BLANK CANVAS

TERMINUS: ALL CHANGE. Closed for refurbishment.

This week should have been the beginning of a super new art made in the studio by myself phase at 3rd Space on the widely advertised Open Studios weekend….

It isn’t instead it pretty much defined what I am and am not interested in going forward.

My painting career probably ended a very long time ago around 1988 when I quit London when living in a squat and working in a studio space with no roof where the snow came in (true) just about finished me off.

Then I was a full-time painter burning the midnight oil and living a pretty haphazard life. That was then this is now.

I am now 67 years old, retired and enjoying retirement and the impetus to splash out on 6 feet square canvasses and pretend I De Kooning again just isn’t there.

I proud of the paintings I did but never had the time (work) nor the finances to do it properly. So in the end I didn’t do it any more.

My paintings have appeared on various album sleeves.

https://shaunbelcher.com/canvas/?cat=25

This also coincided with a intense period of looking after my then alcoholic and ill wife who passed away in 2020. Symbolicly I painted over a large canvas associated with her and her sister and called it a day.

That hasn’t changed but my interests in other areas has developed.

I recently had old photographs used in a record sleeve for a hometown band I know and also did the sleeve layout. Along with that I read song-lyrics/poems at a launch gig in my hometown art centre. No drawings or paintings involved.

Here they are holding the album sleeve on location I took the photograph used on front cover.

Thames Valley Texas: poems and songs from Normal Town

So no drawing/painting but I more interested than ever in following in no particular order…

Politics, Writing, Real Poetry not 90% of the crap presently masquerading as poetry.

Photography especially the greats like William Egglestone and Martin Parr and the unjustly neglected Raymond Moore.

Music not just the obsessive vinyl collecting but its history and bands like The Dreaming Spires who aware of the history of music. I am trying to keep up with a monthly podcast (link below) called Trailer Star Music.

So the 3rd Space Studio is closed for a refit. Hopefully when it reopens it will be re-purposed as a Photography/Writing space. I also hoping to set up a black and white printing space I have two old Durst enlargers donated to the studio by Graham Lester George.

I will be getting rid of those old paintbrushes and canvasses ( I know somebody who more than happy to take them) and easels.

For now here why it closed and hopefully when reopens will be a lot less cluttered and useable.

As for what have I been doing go here..

https://tapeheaven.substack.com

https://shaunbelcherwrites.substack.com

https://darkweather.substack.com

My Video channel on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TrailerStarRecords

2011 – 2023 3rd Space Studio timeline

2018 NADA

2012-2013 Part-Time M.A. in Drawing at NTU

First studio space at 3rd Space September 2011

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.

Blank Canvas Time Again

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: ten years of painting

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.

Groovy Arts Club Day

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.