DECEMBER 2011
Well it has been a while since I have written here and a lot has happened! I have been off in India on an amazing artist residence where I have learned traditional Indian arts and crafts from the villagers of Raghurajpur in Orissa,North Eastern India. The people and the colour captured my heart and I will be going back! I have so many photographs and I will be posting more on my facebook site, please follow the links on the homepage. I will also be writing more about my adventures here.
JUNE 2011
I am very honoured to be teaching at Coombe Farm in the glorious South Devon countryside close to my beloved River Dart. Over 3 days I will be teaching printmaking and complete beginners through to experienced printmakers are very welcome. Accomodation is available at Coombe Farm. 2nd-4th Sept 2011. www.coombefarmstudios.com/coursedetails.html?type=uk&id=115
I have been busy painting new work inspired by the book 'THE BITTERWEED PATH' By Thomas Hal Phillips. Using the book for inspiration curator Gareth Ballyn and I will be creating a limited edition zine at the Dartington Estate for the Ways With Words literature festival. Drawing with carbon paper and typing using a typewriter we wil create images and texts to bind into a zine. I have really enjoyed painting men! My slatternly ways have suggested a new painting colour palette, as I don't have a sink in my studio my painty water pots have been accumulationg and evaporating in the warm weather leaving a sludgy paint that can be very subtle and beautiful. I have also been using the red pastel dust that has fallen onto my easel after all the red stripy tights in the Alice series to smear on the paintings. On saturday the 18th June we have our Dartington Printmakers celebratory tea party, tickets are £10 and you get a lucky dip handmade print and lots of cake! Follow the link below.
www.darington.org/arts/print-workshop-celebration-tea-party
MAY 2011
More fancy dress life drawing and more Alice! The studio is also being cleaned and tidied with a little help from my friend Fran who's slight OCD tendencies are being put to good use.
APRIL 2011
A great weekend for good news... I was mentioned by a collector in the Financial Times and got accepted onto an amazing artist residency in India. I will be posting more info soon as well as ways of sponsoring me! Spring has definitely sprung here in Devon and I need some days of rain so that I don't spend all my time outside soaking up the sunshine and smalling the flowers.
I have been making the most of the beautiful weather this spring. I can paint when it rains! This is me on my boat enjoying an ice cream and a galss of prosecco.
MARCH 2011
DRAWING ALICE - MY NEW MUSE
RED SHOES LIFE DRAWING - INSPIRED BY THE VERY INSPIRING KNEEHIGH THEATRE'S 'RED SHOES' AT THE BAC
A brilliant and busy few days in London last week kicked off with an erudite and witty lecture by Andrew Graham-Dixon at The Last Tuesday Society. A rather dissapointing show of drawings at The British Museum was beaten by a fantastic telling of The Red Shoes by Kneehigh Theatre at The BAC. The following day I did a days life drawing organized by London Drawing inspired by the production of The Red Shoes.
More figure drawing with friends in the studio, Will Benzies came to play us some beautiful classical guitar and Carolina and I drew each other drawing each other! This was a very intense and slightly combative endeavour, we felt like we were battling with our eyes.
FEBRUARY 2011
I have solved 'creep'! Not laying the paper flat on the plate but holding it up till the print goes through the roller seems to have worked. I have raised £860 by donating 2 prints to the charity auction for the Dartmouth Swimming Pool fund, auctions are nerve wracking occasions, made easier by free wine! Carolina Maggio and I have been fancy dress figure drawing again see here for lots of images.
JANUARY 2011
The new year has been a busy one, I have a new muse called Eliza who is proving a great inspiration. I find that each person suggests a different way of markmaking, Eliza has inspired me to paint and draw in new ways, lots of light and pale washes but also re-exploring older styles with strong charcoal lines and smudges. I have been printing new lino cuts and drypoints, I spent 12 hours trying to perfect one set, there is a notorious printing problem called "creep", an effect similar in appearance to orange peel that appears on flat areas of colour when relief printing. I have encountered it before and each time I try varying methods of inking, pressure of printing, viscocity of ink etc and have yet to fully beat it, it does appear to be a combination of just enough but not too much ink, drying the ink with hot air and not too much but not too little pressure! Ultimately I might be better off making offerings to the gods of printmaking because it seems to be in their capricious hands!
November 2010
The Dartmouth show went well, it has been nice to show in my local town and to produce a different body of work. The 400 WOMEN exhibiton at Shoreditch Old Town Hall basement has opened, the opening night was very busy but it was good to meet up with some artists I haven't seen in a while and some I have only met through facebook! I re-visted the show the next day when I could properly absorb the atmoshere and admire the portraits. I found painting the portrait very emotional and disturbing, Mayra Reyes Solis was only 17 when she was murdered. I hope this project can bring justice and help prevent the rape and murder of more women and girls from theis area of Mexico.
MY PORTRAIT OF MAYRA
October 2010
I have been busy gouging away at lino today, last plates for my solo Dartmouth show.
A manic day at Frieze was worth the drive, the cost and the crowds just for Jenny Saville's beautiful drawing. I got obsessed by the number of red shoes being worn and started surreptitiously snapping them. Have a look at the 1st lot up on my facebook page.
The following weekend I visited the Gauguin at The Tate Modern. The paintings give me a physical jerk, they really inspire and excite me. That is if you can see them through the crowds. The curating of the show is a little heavy handed and would make an interesting critical essay or book but does not really help for the exhibition. The Tate Modern also has 2 fantastic photography exhibitions on, Bruce Davidson's 80's New York subway series are beautiful and dark, August Sander's photographs are striking and hauntingly odd.
September 2010
After a busy summer on the water teaching sailing I am back in the studio. I find the break from art is very beneficial to my work. Old projects are seen through fresh eyes and I am raring to go on new ones. This autumn I am working on images for a solo show at The Flavel Centre in Dartmouth, the show is inspired by historical events, people and objects from Dartmouth and the surrounding area. I have been visiting the museum in Dartmouth, a very quaint and charming museum which is well worth a visit, especially at the bargain price of £1.50! The collection of ships in bottles have caught my eye as has the dolls house of the now burnt Oldstone Manor of Blackawton, the dolls house includes a doll representing the murdered Laura Dimes, poor Laura was found drowned in one of the family ponds, hands above her head and eyes open. Her secret, no-good husband was accused but acquited and the case remains a mystery, her ghost is said to haunt the ruins of her former home. The old door of St Saviours in Dartmouth is also an object I am fascinated by and plan to incorporate into my work.
In the early summer I started fancy dress life drawing with some lovely friends, we each dress up and take it in turns to pose whilst the others draw and paint. I will be producing some more finished work inspired by these events and planning more fancy dress life drawing events!
I am currently pondering what to paint for the fabulous Red Propeller Gallery's group show in November, I will be keeping youall posted.
P.S Still working on the Great Lives of The Artists book!
May 2010
I have been painting hard this spring and have had fun trying some different styles and techniques and painting on a smaller scale. A new project has emerged that crashes porno portraits, Cath Kidstone style florals and Benetton ads together. Millie Gibson from Da.is magazine commented on how her room is full of cute Cath Kidston style wallpaper and fabrics and yet if those walls could talk! Millie is studying journalism at Falmouth and came up to visit the studio and interview me for a new student magazine featuring ex Falmouth students.
Spacex Gallery in Exeter is currrently showing work by the wonderfully eccentric Theo Jansen, a Dutch artist and engineer who creates animals out of plastic tubes and makes them walk by storing wind power generated by plastic sails/wings in lemonade bottles. They live on beaches and are beautiful, funny, eerie and wonderful. There will be a creature live on Exmouth beach on the 25th to 27th June.