Buddha and Interconnectedness

Have you read Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently books? The general gist is the fundamental interconnectedness of events that govern our lives peppered with irony and quite a bit of silly,but profound, humour. I mention it here because it resonates quite loudly with my artistic practice.

I am not a religious person but became quite interested in the search for enlightenment and the quest for eternal bliss and started to read some books about Buddha and his life. I became intrigued with the art and specifically the symbolism within the intricate designs used in Buddhist artworks and began a series of paintings.



I have no shame in saying that I intended the work to be sold and worked towards presenting pieces that I thought would look good on the walls of houses of most spiritually minded people. Painting Buddhas is quite therapeutic and I lit candles and played Buddhist chants to set the mood and managed to produce some pleasing works. This golden resting Buddha being one of my favourites.

I suppose you realise that not all paintings by an artist are good. Some (quite a lot really) of my paintings sit around in the studio because I am not happy with them. I place them on the wall whilst drying and they annoy me and taunt me but also serve to remind me to do something different and hopefully better next time.

During this time, we were trying to sell our house and we had viewers most weekends. The viewers were given the tour and one man saw the work in my studio and rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo that was a fair resemblance of one of the works I had rejected. Needless to say he wanted it and I had to fight my inner demons that were telling me it was not a good piece of art and sold it to him.

The moral of this story? Everything has a place in someones life. Everything is useful to someone and there is no such thing as bad art.

Close to the edge

So five months later and have I moved on? Well I have done three exhibitions and produced some new works so I suppose I have 'moved on' in that sense but I think I may also have moved a little bit too close to the edge.

The edge is the place where one more foot wrong could send you tumbling into the abyss but it is also the place that holds a certain sense of anticipation...something is going to happen.

The exhibitions were very pretty. Pretty pictures sitting in pretty buildings being viewed by people saying that my pictures were pretty and that they would look pretty on their walls but were pretty sure that they wouldn't buy any.

I got a street trading licence at the end of the summer and sat in my local town with my paintings and sold two.


I painted some rather sweet little watercolours on Indian Cotton Rag paper and put them in a shop to sell. The shop closed down and I now have them on my wall. Very pretty.

Snooters B4 Looters

How sickening to see the footage of an injured man being helped to his feet by seemingly caring fellow citizens whose real intent was to rob him. But it’s not true to say we haven’t seen anything like this before…….

               

Remember the blatant and unjustifiable greed of many of our Councillors and MP’s who thought nothing of stealing from their own constituents? They mugged by stealth, winning people over with charm and promises, whilst robbing them all along.

They too helped themselves to what ever they saw fit, from TV’s and Hi Fi’s to duck ponds and moats, DVD’s or the employment of servants. Their outrageous behaviour also totally and unequivocally unacceptable. They didn’t seem to care, showed such disregard, dishonesty, contempt and a total lack of respect for others.

Their behaviour, a kind of upper class looting, ‘snooting,’ I call it, was also criminal activity that should have been dealt with ‘robustly and with the full force of the law.’ Instead many Snooters continue in their trusted positions whilst others were rewarded with more booty, considerable bags of cash, tax payers money, for not standing for re election. It is grotesque that groups of trusted citizens could indulge in such ‘recreational’ snooting.

The snooters have contributed in their own vile ways, to us loosing our homes, our jobs, our services, our sense of belonging and our hope for a fair and just society. The gangs of snooters hung out in Champagne bars, dealing privileges with impunity and marauding through our communities, untouchable, flouting the rules of morality and justice. They flaunted their second homes, their wisteria and soft furnishings like bling and showed no compassion, no shame and no regard.

They too are responsible for what they are now calling “Broken Britain.”

Castles In The Sky

I have just returned from a visit to Bodelwyddan Castle in North Wales where the aim was to explore their extensive grounds and gardens and paint some quintessential English landscapes and visit the National Portrait exhibits displayed in the castle museum. The only set back to my plan was that the castle is a rather excellent hotel with leisure club, entertainment and fine food which tended to stifle my creative processes. When I did manage to drag myself away from the spa pool, I wondered into the victorian styled gardens and surrounding natural woodlands to find a dreamlike experience of cultivated exotic plants and unspoilt wildness. I did have time to sit and do some watercolour sketches and, although they are not very exciting, the process was rewarding because of the conversation I had with myself:

ME: Why are you sat painting wishy washy watercolours of scenes that can be better represented by a good photograph?

MYSELF: Because by sitting and sketching (it is only a painting if someone says 'I would like to buy that.') I can work out what might work and what might not

ME: And have you worked it out?

MYSELF: Yes, wishy washy watercolours won't do it for me. They are OK for illustration and greeting cards but I want to put tangible richness of colour into my work and capture the imagination.

ME: Wow! You are starting to sound like someone who knows what they are talking about. Have you been on a course?

MYSELF: No. I have taken some time to sit and think about what is important to me and what I want to do rather than trying to be something I am not. Maybe becoming a famous artist and having major international exhibitions is all 'castles in the sky' -  an impossible dream but I may be able to produce a series of works that I can be proud to exhibit and that will be good enough for me.

