February 21, 2008
Portraits, Leith, Cyprus and India
Time marches on. It is now nearly the end of term 2 at Edinburgh College of Art and I am sitting at home, having taken a few days off with a bad bug. This has given me time at last to freshen up my website and preen some of the gallery pages from all the inconsequential work. Since I started this version of the website in 2004, I tended just to put up all the work I did at the time, probably just to prove that I am still making work. When I was painting in Hastings, I was just so pleased to be making any art at all, that every scrap of creativity went up. Now, with the chance to review and edit it down to one page, my Hastings period reveals to me a time of relearning my skills and re-evaluating what picture making means to me. I am still very proud of the fact that I have taken risks in my employment, which has always been informed by trying to find the right balance between making art and facilitating education.
So, now I find myself in year in to my new life in Edinburgh. Catie has moved up and is also painting and teaching. My job role at eca has been fluid flexible and quite demanding. But, I am still managing to paint as I have finally realised that I have to use most of my available free time to make art if I am ever going to develop. This has meant far fewer opportunities to see family and friends and far less gallivanting across the country or abroad.
From the period I moved to Leith with Catie, I have solely used the interior of our rented Georgian townhouse flat as a backdrop for subject matter. I have done more direct observational drawing and painting than I have since I was a student, and I have learned so much by doing so. I think it has recharged my pictorial armoury and freed me from the often-tiresome need for inventing compositional devices. Using a combination of biographical with observed topographical elements has allowed me to reflect on a more explicit portrait of my new life with Catie. While I have maintained my gut need for flippancy and irony in the use of a collection of soft toy animals, I am trying to evoke a greater depth of time and place.
Most recently, I have completed a large two panel portrait of Catie with our soft toys (the bears!) revealing the exuberant and delightful space we live in. The carrot for this was to enter the BP portrait award. While I am pleased with the ambition of the picture and its sense of place, I am not sure whether it works on the level of a portrait and I am not optimistic that it will be successful in being accepted for the show.
Here are eight stages of the portrait which I did almost entirely from working in situe over about 5 weekends.
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I have three other things I am developing;
In December, I am showing at the Otter Gallery in Chichester, a compendium of works I did from the times I visited and worked Cyprus from 2002 to the present. There is also a possibility to show it in Cyprus College of Art later and I am trying to pull together a catalogue and possibly find a venue in Edinburgh also. I have never shown most of this work before and I am delighted to finally have the opportunity. I hope to make one more visit to Cyprus to complete the cycle of work for the show.
While I have been living in Leith and particularly Leith Links, I have started to research its history and how it remains such a distinctive and vibrant part of Edinburgh. The history of the Links themselves is fascinating, having been the place of the first golf course and the base for Oliver Cromwell’s men. Therefore, my next series of artworks are going to use my research as the background for what I hope will be a new pictorial development in my work. For further information see here.
I am also trying to find ways to make an extended visit to India to develop new lines of research. I have discovered that in the new India with one of the fasting growing economies in the world, there is a newfound confidence in contemporary painting that uses narrative and sense of place. Directly at odds with esoteric contemporary western art, this new art celebrates both hand skills and crafts, yet places itself in a world of mass media and conceptual ideas. I feel there is much for me to learn and experience and I am waiting with baited breadth, the result of a research funding application.
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November 17, 2007
The Bears of Wellington Place
I had a week on my own as Catharine went down to Reading to clear out her house before it was sold on Friday. I had a busy week at work as we were hosting the University Association of Lifelong Learning Conference on Monday and Tuesday. So it was late nights all week including my Pictorial Figure Composition evening class on Wednesday. I am really enjoying this class as I get to teach what is my passion. No rest for the wicked as on Thursday, Catharine had sent all her stuff up with a ‘man with with a van’ (actually his name was Sam) and help him put it all into storage until we can figure out where it can all go.
I had to get at least three very small painting finished this weekend in order have them dry in time for framing for the Scottish Gallery Xmas show. So I have been enjoying just simply painting little snippets of our flat with our collection of bears. It is so long since I have so much ‘look and put’ painting (well ‘look and put and add a bit of my own’ really) and it is about time. This is how to refuel your image bank and be able to paint things out of your head with authority. These are not exceptional pictures but they feel right and the right direction. The bigger one in the picture is just a limbering up for the portrait I want to do for the BP portrait award.
