Saturday 24 November 2012

Andrew Bracey, Jon Barraclough, Emma Stibbon and Julie McCalden

I will be showing 3 ReconFigure Paintings that I produced during a residency at Standpoint Gallery last year at a 4 person show in Gloucester shortly.  The exhibition has been curated by Frances Disley and takes place in the South Wales and Severn Office of the Canal & River Trust which is situated within the historic Gloucester Docks. It is part of a series of exhibitions organised by Contemporary Art Society. The exhibition also features Jon Barraclough, Emma Stibbon and Julie McCalden. More information can be found here.

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Art:Gwangju


I will be showing Clout, Reconfigure and Transitory Paintings with Castlefield Gallery at art:gwangju in South Korea. Other artists showing with Castlefield are Hilary JackUltimate Holding Company UHC, Leo Fitzmaurice and Rafal Topolewski.
More details can be found here 

Still at Transition Gallery


I will be showing Frames in Still at Transition Gallery and Hackney Picture House, opening on Thursday 6th September until 30th September. The show features lots of other interesting artists and will be well worth a look for all film and art fans. 
"The moving magic of film lies in its frame-by-frame flickering approximation of life. The stilling of that movement re-directs the viewer’s gaze towards an entirely new reality. Context and meaning are rearranged and new beauties unearthed behind the seemingly banal. In halting, repeating or reconstructing, the image persists, becoming a thing in itself, which as film theorist Laura Mulvey notes ‘has its own visual pleasures and rewards that do not replace, but compliment those of watching a film’."
I have also written about Unrealised Films in a special Film issue of Garageland magazine. 
More details can be found here 

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Still Ticking: A Clockwork Orange 2012


Still Ticking - A Clockwork Orange 2012  is an exhibition of works by the Media LAB, Manchester School of Art & Invited Artists, presenting new work in response to Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange celebrating the 50th anniversary of the book. Including photography, painting, sculpture, film and sound. On the private view night (Thursday 7th June) there will be Horrorshow White Russians courtesy of Korova Milk Bar, and after-party at the Temple of Convenience.


I have made a series of new paintings based on Burgess's own drawings. A Clockwork Orange appears to be the only text by Burgess where his distinctive drawings crept into the typed flow of words.  As a painter I became intrigued by why imagery might have been present in this book's draft (and recently discovered screenplay), above the masses of other texts Burgess produced in his lifetime. Furthermore Burgess grafittied a copy of the David Pelham designed cover. It has been speculated that Burgess might have been trying to reclaim authorship back to his most (in)famous material, as it risked being subsumed by Kubrick's interpretation. Intriguingly a doodled version of Alex is closer in look to Burgess than Malcom McDowell. I have turned Burgess’s sketched drawings into paintings, colour has been added. Burgess was colour blind, the paintings would have looked different to him, just as Kubrick's film (with all it’s brash colour and imagery) differed in details and feel to Burgess's book.

Artists in the show are Grace Allardyce, Andrew Bracey, James Cook, Miklos Csepely-Knorr, Joe Duffy, Michael Fowdrey, Andrew Glynn, Dave Griffiths, Lisa Joel, Mohammed Koosha and Andrea Zapp.

Exhibition continues Friday 8 to Sunday 10 June.

Hosted by International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Engine House, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street, M1 5BY

http://www.facebook.com/events/239751306137588/243146215798097/?ref=notif&notif_t=plan_mall_activity

Sunday 6 May 2012

Crocodiles With a Second Skin Thrash

Crocodiles With a Second Skin Thrash is an exhibition curated by myself and Kate Buckley at Over+Out in Lincoln.  It is an exhibition that explores the re-use of existing material within an artist’s practice. This material is specific and highly loaded, being either that of existing artworks by the artist or incorporating the work of other artists into new artwork.
The exhibition is a sequel of sorts to A Blind Python with Jewelled Eyes, shown in the Greestone Gallery, also in Lincoln, at the tail end of 2011. This exhibition was also curated by Andrew Bracey and Kate Buckley and included many of the same artists, it explored the idea of an artwork containing two parallel elements within it, being both in one state and another, almost like a parasite occupying a host. Both exhibitions take their titles from imagery in J. G. Ballard’s The Crystal World,a dystopic novel where an unidentified and beautiful disease spreads through a rainforest turning everything into shimmering crystalline forms, like a Midas touch. The artists in these two exhibitions all, in some way, have the ability to transmute material and imagery from one thing to another, performing a kind of artistic alchemy.
I will be showing for the first time an ongoing series of self portrait photographs in other artists artworks which feature a reflective or mirrored surface.
http://crocodileswithasecondskinthrash.wordpress.com

