft spot I have for Frank Zappa, Bonzo Dog, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson and other slightly odd (and some other decidedly, very odd) music it is not surprising this kind of thing will surface in my work from time to time. The series title Abstract Drawings For Dummies obviously refers to the hugely successful series of “how to” books. The books are, in my experience, well-written and of a high standard and the use of “for dummies” is in no way demeaning or patronising. By using “Dummies” the publishers are signalling to ordinary people they don’t need to feel threatened by experts and that everyone is quite capable of attaining a working knowledge of the subject of the book. Most abstract artists are continually asked to explain what their work is about and during my #Letter365 project where the artwork was sealed unseen into an envelope and sold “blind” I was particularly strongly questioned. At that time I devised a series of works that might help people find a way into art they were not readily comfortable with: works which have instructions, directions and explanations as part of the composition. This new series is planned towards the realisation of that idea. It also features some of the convoluted workings of my brain which had a small opportunity for expression, sometimes quite wittily, on the envelopes of #Letter365.
As I was clearly fired up to do all manner of work I chose the moment of completing this piece to commit to 50 Collages Before Christmas too.
“You Were Meant To Follow The Plan”
Acrylic & cardboard on canvas 50cm x50cm
Number 5 of 50 Collages before Christmas is You Were Meant To Follow The Plan was nearly the first to be done but I could never stick to the plan!
“You Were Meant To Follow The Plan” (detail)
Acrylic & cardboard on canvas 50cm x50cm
“Solid IV”
Mixed media drawing on handmade Indian ecopaper 30cm x30cm approx
In my next show, at the Sugar Cube Gallery, Hambridge, I continue my explorations on the notion that nothing is ever completely eradicated: barely perceptible traces of every action remain like DNA signatures, capable of being read by those with the knowledge, sensitivity and technology. These traces affect what follows, whether we know it or not. Referencing crop marks, stone circles and mapmaking, a new suite of minimalist drawings using erasure and redaction will be on show along with selected work from two strands of my Black Squares series – asemic writing and “colourful black squares” plus anything else I can fit in to “the smallest gallery in Somerset”. All the pieces are small to medium in size and as such are affordably priced and would make great Christmas gifts for friends, family or a treat for yourself!
The show runs 7 November – 21 December at Sugar Cube Gallery, The Courtyard, Bowdens Farm, Hambridge, Somerset TA10 0BP Monday – Friday 9am – 4pm. There’s a preview evening on Friday 4th November 5pm – 7pm and it would be great to see everyone for a glass of fizz and a chat.
“From Under Your Nose”
Paper, acrylic and discarded photograph on gessoed canvas 50cm x 50cm
I’ve gone and done it again! A few years back I did a collage a day for a year – #Collage365. Then I did another every-day-for-a-year project – #Letter365. Only this time I have been a bit less demanding of myself. I think there are 63 days left till Christmas and I started the project 4 or 5 days ago. I know I am going to be away and busy for some of the time so I didn’t want to give myself any pressure. I also wanted to be able to do larger, more considered work rather than the very focussed work that the previous projects demanded. The idea came from my frustration of not being able to get the studio time I have been wanting. Necessary work on my studio roof and other calls on my time have meant I have not been able to engage in the concentrated work I need to be doing. I have sort of promised myself a “residency-at-home” for six months, following the idea of a “staycation”, where I can have an immersive experience in my studio and home landscape (mostly) and this project is how I have decided to kick it off.
Collage has started to creep into my work again – in the “Rings” series and the “Abstract Drawings for Dummies”, the first two of which are also the first two of #Collage50. When I was starting to put my studio back together after the work, I got out one of my large boxes of collage materials and just started working on things. I’ll have to find a way to get my studio organised round the things I am doing! Currently the floor and some work surfaces are covered with newly painted and marked paper I am preparing for use in collages!
The piece above, From Under Your Nose is Number 4 in the series. The photographs are discarded prints by Bridport photographer Brendon Buesnel that he gifted me as collage materials a couple of years ago. The piece below is Number 3, In The Room With No Soul. It features a photograph I took inside Bruce Bruce Nauman’s Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care which I saw at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. A small piece of one of these photos has already appeared in #Collage50 and I can see it could be a theme that develops. Well, it’s a grid isn’t it!
“In The Room With No Soul”
Card and photograph on gessoed canvas 50cm x 50cm
I will set up a separate page for the project in due course and try to get half-decent pictures of them all to make into a gallery slide show.
“Double Erasure: Winter Field”
Multiply erased graphite on Canaletto paper 495mm x 695mm
I am delighted that “Double Erasure: Winter Field” has been shortlisted for the Wells Art Contemporary Awards 2016 and will be on show at The Bishop’s Palace, Wells 8 – 22 October and is already featured on the WAC website