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The Bears of Wellington Place
I had a week on my own as Catharine went down to Reading to clear out her house before it was sold on Friday. I had a busy week at work as we were hosting the University Association of Lifelong Learning Conference on Monday and Tuesday. So it was late nights all week including my Pictorial Figure Composition evening class on Wednesday. I am really enjoying this class as I get to teach what is my passion. No rest for the wicked as on Thursday, Catharine had sent all her stuff up with a ‘man with with a van’ (actually his name was Sam) and help him put it all into storage until we can figure out where it can all go.
I had to get at least three very small painting finished this weekend in order have them dry in time for framing for the Scottish Gallery Xmas show. So I have been enjoying just simply painting little snippets of our flat with our collection of bears. It is so long since I have so much ‘look and put’ painting (well ‘look and put and add a bit of my own’ really) and it is about time. This is how to refuel your image bank and be able to paint things out of your head with authority. These are not exceptional pictures but they feel right and the right direction. The bigger one in the picture is just a limbering up for the portrait I want to do for the BP portrait award.
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September 19, 2007
new work
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April 5, 2007
Return to Edinburgh Subject Matter
Well so far this week off has been a good chance to settle down and get thinking about what art I should try and do. I started off playing with Gouache in my little cupboard studio in my flat. But while this was enjoyable, I knew that this would lead nowhere without some subject matter. So I have done a couple of pen drawings from inside my flat - a strange return to Edinburgh domesticity - which is where I started back in 1989. The drawings are very familiar but I am glad to have done them and will continue to do more and see where it takes me..
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July 14, 2006
Cyprus 2
Even though I am more set up for casual blogging out here in Cyprus than ever before, the very ease of it seems to be stopping me doing it every few days as I did last year. Then, I had to take my bulky DV cam up to one of the excruciatingly slow internet cafes and try to do this blog. Now, with my own little apartment, my powerbook, wireless broadband and a dinky digital camera, perhaps it is all too easy.
Anyway, here is a blog. With lots of pictures. So don’t complain!
So how have things been going? Well after the rain there was more rain in Limassol (very quick but heavy) and overall the weather has been a lot cooler, windier and unpredictable than any of my previous visits. The group of students swelled in size at the start of July and this weekend about 8 of the original students are leaving and a new group will arrive. I have not been socializing with them as much as in the past as I am definitely the staff chappie here this time with my own bohemian flat and no Grahame and Liese. I have found it more difficult to get into a working groove this time too. It is perhaps all too familiar from last year and needed to find fresher stimulus to get my mind and brush going.
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I continued in hope with painting the beach bathers and did a couple of more worked oils on card which are ok. But not really any kind of breakthrough. it was not until I hired a car last Tuesday to pick up Catharine from Pafos Airport when my visual mind started to get a bit more excited. Before I picked up Catharine I had a day driving over the island. I first went to Lemba (the original Cyprus College of Art) to see the place and Neil who looks after it. The place still looked great and it was great to see Neil. He has a much smaller group but all doing some good work. (Less distraction there as it takes half an hour to walk to the beach). After that I drove over to Polis which is a nice route over some great landscape. I stopped at a little coastal campsite where the water is actually very warm.
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So I eventually picked up Catharine from the airport later that day and we drove back to Limassol. I took her to Heros Square, a squalid little part of Limassol where there is an amazing cafe, or at least it does great food for very little money. Then it was off to Dolce, a slinky little funky bar where most of the students were hanging out. Cocktails. Catharine seemed to enjoy her first night.
Yesterday I took Catharine around Limassol and in the afternoon we drove to Aphrodities Rock, a wonderful and dramatic bay where we had a bit of a swim. Then I introduced her to the endurance test of a full Meze meal - 22 seperate items which just keep coming.
So today, Catharine is away exploring while I got on with some painting and think I am making some headway now. We plan to go off in the car tomorrow do get some direct drawing done from the landscape. I have taken hundreds of photograph as well and this year I am determined to carry on with some of the images when I get back to Oxford.
Oh, the world cup? Well my prediction about England was not too far off the mark. Italy? Who would have thought it? In the final rounds it all got a bit disappointing. I actually wanted Germany to win as they played the most exciting football to watch.
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May 14, 2006
latest on the work
I worked on the ‘Kebab Hut’ and ‘The Sheldonian Theatre’ pictures mostly this week, plus a little of the giant by christchurch. I am just off for another stint down the studio. They are all getting quite close to completion, but all require lots of concentration;
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I dont think I have spent so much time on so few picures in the last few years. It is the nature of these pictures that they dont just feel like Oxford, but are actually depicting real parts of it. So, for once, I am relying on detail from photographic reference. This does offer up challenges which would never present itself when I am working entirely from drawings and invention. I think it has brought out a diffeernet kind of intensity from, say, the work I did last autumn.
