some thoughts on the wider significance of the lichens… it seems quite simple – they signify life amongst the decay, a sign of gentle renewal, the circle of life, the quiet resilience of nature, all the more poignant when experienced within the context of a graveyard, existing on the very surface that marks and memorialises a death (as previously seen in these photographs – on looking and lichen, december 2009, and more recently the lichen drawings) – but that wouldn’t fully justify making art or paintings sourced from lichens, as the photographs might convey these ideas quite adequately, in the right context… it would seem there is a challenge inherent in objectifying the powers of nature within art – and artists have been doing this for some time…
it was quite difficult to focus on the quiet matter of some painting over the weekend due to the cacophony of resident noise, (i need not go into the finer details of the myriad power tools in usage, dear reader, except to say that the particular occurence of some petrol-powered hedge-trimming at 7.30am was not music to my sensitive ears)… so, my best painterly intentions went a bit awry… what did i create instead??
some alien biscuits or are they mutant cornflakes? some tentative lichen-ness experiments, which could do with being a little more crusty…
i attached one to the painting canvas…
shown here with the artist’s hand, to give an idea of scale…
just looking, through the lichen-ness…
this idea, of creating fragments to use in work goes back a little… in my mixed media collages of the 1990’s i re-created little bits of stone, rust, metal, etc, which were then assembled into the work – many people believed i had found these fragments – i had not, they were entirely faux… here’s an example from early 1997. you can see some of this older work on my collage page…
i remember vividly making these little fragments. i had a very small studio in a lean-to shed. in the winter i used a parrafin stove to keep it warm, and i suspended a metal oven tray just above the stove on which to dry out the fragments, i used handmade paper and would use sweepings from the concrete floor to create more random texture – probably a mix of brick dust, mortar, sawdust, dirt…
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speaking of artifice, here’s a tiny detail of my painting algae, a work that precedes the current fungal fascinations… but is also relevant to mention in that it will be included in a new exhibition…
i am really pleased to have been invited to exhibit three of my large edgescape paintings (algae, corros and rost) with a new gallery in the fine city of norwich, art1821. they will be shown in an exhibition that has been planned in collaboration with the sainsbury centre for visual arts, focusing on japanese art and the environment. the exhibition at art1821 is called rebirth, to coincide with the sainsbury centre’s unearthed exhibition… (many thanks go to BM for helping me get my paintings to the gallery)…
the art1821 gallery has a charming ambience with its low ceilings and irregular, cobbled, whitewashed walls, situated in one of the city’s oldest ‘listed’ buildings in the heart of tombland, the medieval quarter of the city… in a curious way, these historical features seem to complement the showing of modern art (i saw some margaret mellis assemblage works on the wall), in the way that the sainsbury centre’s minimalist open-plan aesthetic, of the transparent, inside-outside architectural design (not much changed since the 70’s), brings a fresh-eyed perspective to a substantial collection of old world artefacts… (for those that do not know, the scva building was designed by sir norman foster) … i would really like to visit the unearthed exhibition…
i had just enough time to also quickly see the norfolk contemporary art show at the forum – did i mention that i have some work in this exhibition? whilst there i discovered that there is also a series of lunchtime artist talks (but i just missed one) and also a number of ‘artists-talking’ videos on permanent playback during the exhibition – i enjoyed watching a couple of these short video talks before i had to dash back… i am not involved in this, so anybody desiring to find out a little more about my art and inspiration may find something of interest in this very blog.
i have also just added a couple of new webpages to this website, of which this earnest ‘artist journal’ is just a small (but ever-evolving and expanding) section of it… there is now a new page devoted to the recent/ongoing intaglio collagraph prints on canvas. here are four of them currently on exhibition in the aforementioned norfolk contemporary art…
norfolk contemporary art 2010
my work is displayed between an intriguing mixed-media assemblage by andy cairns – an artist who was also in the salthouse exhibition last year, and whose work is mentioned in my little bloglet devoted to the salthouse 09 art exhibition – and, a rather small but perfectly formed gunn painting… i would like to see this year’s salthouse exhbition, landmark 10, but travelling is a bit problematic at the moment (with a knackered, soon-to-be decommissioned iron horse…)…
i have been thinking about a collective title for these small intaglio works on canvas, briefly considered i-cons (or eye-cons) and then decided upon eikons (from the greek, a symbolic or representational object) – it was still a suitably concise-sounding word – an icon now also refers to little square computer symbols or visual shortcuts – but the variant, archaic ei spelling also suggested a reference to the electronic internet… with so many con-nections, i was suitably con-verted…
everything is so e, i or ii these days, isn’t it… do you have an e-car yet? i once made a birthday card with a comical u-pod, using an apple-style umlaut, with party like it’s 1978 as the tagline, appropriating an image from a knitting pattern that i found in a charity shop, of a chap modelling an itchy-looking sweater with a (now) very retro, 1970’s sony cassette player – oh, how w-e laughed about the u-pod!! but i-digress, i-had better just keep to the art (but it was quite artistic, in an ‘i made this just ‘4u’ sort of way)…
so, in the small (ei-kon) works i inverted the process of idea/source to object/meaning by employing various processes and methods to determine a unique ‘identity’ for the work… they began as humble, small-scale textural experiments for printmaking purposes, drawing upon the visual signs of decay in agricultural outbuildings and the local environment – but then some analysis of colour and associated words, and their real-world connections or counterparts, led, inevitably, to the concept of pursuing some virtual travelling, an activity which gave rise to the titles, and thus gave the work a new, more global resonance and identity… those diy paint colour charts were just the start of it…
what’s in a title, a name? is it vital or important, is it meaningful, revealing, persuasive, or just a means of differentiation? within the context of (or absence of) subjective art titles one might also mention martin creed again, or mark rothko even, but i am just seeing a lot gushing red stuff, so let’s not go there today…
i really liked pursuing the open-ended nature of this sideline activity, that i would, in a vaguely lynchian way, create works that followed a more convoluted, non-linear course; the end became their beginning. it was also a deliberate move away from a series of strictly numbered works… the virtual travels also inspired the idea of starting a faux sketchbook… in that, if anyone cared to contemplate upon it, that the vast network of the internet is not just a window to truth & knowledge, but is equally a platform for some deliberate artifice & creative reinvention of one’s identity and sense of place in the world…
random fact alert! i actually graduated in the presence of the great david lynch! he was awarded an honorary degree by the RCA…
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a lichen drawing in a sketchbook, june 2010
i have also created a new webpage to show some of my recent lichen-esque drawings…
i really would like to pursue the idea of doing some larger versions of these – where does one get rolls of good drawing paper, and perhaps, more importantly, is it very expensive?? i probably have one too many ideological plates spinning (or they are just wobbling and are likely to shatter in a very messy, greek fashion) – the eroded circles/discs, the cubed/3d prints, the lichens and their various transformations, the green mould prints, dissolved image transfers, small etchings, virtual travel sketches…
now, i am even contemplating growing fake lichens in my spare time…