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Yojimbo in Postcards to Alphaville


I have created a 'postcard' to Kuwabatake Sanjuro (from Kurosawa's masterful Yojimbo) for Postcards to Alphaville. This is an online (hopefully book) exhibition of artists and illustrators who make an original image to a character from their chosen film. Kurosawa is my favourite director of films and although I could have chosen any number of films, I think Mifune is iconic in this role. You can see my postcard and a host of others here http://www.postcardstoalphaville.net/

Collectible at Zeitgeist Art Projects


I will be showing one of my Transitory paintings at the opening show, Collectible at Zeitgeist Art Projects, amongst some very fine company. ZAP is a new space, right near Goldsmiths art college and is run and curated by the esteemable Rosalind Davis and Annabel Tilley, with a huge amount of discernment, energy and gusto. Transitory Paintings (2011) are full of interesting contradictions as pieces of work. Paintings, yet not made of paint; Representational, yet abstract; Involved with beauty, yet through destroying. They are made from cutting triangular shaped patterns into reproductions of portrait paintings, culled from auction catalogues. 
The show features 66 artists, including Graham Crowley, Edwina Ashton, Annabel Dover, Freddie Robins, Emily Speed and Peter Jones, with everyone selling their work for under £500. So there is no excuses for not making a start or adding to your art collections! The private view is on Tuesday 17th April 6-8.30pm and continues until 28th April. More details are here http://www.zeitgeistartsprojects.com/exhibitions.html

Tuesday 6 March 2012

The Gospel According To… at the Holden Gallery

Karhu This Charming Man will be showing at The Holden Gallery in Manchester at the College of Art. The work was made in Helsinki on a residency and features the Finnish traditional god, the bear, transferred to a singing Karaoke logo of a beer manufacture. In this episode the bear sings The Smiths classic song, as part of the Smiths themed show, The Gospel According to... Other artists in the show include Lucienne Cole, Jeremy Deller, Lars Laumann and Jan Timme. The private view is 6-8pm on Thursday 15th March and continues until 4th May.

Headspace at Over+Out


I will be showing The Six Most Beautiful Minutes in the History of Cinema in Headspace at Over+Out gallery in Lincoln. In this work I mine the history of cinema to create a raging cacophony of 8 frames per second for 6 minutes of images culled from cinema . 2880 scenes from a full range of genres, countries, tastes and time flash repeatedly. Like Orson Welles’ Don Quixote (of which Giorgio Agamben talks of in his essay which gives this work it’s title) the viewer is left with a choice of whether to start slashing away at the screen to halt the constant flow of images. The show features 6 artists who all featured in the first show at The Monks gallery. This show sees each artist exploring a different facet of what goes on inside their heads, a scary thought if you ask me! The show opens on Thursday 14th March 6-8pm and continues until 23rd March. Click here for more details of the show.

Friday 24 February 2012

Gig Poster Show 3.0


I am in a exhibition of posters by invited artists and designers for a gig in Liverpool tonight (Friday 24th Feb.). I have been invited by all round good egg, Sam Wiehl to make a poster advertising a gig featuring a whole host of musical innovators, including  Insect Ark and Black Octagon, plus Enablers frontman Pete Simonelli. All this kicks off from 6.30pm at Liverpool JMU School of Art and Design. All should be good fun.

Thursday 26 January 2012

UnMasterclass at Reel


I will be showing one of my UnMasterclass films at Reel, a curated screening evening of artist's film. It is being shown in a new artist run space in an ex S&M club in Lincoln, run by Laura Mahony and Dale Fearnley and it all kicks off at 6pm with the films starting at 7pm on Monday 30th January. Bring along a cushion and drink on the night.