I am looking forward to Tuesday, when I am picking up four of my Cyprus pictures from the framer, to show at next weekend’s Affordable Art Fair in Bristol through Sarah Wiseman.
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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 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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March 27, 2006
new paintings..
Just to prove things are finally going in the studio.
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October 28, 2005
Too many paintings to finish!
This is me this evening facing up to these monsters I have created over the last two months. I am meant to have photos to send to the galleries by Monday and I am still starting too many new ones and not facing up to the trickier thing of putting some of them to bed. This has been a particularly tiring week and quite a difficult one for personal reasons. But I have battled on each evening after teaching to try and muster enough energy to work. I have also to teach school kids tomorrow and for the next three Saturdays as part of a taster portfolio preparation course. So this leaves even less time to get these pictures finished and framed and sent off in time. I am going to have to do the framing myself using my college workshop as it will simply cost too much money to get a professional to do it. So there will be plenty of blinding and cursing about ‘pictures not being straight coming up.
Anyway here is what I have acheived this week…
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(The yellow painting below is a reworking of a picture I began at the end of last year in Hastings - which is already posted on my galleries pages in an unfinshed form. I quite like the mood of it now).
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October 22, 2005
nearing deadlines
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Only about another week before I have to send images to the Scottish Gallery and John Martin Gallery for their Christmas shows. I now have about 18 unfinished images with some very close to being finished. But finishing is always the hardest bit for me.. I keep wanting to start more instead. There seem to three strands of work emerging: the very illustrational images with the cats, the darker brooding images withs beds, and a couple of more painterly colourful images. I am too close to them now to judge which is more effective.
I got notification today from the Chicheser Open that I had my two large pictures accepted. I am very pleased as it is always nice to get larger pictures an airing. I will try to get dwon there on the 4th November for the opening. There are good prizes… (dream on Bushe man…)
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October 19, 2005
more pictures in progress
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Just another late night quickie after a productive evening in the studio. I am having some joy rescuing some of the unfinished pictures from my last days in Hastings. I seem to know what to do with them now. Well it is nearly 2am and I have to teach at 9.30am - so off to bed for me…
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October 11, 2005
new pictures update
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Another relentless week teaching and painting, only interupted by a wonderful walk on Sunday up the Isis and back along the canel. Kind of appropriate consdiering the subject matter of my new pictures. None of the above are finished yet, but it gives a flavour of the new work. However, while on a break from these, I think I made another breakthrough with a couple of quick paintings.. but we will see how they go before I post them on here.
Off to see The Eels with Richard at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow night. Ho hum.
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October 8, 2005
Return of the Cats
Another extremely busy week teaching, in the studio as well as fitting in an evening of Nick Drake at the Pheonix Cinema with a live band.
I have been plugging away on my small Oxford ‘Jungle’ paintings which are becoming infested with cats. I am loving that the cats are back in my work. It all sems to make a lot of sense to me. I have never painted such small images with oils which are so detailed. It is like learning a whole new technique. I have only a couple of weeks to finish these so I had a 4am finish last night. Bit tired today.
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September 29, 2005
Painting for my Life...
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Being quite on the blog usually means one of two things: either I am very down and dont want to write anything, or I am extraordinarily busy. Fortunately, it is the latter and in the last week or so I managed to spent a good deal of my spare time down the studio. I am work to three deadlines which all come at the same time for Christmas shows. I think now that I have got over my Oxford hang ups and have now embraced the visual world I am inhabited. I have been in a sort of manic faze where I seem to have a lot of clarity about what I can do. My time is limited and so the urgency has been even greater and now I feel like I am painting for my life. Which is actually a lovely feeling (while it lasts). I have been looking for ways to make Oxford my jungle inhabited by cats and birds instead of wild animals - as my response to Rosseau. Cats have not really featured in my work fo many years as they became quite cute-sy. I am living with a cat and a cat lover and it all makes sense to me now once again. The other theme I have got to do is the ‘Human Condition’, for the Scottish Gallery. I am always telling students not to say that there work is about the ‘human condition’ as it is such a cliche and that all art is about the that really.. Oh well, will have to bite my lip on that one.
Below are a selection of studies, drawings and mostly un finished paintings I have been working on. Having my entire art book collection down the studio has actually helped alot as it is nice to ponder over some heroes while i take a break..