ME: That won't pay the mortgage though will it?

MYSELF: You can't think like that! That sort of talk will lead to commercialism and I have visions of myself cutting the card for another set of greeting cards and displaying my watercolours of local scenes in the church hall.

ME: So the plan is?

MYSELF: The plan is...to get a plan. No, planning is structured and uncreative. Each idea should just 'happen' and the 'happening' will be spontaneous and expressive of my mood.

ME: Sounds a bit hippyish and all very nice and that but will it work?



Thomas Arnold

by Thomas Phillips
oil on canvas, 1839
48 in. x 39 in. (1219 mm x 991 mm)

© National Portrait Gallery, London



MYSELF: You will never reach the castle in the sky if you don't even try to get there and the journey will be exciting anyway. Also, I might get run over by the number 7 bus tomorrow and I don't want to be lying on the road wishing I had done something I could have done in the time I was given.

ME: Well you have convinced me. Now get on with it!

Before I left Bodelwyddan, I visited the castle gallery and had a good close look at the magnificent display of portraits from the National Gallery. I say close look because this is what I like to do. Get up real close and study the process the artist has used to create the masterpiece. I like to see brushmarks and blobs of paint. I am desperate to see splashes of paint going over the edge of a line and I especially want to see disportionate hands or feet. All these things make the artist human and the paintings become a repesentation of what the process of applying to paint to canvas can achieve bringing me a step closer to my castle in the sky.

A Turner Off Prize

OK class, today we will be working on our submissions to the school Art Prize and, if we have time, we will have a quick story entitled 'The Emperor's New Clothes.'

Now who is going to show and tell their ideas first? Karla Black! Will you stop messing around with that rubbish and pay attention! Oh sorry Karla, I didn't realise pet that is your art work. What is it dear? Is it finished? Oh it's an abstract assemblage using everyday materials juxtoposed to create interest and form is it? Well I am sure the headmaster will be pleased with it. Oh you have a note from a friend you would like to display with it have you? OK let's put that with it and maybe that will explain everything:

Karla Black’s work draws from a multiplicity of artistic traditions from expressionist painting, land art, performance, to formalism. Her large-scale sculptures incorporate modest everyday substances, along with very traditional art-making materials to create abstract formations. Black chooses her media for their tactile aesthetic appeal: the familiarity of the texture of cellophane or the scent of cosmetics bridges the experience of tangible matter with the intimacy of memory or the subconscious. Black’s process is intensely physical and this energy is conveyed through her work’s ‘impromptu’ staging; this suggestion of performance psychologically involves the viewer with the making process, provoking instinctive responses to her precarious assemblages.

Saatchi Online Gallery

Well Karla, it's lovely dear I am glad you have put to good use all the art techniques we have been discussing over the past few years. Now who else would like to show us their efforts? OK Martin what have you been up to? You have been cutting out bits and sticking them together again and hanging them from the ceiling. Is it a cot mobile Martin? Oh sorry, I should have realised it is a landscape is it? And you also have a note from an adult explaining what you have done have you? OK let's hear it:

Martin Boyce: Deserves to be the runner-up. Boyce frequently makes elegant sculptural forms which are based on modernist design - spiky, abstracted things that often look a bit like a cross between an abstracted tree and a piece of free-floating calligraphy

Rob Sharp. The Independent Newspaper

Well I am sure we all recognised the 'abstract tree' and can instantly recognise the 'free-flowing calligraphy.' Well done Martin it looks beautiful in a starange sort of way. I really want to move on because I have a feeling our story today, 'The Emperor's New Clothes' may resonate with a few of us. So who else would like to show us their work? Yes Hilary I do have an overhead projector and yes you can borrow it if you are careful. Well I'm not sure whether they are using theirs next door, do you really need two? OK let's see what you have.

I think you must have your photos mixed up dear. Never mind perhaps you could bring in the proper work when you find it. Oh I see, they are meant to be all mixed up boring urban statements. I have some photos like that on my phone when I got a little tipsy at the teacher's staff meeting the other day, do you want to include them in your little montage? Ah you too have a note from a very important art person which means that it must be good, lets hear it:

In three of the works assembled here the artist's collaborators are seen carrying out various tasks in what appears to be the same newly finished building: two men move through each other's legs; a woman repeatedly builds a house of cards; a man lies languorously on the floor tearing magazines, which gradually fill the space around him. The varied pace of their movements and activities establishes a rhythm between the works, while the echoing space creates a distinctive yet unifying soundtrack.

Tate Britain

Well Hilary, I guess you have really stretched your imagination and have

produced something so monumentally profound that no one will dare to question it. You will get a ticking off from the IT technician though for turning the monitor on it's side.
OK time for just one more before our story and it must be you George, what have you been up to dear? Painting! How daring of you! Oh and these are pictures of..erm let's see...a garage, a row of garages with grafitti, another garage, some brick walls and another garage.

