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April 26, 2006
painting update
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Not a huge amount different in my life this week than there was last: which means that I am in one of my mindless routines as I work towards completing this series of paintings for the Sarah Wiseman Gallery. They are all trying to use Oxford as a backdrop for thes daft characters to inhabit. There is the giant scotsman as a visitor attraction on Christchurch meadow. And, in another (not detailed above) the same giant scotsman is in disguise as a country gentleman as he must have escaped the park. Maybe King Kong has rubbed off on me more than i imagined. The series of paintings are emerging more surreal than I have done for a while, but hopefully retain some of the spirit of the mundane as I try to convey my own relationship with Oxford over the past year. The colours are very muted and dirty at the moment - which is distinctively different from the Oxford series I did in the Autumn - perhaps because I am using less expensive paint, but also due to the being a very muted and damp time of year here. I have about another 6 weeks to complete them and perhaps do a couple more - but I think I can do that.
The good news is that Catharine put me onto a good framer in Reading who can do it much cheaper than anyone in Oxford. So I have put four of my Cyprus pictures in which are going into the Bristol Affordable Art Fair next month.
This weekend is May Day, and we are going down to Hastings for the Jack in the Green festival (which I painted about two years ago). I cant wait to get my dose of the sea and the madness of Pagan Hastings again.
Till I blog again Robloggers!
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April 25, 2006
server down
As some of you will have noticed, my site has been down for the last week. Problems beyond my control!. I will blog latest progress in the studio in the next day or two.
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April 19, 2006
plodding on, pluggin away.
So Easter holidays have come and gone. I have made some steady, if not spectactular progress on the new paintings. I had a vist from Sarah Wiseman and she seemed pleased with the work so far, but there is much to do. I have about 8 weeks left, so I am sure that I will have it all done by then. Sarah also offered to take some of my pictures to the Bristol Affordable Art Fair in May. She selected four of the more major pictures from my 2005 Cyprus work, which I now need to get framed.
So the vacation was a good mix of heading over to Reading to see Catharine and being in the studio. We had one day in London and went to see the Martin Kippenburger at the the Tate. It was an interesting show and I have been meaning to see it for ages.
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April 8, 2006
Easter Holidays, White Horses and paintings
Easter holidays at last. The last few weeks at Brookes have been difficult and seemingly endless. We had a huge number of students to interview for next year and it was the grueling period where our students get their portfolios ready for interview for degree courses. It got to the point where I was physically ill and incoherent while I was at work and immediately much better when not.. This is the problem with trying to fit a nearly full time job with the need to paint. And now I have the added but welcome distraction of going to Reading to visit Catharine. It is fantastic she is a painter herself and values the time we have to spend alone in the studio. So I have now managed to get a bit more work done in the last few weeks despite everything that has been going on. I am now back in my routine of 7am swim, 9am - 5pm work and 6pm - 10pm paint.. and weekends in Reading and day off monday in the studio. Glamorous lifestyle huh?
Yesterday was the first full day of my very short easter break and I had a welcome day off from everything. Catharine and I drove out to Wiltshire to see six of the famous white horses carved into the chalk hills. I had only really been aware of these due to the wonderful Eric Ravilious painting
’TRAIN LANDSCAPE’.
I had not realised that most of them dated from the the Victorian times; I had presumed they were far more historic and heathen than that. They were fantastic nonetheless and a great way to explore the countryside on a bright spring day. Maybe they might appear in my work at some point..
So on to the new work; well i am working to the theme ‘there is something about Oxford..’ for the Sarah Wiseman Gallery. This has allowed me to explore further some of my demons about how I am coping with life here. I am simply using backdrops from some the common places I inhabit in Oxford and placing figures and fantasy characters to see what crops up. Once again, giant men are appearing and i think this is about feeling clumsy and unrefined in such a ethereal place. I like the giant scotsman in Christchurch playing fields placed as a visitor attraction. I think he may crop up again. I am posting pictures of these in a very unresolved state as they are on this late saturday night and am feeling very unsure about how they will turn out. Well I now have a few consecutive days to build up momentum so perhaps I will get some finished this week.
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Interestingly, on the train back from Reading this morning, there were a number of morris dancers obviously off to a pagan festival. It was a busy train and I heard the sounds of shoe bells before I looked up to find a small group of feathered and hatted pagan types looking for free seats. Quite bizarre and it reminded me of the work I did in Hastings about the pagan festivals. I think I am going down to Hastings for the the May Day festivities and it will be nice to see it all again.
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