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July 27, 2005
breakthroughs
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Limassol is in many ways a lot like Hastings. It is an old forgotten town with many parts run down and peopled with an eccletic mix of types. It has a seafront and a pier where locals and visitors hang out. Fisherman fish and people come to find solace in the sea. This week Limassol is hosting a contemporary dance festival. Much of the dance is taking place in public spaces and is free. A couple of nights ago, we all went down at midnight to the pier to wathc 6 dancers inhabit the space while kids did wheelies on their bikes, cypriots strutted around and the there was a smattering of artisan locals and tourists. It was fantastic and even a wee cat got in on the act.
My painting is now becoming a lot more honest and real to me this my last week here. The two images posted above are based on my doodles and thoughts spending time on the rocks at the old harbour and the dance festival event. I am allowing the space to breath a lot more and have moved away from my tradional horizon lines. I think I have been trying to emulate so many other painters in recent years that I had forgotten what it is I can do for myself. These tow are not finished, but they offer me many clues on how to proceed with my work when I get home. I might now even be able to tackle Oxford!
Only 4 days left and I might hire a car this weekend to finish it off. I have a few days in Oxford before I head up to Edinburgh to teach on the summer school for a week.
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July 23, 2005
Pictures Update 2
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Finally found a reliable internet cafe here in Limassol in Cyprus. Not much to report these last days. My day is: wake up 6am, cyprus coffee, studio 7am - 12noon, market 12 - 1pm, hammock 1 - 2pm, swim in harbour 2 - 5pm, dinner 8pm, cards and wine till late…
Above are two images of lastest work. The Trodos mountain picure is nearly finished and I am quite pleased with the start I have made to the new one which hold more unconventional space for me. Really geting into my stride now. The third picture is me in the studio this morning. I took it to send to my nephew Harper in Hastings who has just broken his arm, poor fellow.
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July 20, 2005
week 3 in Cyprus
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This is the slowest internet cafe connection ever!! Bloody thing!!
I have many pictures I want to post but the connect just want to it. Will put them on later I promise.(Pictures added 21st July)
Well my service taxi in Pafos never turned up and I was stranded there with only 20 pounds to my name. So, I had to go back to Joe and Fiona’s Hotel and they were kind enough to let me crash on thier sofa. It did let me catch the last rounds of the Open golf at Saint Andrews. Which was nice. Joe and Fiona took me out for a posh dinner before spending the night to get up early to catch the only bus from Pafos to Limassol at 7.30am.
I was meant to do a talk on colour on Monday morning at Limassol, but I cancelled it as I had arrived back tired and under prepared. So I just got on with my paintings and started also to do some small watercolours in the afternoon on the balcony where there is a little shade.
Money is getting a wee bit tight now so it Tom, Colm, Nick and myself are sharing dinners. I made a pork stew which only cost us about 1 quid each. Wine and cards followed. Pat is getting too good at cards and it is all getting very competitive. More painting and chilling on Tuesday followed by my slide talk on my work. Gordon, the oldest memeber of the group by far (77) had invited myself, Tom, Colm and Nick out for a ‘gentlemens’ dinner. So we had a merry night eating amazing Meze over wine and a whistling guitar player.
I finally did my talk on colour mixing this morning and there was only one heckler - so that so cool. Life drawing, a swim and now down to the internet cafe. Life is good.
People are now starting to get itchy feet and are starting to rent cars and go off and see the island a bit. Some went off to Aya Napa and more are going soon. Some hate it here and cant wait to leave and some are going on diving courses. But there is a hard core of people wanting to make art and have a good time.
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July 14, 2005
Picture update
Just finished a morning’s session painting my Trodos walk picture. I think I am getting into my stride now and at think there is a development in this picture. At least I am surprised how it is going as it looks unfamiliar to me, which is good.
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July 13, 2005
The sunrise and the Trodos Mountains
It is now near the end of my second week in Cyprus and things are now settling down into a routine. People’s personalities have now become clearer to each other in the group, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. There are at least half a dozen really nice people who I am enjoying spending time with immensely and we have developed a late night card school over a few Keo beers.
On Sunday night there was a cafuffle after a girls night out at 3 in the morning and caused a rumpus which kept me awake all night. But actually they did me a favour as Tom suggested we make the best of it a walk doen to the pier and watch the sunrise. It was amazing! And so cliched that no one would ever to attempt to paint it. Except me, after a sleeples night. Here is the result. A Czech girl Lanka has been trying to capture the sunrise in her paintings, so I thought I would give a go too..
Spent the rest of Monday in a hammock trying to catch up on my sleepless night.
