Colour an exhibition

A  group  exhibition  celebrating  the  use  of  colour  in  contemporary  art.

Beldam Gallery
Monday 24 January – Tuesday 29 March 2011

www.brunel.ac.uk/beldamgallery


Brunel University
Kingston Lane
Uxbridge
Middlesex
UB8 3PH.

Mon- Fri 10.00 -5.00. Bank Holidays Closed. Free Entry.
Tel: 01895 266074
Email: artscentre@brunel.ac.uk

Looking for utopia

picking over the bones
scavenge
scouring

discarded waste
thorough search

to locate
something



once you begin to think along these lines you realise the work(me?) is still attempting to operate along these lines and to produce a cohesive output to the world.

Holding Space

Studio(29.09.2010)

Holding and remaining confident in what you assume you are interested in becomes difficult. Nurturing your work when what keeps it functioning is your fragile ego. When the rug of what is the believed baseline of your production is slipped from under you. As I once said before 'there is no project'(1968)

it becomes apparent that the work only improves at those points where it really begins to fall to pieces.

Archival Material

On a recent trip to my past, I uncovered some abstract work I made long before I ever passed through the hallowed doors of any art school, Circa 1995.




It would appear that things have gone full circle. I find these works encouraging in relationship to the trajectory I have been taking over the last few years.


Untitled as yet (UNIT 2) 14, 15 | 2010, 30x40 cms


Untitled as yet (UNIT 2) 36, 37 | 2010, 30x40 cms


These works come out of a desire to continue a system of sequential production started with the first UNIT series using limited elements and set rules. Using materials (spray paint and marker pen) that have another nostalgia even further back in my past graffiti. I have recently been having a 'reunion' with the graffiti artists of my youth online.






Graffiti Circa 85-90

This could all been seen as a bit of navel gazing nostalgia, but it is really useful to see where I came from and how and why I ended up making art. I spent a few years wandering in the wilderness and discovered Art was the only thing I could do that wasn't compromised (not so sure how I feel about that idea now though.) Is art really a form of none alienated labour?


Untitled as yet (overspill) | 2010 20x30 cms

Attempting to open up all avenues and to operate with all of ones experiences must be a worthy thing to attempt.

Obligatory most recent studio shot (18.08.2010)

hackney architecture

Why are so many artists drawn to modernist forms and landmarks that are slowly crumbling and disappearing ?


Mark Lewis- Is modernity our antiquity?

Studio tests June
Originally uploaded by digitaldai

Time Flies

It is nearly a year since an infrequent post, fulfilling its job pretty well then. Since I last posted I have discovered that people have actually read this thing. Well that changes it a bit, makes me already think that I need to MAKE SENSE more on here. The free flowing train of thought thing seems less plausible, but lets see..


STUDIO TODAY

What prompted this post was the photo of the studio today and a thought about how the processes of producing works of art are or at least are for me, one of a great time consuming activity. In that I spend a lot of time doing things which don't actually become works and the things that do end up being works are the things I just could not get rid of/have been worked over so many times to a point of satisfaction. I am not talking about a physical activity with them more a relationship with them, between us, that they fit. Many of the worst things I have shown and done come out of a rushed need to show something, I think it is the same for most of us. But at the same time for me the usual contradictions kicks in- I love the project/serial art work that many of my works adhere too EG the whole UNIT series, setting up a series of exercises to make the work.

SO I guess It is a gradual removal of elements that are not important from one's practice. Also space is an issue I am becoming more and more acutely aware that sculptures I make(made) need to go somewhere and those places are running out!



This is a current End point which as you can see relates to the IAO and quest works, serial is satisfaction. I guess one of my discoveries of recent years, doing it over and over again creates the impression you mean it. A set of related objects images asks the viewer to connect them up together.

Many of the methods I use to create these things are done to avoid the traditional ways of making geometric abstraction () and to apply both a conceptual rigour and a personal approach to the decisions. I am really interested in what form and colour do but how do you work with them now and not make compromises? It is easy now to look back at my previous works and see many of things I was making work 'about' as ways to justify this play, but this is not a moan. Simply I think, since I gave into the idea that I am interested in these slightly outmoded things (meaning I like them) my work has substantially improved. And one of the strangest things is that the work looks more like what might be considered 'conceptual art' than it ever did when I thought I should be doing that.