New Art Riot

My next body of work is going to be an orgy of nihilistic fury, with elements of life affirming tragedy and hope.

While I’m all for hyperbolic soundbites, here’s the serious thinking about what I want to try to tackle:

Semester 2 Brief (Towards self-directed study)

For the forth coming semester I plan on focusing my practice on the impacts that mental illness and depression have on us. From personal experience, it’s something which has played a major part in my adult life and is also something which has deeply affected a majority of my friends. I want to explore the difference in the image and persona we have of ourselves verses that with which other people see, through the medium of oil painting, more specifically portraiture.

For such a personal and honest subject, I want to be honest with myself and include as many influences as possible, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem, from Art, Literature, Cinema and Music, with song lyrics being especially important.

In terms of purely artistic influence, I want to capture the awe, beauty and presence found in the portraits of the Old Masters, Rembrandt especially, merged with the brutally honest subject matter of more modern painters like Jenny Saville, Peter Howson and Ken Currie.

Although depression can be crippling, I want to show the light and shade by combining hope and despair, the old and the new and the internal with the external.

I’m both nervous and excited about this next series of paintings.  Approaching it like I’m amour plated I think is the only way to produce thoughtful and honest work. Even other aspects like explaing my work in the group crits will provide a healthy challenge.

Oh, here’s some of the research I’m doing the starting point of this project, a portrait of my friend Vix. Light weekend reading……

Semester one so far

After a nervy and manic few days getting everything ready for our midway assessment, I was back in Art School last week to get feedback from the first semester assessment. Turns out I managed to get an A3, which is the best mark I’ve hard for coursework yet. I was pleased with what I had done and my confidence in using oils has really grown,but it was so good to hear positive feedback from my Tutor. It’s that confidence which fuels you and helps you to realise and experiment with wilder and more grandiose ideas. I’m beginning to feel like a proper painter now.

 

 

Method behind the madness

The main goal I’ve set myself this term is producing more work in my sketchbook. In the past I’ve been guilty of just taking an idea and producing a ‘final’ piece, which more often than not ends up being slightly underwhelming. Without trying things out, experimenting and producing different drafts, it’s no big surprise. So I thought I’d post some pictures from my sketchbook produced over the last 2 weeks and finally the finished drawing that’s been made for a mail art project I’m working on with my friend Rhian.

 

More life painting

 

Painting progress

Countdown to Halloween part 1

Over the next few weeks in the run up to Halloween I’d like to share some good old fashioned ghost stories with you all. First up, we have one of my all time favourites, Whistle and I’ll come to you, by the master himself, M.R. James. This television adaptation from 1968 is a master class in understated dread, playing on those base fears that we all have. The dream sequence really is something else, and by the finale you’ll never look at your bed sheets in the same way again. Subtle and genuinely unsettling, they don’t make them like this anymore. Enjoy.

I have a problem

I’ve returned from blockbuster, having gone with the intent of getting some icecream. I sit here with pre-owned copies of Gone Baby Gone and The Godfather.

And no icecream.

Life, the universe and everything

I’m going to be using the next few entries to flesh out some of the ideas I’ve come across in researching my Summer project for Art School. Before that though, here are two videos which sum up the themes I’m going to tackle. (The second clip is especially important for all my fellow Eels fans out there as E’s dad was a pretty big deal in the world of physics:p)

The Pale Blue Dot

 

I like how I’ve unconsciously managed to get to the heart of how I’ve been feeling recently even when dealing with a subject a million miles away from anything that could be seen as too personal. I’m really happy with it though.

The British are coming!

I love the NHS.

But then as a child killing, godless socialist commie, I would say that. Silly Republicans and their lies, they’ll be slagging off the beautiful old BBC next at this rate.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/erica/2009/08/stephen-hawking-likes-his-deat.php?ref=recdc

What really annoys me is the level of ignorance on this matter from seemingly vast swaths of the American public. Hand-wringing imbeciles whining about not wanting their country to turn into ”Russia or something.” God, I know it’s ingrained into the American psyche, but Socialism isn’t a dirty word. It doesn’t instantly lead down the slippery slope to some ridiculous, communist/nazi/1984 state of Government control. Also the downright selfish idea of ”well, I managed to help myself; I don’t really care about my fellow man. I don’t want to help them out with my own, hard earned money.” really grates with me. It’s that ugly, frontier cowboy, jingoistic side of America that’s just so unappealing.
I know that’s how the American health care system is set up, and it’s a perfect system if you happen to be a male, white, middle class captain of industry, but I don’t really have a problem with helping out those less well off than myself, although I am a bit of a Socialist after all. I wouldn’t usually get this worked up but the blatant lies from the likes of ‘balanced’ news networks like FOX and political powerhouses like Sarah Palin. Her ‘evil, death panel’ bullshit really was jaw dropping in the extreme. I know that we all view her as am annoyance; the stereotypical religious blowhard, but as recent events will show, people would rather listen to fire and brimstone hyperbole rather than doing the hard work to find out the cold, hard facts. Case in point.

It’s frustrating to see these idiots attacking the NHS, a system that is far from perfect, but which is strides ahead of its selfish and unfair American counterpart. I needed to vent here after getting into a discussion on this subject with a Libertarian. I don’t think I’ll ever understand their political viewpoint. Mass individual Liberty over that of state government. It’s too narrow-minded, too limited. Power to the people is one thing, but people are idiots and turn up to protest town hall meetings with guns strapped to their legs and mindlessly vote for fascists in European elections. People can’t be trusted.

Finally, if you’d like to read a far superior take on these events, then check out the recent entries in Kirsty’s awesome blog here and here