Tuesday brought a group bus journey up to the Trodos mountains. This is what I have been waiting for; another look at the distinctive lansdcape within Cyprus. I am now in full flow scribbling in my book, whish is great. I went on a 6K walk over the hills and did three little watercolours in my book.
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Anyway, the trip in the mountains gave me a few ideas for pictures and today I started one which I think might be quite fun.
Still a fair way to go and as usual (at least when I am in Cyprus) I am starting at lot of pictures and not quite finishing them. Well it makes my studio look full.
It has got increasingly hotter as the trip has gone on and until yesterday i was coping with it well. Today it reached 44 degrees and there was no escape except here in the internet cafe.
Looking forward to my trip to Paphos on Saturday, where I will meet Joe, Fiona and their daughter Maisy who are just over from Aberdeen. And I am giving a talk about my work at the Lemba site where I was in 2002. So, I expect my next blog will be on my return after the weekend.
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July 10, 2005
Cyprus Pictures
Things are now going very well in Limassol in Cyprus and the group is gelling nicely. I am painting everyday, as well as swimming in the sea, eating good food, drinking a few beers and playing and losing games of contract whist (card game). On Friday, most of us went to Nicosia on the bus. I was dying to get out Limassol to see a bit of the landsape and I got a good amount of drawing done, which is already feeding into my new paintings. Interestingly, my work looks quite similar to the work I did here in 2002 in terms of colour and a sense of mythology. Here are a few images from my studio today. I am uploading them straight from my camera from a dodgy internet cafe in Limassol so no time to tidy them up…
(Got a Squid to have for my tea tonight!)
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November 23, 2004
Garden Update
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| 19th Nov | 22nd Nov |
I have been concentrating on trying to complete my big garden painting, and there are two recent pictures of my progress so far above. I am beginning to feel that it is working, although I am not sure what it is trying to do anymore. That always happens with me when a painting takes a while to complete.
Anyway - I am off to Aberdeen next week to catch up with some of my old friends, so blogging might be thin on the ground.
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November 17, 2004
The nights are fairly drawing in...
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Been a bit a struggle to keep working consistently this last week as we approach the festive season, my 40th birthday and my impending move to Oxford. However I have gritted m teeth and managed to do at least something everday. As you can see from above, I have got a lot of milage out the the fireworks festival I went to in Hastings last month… casting myself as a giant sacrifice for the fire. Read into that what you may.
I have also finally continued with my large garden painting, which as always hit a crisis of confidence after the initial rush to get it started. I am frustrasted that it has become pedestrian with too many of my signature dotty marks (I never intend to use them but they appear anyway - especially when I run out of ideas). So here is the laatest picture of it - it still has a long way to go…
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I have also just put five small pictures into get framed for the Scottish Gallery’s Christmas show. I might even take the work up there myself, funds permitting, so I can visit my brother Chris and then venture up to Aberdeen to see some of my old pals there.. we shall see.
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November 10, 2004
Painting is hard
It seems that being offered a job in Oxford has changed my energy this week and I have found it quite difficult to knuckle down to the painting (which is a little worrying). And so far, this week, every bit of work I have done has little artistry and invention. I could make the excuse that my studio is now very cold and it gets dark very early, but in reality, the offer of the job has changed things. I now only have a finite time before I have to move and my wonderful time simply painting in Hastings is coming to an end. The real test for me now, is to be able to do this job and keep developing the painting. I have made good progress this year, but not enough to make a professional living just yet as the work is still too hit and miss. But, this job is part time and this time I am not the boss, so it should be workable. And I’ll have some money for framing and sending stuff off. I have to put a few works into the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh for their Xmas show later this month, so I need to get more works framed. And they want one of them to have a Xmas theme, so I need to think up something clever for that, which is not too naff.
Oh, and I have just found out that my first peice of work at Oxford Brookes is to go to Berlin on a study trip with the the students in early January. What fun.
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October 13, 2004
The Yellow Garden and Joe Fan
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| watercolour study | 8th October | 13th October |
I have just recovered from my first dose of a bad cold this autumn, as the weather has taken a real tumble. But, today I am back on feet and back in the studio working on my new garden painting.
