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.
Today I ventured into my studio again after several years not painting…this blog not being update since May 2019 says it all.
I did have a couple of forays but ended in nothing substantial but this time I committed to going further.
The only two painted canvases I have left are both memories of a trip to Youlgreave from 2010 or before not sure exactly. Was a trip my then wife and I made to The Old Bull in Youlgreave. I held on to them as they have pleasant associations which became harder to find as my wife’s illness escalated. She passed away in 2020 and is the main reason I have not done much of anything let alone paint.
So here the two old landscapes and a painting of a road near my home town of Didcot in South Oxfordshire from I guessing 1988. A bit damaged as only have a polaroid. The painting was gifted to a friend for their wedding.
This kind of shows where my head is at in regards to new paintings. Been looking at John Nash after finding an excellent book in Waterstones sale.
Also Marsden Hartley who always reminds me of the Canadian Group of Seven..another key influence back in the day.
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.
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.
Pleased to announce that my painting ‘Summer’ adorns the second album by rising songwriter Ralegh Long….
for more info. go to http://www.raleghlong.com
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:-)
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.
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.
At least I have these to submit…not much
but better than nothing at all…