Great George you have really got the feel of the garage, I am sure the headmaster will want these hanging on the wall. What paint have you used George? It appears to be peeling off in places. Modelling paint and the reason for this is? You just happened to have some lying around. OK and you have a little note too from someone who knows what they are talking about. Good let's hear it then George:

It is there not just in the seemingly mundane subject matter, but in the almost realist style, a style that, in lesser hands, could teeter into kitsch or even folk art. It is there, too, in the sheen of the paint on the wooden surface: the now famous Humbrol sheen. In his choice of paint – Humbrol enamel of the kind used by generations of children to coat Airfix model planes, the miniature Spitfires and Hurricanes they had laboured over for hours – Shaw made his own almost imperceptible nod towards conceptualism, towards the supremacy of the idea and the process behind the art.

Sean O'Hagan, The Observer

Well you know what George? I actually think you might be on to something here. I mean this applying paint using a brush technique and 'almost realism' thing might just catch on one day.

Well class, I am sure you will all join me in congratulating these four with their very fine efforts and wish them luck with the competition. They are all very deserving of the £25,000 prize aren't they? Now are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin our story. Once there was a very gullible and vain king who didn't want to appear stupid by saying he couldn't see something that wasn't there. Ring any bells?

Sculpture or Installation





Oval with Points, (1968-1970), Henry Moore Foundation



I have this idea to create a piece for my Lancaster exhibition that will compliment my paintings, fulfil my desire to break away from my traditional ways of working and put into practice some of the techniques I explored whilst at university. I am not sure whether you would call the piece a sculpture or an installation and I will have to explore the differences between the two. I suppose an installation is specific to the exhibition site and would have some way of interacting with the viewer whereas a sculpture could be moved to any location and deliver the same viewing experience.

So are Henry Moore's large casts sculptures or installations? Are they not site specific works that the viewer interacts with, observing the landscape through the voids Moore placed in his work or wondering at the scale and smoothness of curve in the natural light? I don't think I have heard Moore called an installation artist though.

Follow this link for a good discussion on Installation Art by London based art critic and art historian Claire Bishop http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue3/butisitinstallationart.htm . I deduce from this that true installation work requires viewer interaction or active participation so the piece has 'relational aesthetics' according to cultural critic Nicolas Bourriaud. I also deduce that the trend is for the installation to alter perception or cause friction between the viewer and their surroundings which perhaps sets it apart from what sculptures can achieve.

So what of my piece? I have collected interesting pieces of wood from the beach and forrest and piled them in the garden. Now I am waiting for the wood to talk to me. I have some idea of what I want and I know where the piece will be placed in the exhibition. The piece will interact with the viewer as the natural light from a window it will be placed in front of will fall through acetate coloured with acrylic inks. The time of day and the weather conditions will alter the viewing experience each time. A sculptural installation perhaps?

I am considering putting an entry into this year's Sculpture By The Sea event in Australia.

https://picasaweb.google.com/118338774493048868745/SculptureByTheSeaCottesloe2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCNb-vr39j7fPVA# but I think I might be trying to run before I can walk.

The art of social unrest

I have just completed a painting I have been working on for the last three months and I am now wondering how to market this piece. My painting depicts the recent student protests in London and I have used a classical style as I thought the events that unfolded on that day were like scenes from a Greek play. I wanted to record the social unrest as an important historical event and used works such as The Oath of Horatii by Jacques Louis David (pictured below) as inspiration.

I find these works intriguing as they carry so much symbolism and narrative. In my painting, I have merged events from the day into one scene and I am sure that the classical artists over emphasised the drama and placed relevant people and objects in their scenes to depict the story. For example, I have placed Nick Clegg and David Cameron at the edge of my scene. They are treading on a tablet of stone with the Latin word 'Spondeo' etched into it. This roughly translates into 'pledge' and the tablet is fractured or broken so they are breaking their pledge to the students not to raise the tuition fees.

I was also intrigued by the media coverage during the protest and the use of videos taken by mobile phones so i incorporated this into my painting as well. Camilla Parker Bowles and Prince Charles are being confronted by the mob, as they were on the day, but their 'attacker' is brandishing a mobile phone to capture the moment for publication on You Tube or other social media sites.

There may be a backlash from some people (probably the police) as I have shown them as pigs. I have no intention to be disrespectful to the police, who I think handled the day admirably, and I used the pig as a symbol of a beast in a titanic struggle with the 'hero' as the classical artist have done. I have shown one 'pig' to be attacking a member of the mob but I have also shown one being pushed to the ground by the surging crowd so I believe I have balanced the scene.

Is there a place for this type of work to be shown? My painting carries images that may upset or offend. The banners carried by the mob read F**K FEES as they did on the day and I am wondering whether the newspapers will print this although they did print many photographs of the protests for days after the event. It will be interesting to get some reactions and I suppose the best thing that could happen is that I get some bad publicity as then I will know I have touched a nerve!

So here is my painting 'Spondeo Infractus.' I would welcome your comments:)