And yesterday I went up to London to see my great friend, Joe Fan, at his exhibition opening at the Thackeray Gallery. See all his images on their website
I am tentatively calling my new painting ‘Battle of Hastings’ as it features two men standing back to back with a hedge btween them. So, it is a sort of stand off in Hastings and the title is just a piece of simple irony - and it means that I am doing a series of pictures with ‘battle’ in the title (an extraordinary concept. It is much harder to paint this type of image on canvas than it is as a watercolour. I did another small watercolour to help me work it out. I think this will be another long one to do, and therefore I need to get some other small boards prepared for some quick works while I brood about the big one. I am still in a quandry about whether it should be painted with alot of line drawing or to be more painterly - a constant struggle with me. I think painterly will win out, at least until I get some decent brushes.
Well yesterday in London, was a lovely diversion for me. I had not seen Joe Fan for two years, and he was coming down with his partner Fiona, and their two year old daughter Maisy. I had never met Maisy before, and she was just a delight, and it was so lovely to see all three of them. I met them at their Hotel in Kensington in the afternoon, and we went for a drink and for some food before the opening which started at 6. The exhibition itself is a joy. I have always loved Joe’s work, but these new works, are for me, the best he has ever done. They have a brittle edge which are almost gothic, but then they also make you want to smile. Joe did extremely well for an opening night. He sold loads. For loads of money. Well done the Fan Man.
I went for a drink with Joe and a couple who ran the gallery, before I went off to get the last train to Hastings at 11.45pm. Joe also had a little surprise for me. A note with greetings from some of my old Aberdeen friends and Gray’s School of Art colleagues. Joe had got them all to scribble a few words of hello. So thank you Michael, Keith, Cam, Craig, Simon and Kaiko, it was a lovely surprise, and I would dearly love to get up to Aberdeen soon to see you all.
greetings from my Aberdeen mates
Posted by robbie at 7:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 18, 2004
The Battle for Chichester Cross is over...
But the war has only begun.
Well that is it. All I can do. For now. It is far from perfect and far from what I wanted. But I have been working it to death and today I am calling it a day. Well. until I can think of something else to do to it.
Above are four images of Battle for Chichester Cross from original thunbnail sketch to three stages through the painting to completion. It was devised as a deeply personal picture as cathartic way of dealing with the four and a half years I lived in Chichester in East Sussex, England. I said on my first ever blog that I might write a bit about my time in Chichester and with the completion of this painting, I feel it is appropriate now to talk about this part of my life.
View image
Final Painting with Details
My main mission since I have been in Hastings is to get my painting career back on track and to make my life as simple as I can. I knew that I would have to start all over again and that I would have to make a lot of work over months, perhaps years, to reach standards and the resonance I desired for my work. So, I have been patiently drawing around my environment, and mostly going back to basics with my painting, which, for the most part, has so far been quite pedestrian and conservative. But, the very fact, I could do it, and do it every day, was what has become the most importnt thing to me.
Because I could not do it Chichester. My job and the kind of environment that exisited in the town made it extraordinarily hard for me to make any meaningful work. However, all through my time in Chichester, lurking away in the recesses of my thoughts were visual ideas which were mainly spiteful, full of bitterness and at times violent, towards the good people of this very small market Cathedral city.
The place engenders it.
I came to Chichester in 1999, with no preconceptions as I had never heard of it before. It looked lovely on my visit to interview and on the surface, the people seemed freindly and pleasant. Of course I had been living in Aberdeen for the previous 7 years, where I had become acustomed to constant sardonic wit, banter and put downs from friends and foes alike.
I wont bore you with the internal politics of my job in Chichester, but needless to say, as head of fine art, very little of my life was my own and everyday I was constantly fretting about whether this would be the day I would be ‘found out’ for being totally useless at the job. I think the only thing that saved me from this was that everyone else was so grateful that someone else was doing the job and not them.
But it is the town itself, which ate away at my soul. A very wealthy town, with a north, a south, an east and a west street which all met at the monument at Chichester Cross. And a whopping big Cathedral.
During the day it was inhabited by wealthy, elderly upper middle classes pottering about, shopping and taking tea in the numerous little coffee shops. At night it was inhabited by lairy men and women trying to squeeze out a normal night out in the local pubs. Somewhere inbetween these groups were, huddled way, an absurdly earnest bunch of arty, hippy christian types who do not know how to laugh at themselves.
And never the twain should meet.
The rich elderly spent most of there time (when they weren’t scootering about in their luxury mobility buggies) campaigning against anything that changed Chichester. The were against a new wing for the local art gallery, against the setting up of the city’s first night club, against housing association houses being built, against a free music festival, against wheelie bins, recyling bins, cycle paths, etc, etc.
The lairy men and women of the night had not much interest in anything and were neither for or against most things.
But, the worst, the worst of all, were the