It’s a busy time at the moment, I working my way through a series of commissions and I’ve got these exhibitions in the pipeline.
1. The Frissiras Museum in Athens currently have a large exhibition of works in their collection on at the moment and my painting “Pretending to Be Jesus” is in the show. There’s a huge thick catalogue to accompany the show which would have gone a long way to paying off Greece’s national debt had the funds been invested that way. If you’re in Athens, ( an interesting place at the moment) the exhibition runs until 30th September.
2. I will be exhibiting my portrait of Eric Sykes at the annual Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibition at the Mall Galleries. Off the top of my head I think it opens on 2nd May for about two weeks.
3. Also in May The New Art Gallery, Walsall are shoing my very first public commission which I did in 1994. It was called Les and Ernie and featured two pigeon racers from Walsall. It seems like a lifetime ago now when I did that but I still like it. It’s in a different style than my realist work. When I did my MA I was really interested in Stanley Spencer and it’s really influenced by his style. The Exhibition starts in May.
4. I’m showing some work in Melbourne at the Metro Gallery with some of the artists from Plus One Gallery. It’s a showcase of British Realism. This show opens in October.
5. I don’t want to say too much about the final show at the moment because it’s still being put together but it’s in October at a major public contemporary art gallery in Prague. It’s a survey of contemporary British painting with some pretty heavy weight artists so I was very flattered to have been asked to exhibit in the show. More later…
April 23rd, 2012
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/who-needs-a-camera-artists-create-766729
Here’sa recent article from The Mirror about the gallery that I show with in London, Plus One. I thinkk the Daily mail printed it first then it was picked up by ther mirror, then TV and newsapers all over the world. It’s quite amazing how one article can generate so much momentum these days, As a result there have been queues outside the gallery and hundreds of people have ben visiting each day. Quite incredible.
April 23rd, 2012
Anne and myself went to the private view of the new Freud exhibition last Tuesday evening at the NPG. I’d been looking forward to it for months and it was even better than I had hoped for. We got there early so that we cou;ld have a quiet look around and for the first 15 minutes it was a very “private” view which was lovely. It’s got basically everything , form his very early work in the 40′s to the last, poignantly unfinished painting that he made in 2011. It’s the best exhibition I’ve been to in the past 10 years I’d say. It made me realise just how powerful and emotive an exhibition created from the human hand and touch can be. So often I go to public art gallery shows which are full of piss boring video loops and “witty” / ironic installations which just leave me cold, as emotionally engaging as a visit to DFS or B&Q. Freud’s show felt real, important, serious, ambitious, demanding, energetic, physical. From this show I think the work he did in the 50′s and 90′s are the most triumphant, his large eyed paintings of Kitty and his huge paintings of Leigh Bowery in the 90′s. Quite incredible. Other artists that I know were at the show including Tai-Shan Schierenberg, Ishbel Myerscough, Stuart Pearson Wright, Mike Gaskell
and myself and I think it’s fair to say that Freuds influence has touched us all in our work as he has hundreds of other artists, he is truely a giant of Britishfigurative art and this show really points that out. There’s a great catalogue to accompany the show too , beautifully illustrated. well woth a visit if you’re in London. runs until the end of May
February 22nd, 2012
I mentioned in an earlier post that I visited Eric Sykes at his London office in Bayswater at the tail end of last summer and spent a wonderful day with him. Here is the first drawing that I have done of him. It’s on a beautiful qulity and quite expensive A1 size paper with a nice deckel edge on all sides and a water mark which I love. It has a certain texture to t too whch I have used to my advantage in the drawing. I enjoyed the scale of this drawing, I usually like to work at 3/4 of life size when I’m painting but drawing materials are more clumsey I find so it’s nice to work a bit bigger and there was so much detail to pack in.
I thought I’d draw him smiling because he is a comedian and comedy writer , an expression I rarely use but felt was relevant in this instance and I haveto say I’m really pleased with it.
February 13th, 2012
A friend of min from Walsall has been chipping away at songwriting for years with varying success but has remained dogged to the belief in his work which is entirely admirable. Here’s his new single which I think is great and has an incredibly ear worm hook. Me and my brother in law Mike are in the video in a pub in Walsall. click on the link.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDtIaKo4YIw
February 13th, 2012
Since we had Scarlett we’ve been playing some chilled out sounds to keep everything nice and calm and I got this beautiful album by The Civil Wars which is the perfect backdrop for a baby if you want to relax, we’ve played it to death. I saw them on Jools Holland and got the album straight after. I know it’s a bit late but a friend of ours brought another beautifully chilled out Christmas album by Sufjan Stevens, it’s a 5 disc set that he worked on annually for 5 years and is a very low fi bedroom studio but is a must for next Christmas.
February 13th, 2012
Here is a recent drawing that I completed just before Christmas. It was commissioned by their father David and these are his two sons and the drawing in the background to the right was a self portrait of their grandfather and the painting to the left was a painting of the interior of the family business. It’s a very large drawing , bigger than A0 and I think is the largest I’ve done to date. I was with the atmosphere of the drawing and the boy’s depiction, Anthony being very relaxed and Nicholas more rigid which created a nice tension in the piece I think. I particularly enjoyed the shape rhythms in the shadows on Nicholas’s hands, they seem to flow very nicely. Most importantly perhaps they both had interesting faces reflecting their Jewish herritage.
February 13th, 2012
Sorry it’s been so long since the last post, Anne and myself had a lovely little girl back in late November and I’ve taken a little time out but am back at the easel now. Many of you already know, but her name is Scarlett and she’s 12 weeks old now and is a little beauty. Thanks to everyone who sent cards and gifts and came to visit, much appreciated.
February 13th, 2012
Here’s a recent drawing of the Birmingham based jazz saxaphone player Andy Hamilton CBE. it’s in mixed monochrome and is on A3 paper. During the sitting he was also playing. I’ve used a framing device on the drawing to give it a sense of spontaneity.
I’m currently working on a double portrait commission drawing which I’m really pleased with, as soon as its done I’ll just make sure that it’s ok to publish and post it up.
October 24th, 2011
I had a sitting with the comic writer and actor Eric Sykes a few weeks ago which was fantastic. He is very much the last in his generation of comics stretching back to Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, and I guess right back to the music hall days of Max Miller, he’s worked with everybody. I would take a few photographs and then he asked me to sit down and have a cup of tea and a chat. He was a very sweet and charming old gentleman and it was a real privilege for me. When you phone his office it is still referred to as “hello, Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes’ office” The British comedy history that had paraded through that beautiful Bayswater office
October 24th, 2011
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