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.
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…
As it summer time to round up my previous painting work over 2015-16 and start a new set.
This year I have been spending a lot of time concentrating on developing a workable PhD art history/cultural geography proposal. This is now well advanced and should have some concrete news about that by the end of August. Meanwhile the Tracking Time Blog details where that going….
Here two new Summer Paintings
96 Tears – Acrylic on Canvas 18″ x 18″.
Summer – acrylic on canvas 18″ x 18″
Here is a pdf downloadable catalogue for my last year of abstract painting and drawing.
I painted these three canvases after Spectrum paints very kindly sent me some new tubes of oil paint. Sadly my ground wasn’t suitable and the linseed leaked into the support dis-colouring the painting. I painted over.
However I am re-painting the main and to my mind most successful image above right alongside a new set of abstract paintings and watercolours inspired by the David Jones exhibition at the Djanogly Gallery which I visited last Saturday.
I was always influenced by both his landscapes and drawn lettering.
The new works will hopefully be shown in the autumn in Nottingham venue TBC.
Update September 2016:
These abstracts will be on show at Doctor’s Orders in October 2016
‘Moon Over The Downs’ oil on canvas 5′ x 5′ un-stretched canvas. 1993
In January 1993 things were pretty much as usual. I was still officially unemployed.
I received a ‘commission’ from my friend Pete Astor who was at that time living in Walthamstow with Sukie Smith. This was £150 for materials to paint a large canvas for their living room. It was a great boost after a bad year and I soon spent the money on oil paints and painted out my dad’s unused garage as a studio which was quite good.
The paintings below came from that brief period before I moved to London to be with Ana Fortun who I met on 3rd March 1993 at a friend’s birthday party. I gave the large barn canvas above to Ana when we parted 7 years later but do not have an image of Pete’s canvas sadly and I am not sure if it survived.
The rest of the paintings were ‘saved’ by Laura Stenhouse, an artist friend, who a year later picked them up to stop them getting damaged in the garage when I moved to Edinburgh. I know the Kew Gardens canvas went to Laura who sadly passed away a few years back. Her husband Bob Lindsay-Smith still has this painting I believe.
Kew Gardens 0il on canvas 24” x 36”
And this from same batch but painted over.. all dated January- March 1993
Red Barn oil on canvas 24″ x 24″ 1993
Old paint never dies….
In 1993 I was back home in Didcot, Oxfordshire and a musician friend Pete Astor who I had done record covers for commissioned a wall hanging.
He gave me a £100 and I said I would put in to materials…it was a friend’s gesture of support as I was on the dole at the time.
I bought the paint tins from Atlantis in London. I painted the canvas for him then…
I met a Spanish lady and we ran off to Edinburgh and the paints were placed in a suitcase in my father’s shed.
In 2013 I was clearing the shed following my parent’s deaths and the sale of their house.
I took the suitcase and this week opened them again for first time worried they would be dried out as had rusted over the years.
As can be seen from the photos the paint is still in perfect condition….I start painting in oil again next week…I been using acrylic for last few years….
Linseed oil smells great 🙂
Like me Spectrum is still going…
🙂
A new series of paintings under overall title ‘Second Wind’ will be on show at 117 Holme Road, Lady Bay on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th May 12-6pm.
Lady Bay Arts Website : http://www.ladybayarts.org.uk/
I am at Venue 16 on map.
See map here : LADY BAY MAP PDF
The location is the lovely house of my old friends the Hitchmen. I look forward to welcoming people to the front room which will be 80s themed with music from that era as that what I listening to when painting the pictures :-).
Indeed the series of new abstracts take the Creation Record sleeves art of the mid 1980s as their starting point. Series are then titled 1977, 1985, etc…
Record Sleeve for Creation Records 1985 more here:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/1624419/Creation-Record-Covers
Why call it Second Wind?
Documented experiences of the second wind go back at least 100 years, when it was taken to be a commonly held fact of exercise. The phenomenon has come to be used as a metaphor for continuing on with renewed energy past the point thought to be one’s prime, whether in other sports, careers, or life in general.