A Private Affair



I am showing a painting from the Reconfigure painting series at A Private Affair at The Harris Museum and Gallery, Preston opening on Friday 27th gallery with the private view and then to the public from the 28th January until 5th May. This painting was bought from my solo booth with Castlefield Gallery at The Manchester Contemporary Art Fair in 2011 and was selected by Mark Doyle form Contemporary Art Society and curators from the Harris.


Here is the info from the gallery, "In 2012, we present a major exhibition series focusing on the people and the stories behind collections – from private collectors to those individuals whose donations and vision founded museum collections such as the Harris’ for the enjoyment of all.  

Firstly, 
A Private Affair tells the personal stories behind private collections of contemporary art asking; why do people collect contemporary art, what influences decisions on collecting, and how does it affect or enhance their lives? The artworks are on loan from private collectors in the North of England, who have generously agreed to live without some of their favourite items for a while. The exhibition highlights a strong interest in supporting artists and the fascinating journeys undertaken by the collectors. A Private Affair demonstrates a variety of artistic styles from the past 40 years, and includes artists of regional and national importance.

In the summer, 
A Public Affair will celebrate 130 years of fine art collecting by the Harris. The exhibition will chart the growth of the Harris collection, changing tastes, and the enduring principles of the founders in acquiring new works by artists of the day"

Tuesday 3 January 2012

UnMasterclass 52


This week for the final UnMasterclass we take on a behemoth of painting; and what many see as the start of painting’s supposed endpoint, Malevich’s Black Square. Where can painting go from here, when it’s form and subject has been reduced to such purity of thought, approach and output. Malevich, in his launching pamphlet for Suprematism, set out a call to arms for artists to set aside the traditional criteria for art of reproducing from nature; or in Malevich’s words “the tracing of the savage’s first primitive image”, based upon the idea that because the first marks were made to replicate nature, there is no reason that we should continue in this vein.
Malevich set out a manifesto for dropping these traditional approaches of reflecting the mirror of nature for their art, to create from the mind of humans only. In Malevich’s far more eloquent words “An artist is under the obligation to be a free creator, but not a freebooter. An artist is given talent in order that he may give life to his share of creation and increase the flow of life. Only in absolute creation will he acquire his right.”
In recent weeks UnMasterclass has been increasingly drawn towards the 20th century abstract spectrum of painting. This week we reach an impasse, where can we go from here? And so we end. Fittingly this weeks episode sees us aesthetically reproduce most faithfully a masters painting. Yet this is only on the face of it faithful, as of course UnMasterclass is far, far away from being faithful from Malevich’s visions for the future of art. UnMasterclass is a thief who has lost its cause. We have reproduced a multitude of paintings to prove a point that to learn the craft of painting one must learn from the master paintings of the past. The impasse we reach is with Malevich. Here is an art that has reduced painting to a purity, not just of form, but of conceptual validity of the medium as well.
And so UnMasterclass cannot learn the craft of Malevich’s art, through reproducing it in front of the painting itself or reproduction from the book or the web. The flesh and simplicity of the painting is easy to reproduce, but the message is all lost. Malevich needs work of the cerebral to come alive and with that we need the spoken and the written word, not the brush and the eye. And so we stop. We stop the words and we stop the reproduction of paintings. We are not sure what we have learnt, we can only speculate that we are still sure that our initial thoughts that the craft of painting is best learnt by studying the original paintings of artists. We still believe in the value of figuring out how these paintings were conceived and then bringing this studied knowledge to the studio to renew and further the continued journey and joy of painting is the best way to learn how to paint well. However we are still sure that the skill of painting is only half the battle, there are too many vacuous technically proficient paintings and too many awfully conceived interesting ideas for paintings out there. When the two come together then we have triumphs of paintings/art. But for now we leave it again to Malevich and free ourselves from the shackles;
“To reproduce beloved objects and little corners of nature is just like a thief being enraptured by his legs in irons.” 
To view the last ever UnMasterclass please click here http://vimeo.com/34529652