Posts filed under 'Art'
I recently made an inspirational visit to Japan, 14 years after my first visit when I won the BP Travel Award and had a solo show at the National Portrait Gallery in 1995 with the resulting work based on the Nissan car workers in Tokyo.
I had wanted to go back for many years and now just about felt like the right time. It was a grueling 10 days exploring every district of Tokyo with the main aim of getting portraits and contextual material. 2000 photographs and experiences later I have got more subject matter than I can shake a stick at.
I went to Tsukiji fish market again which is just about hanging in there ( about to be moved to another part of Tokyo) which is one of the main reasons I wnated to make the visit now before it goes because I still maintain that Tsukiji fish market is one of the most visually inspiring places and experiences on earth and it certaoinly didn’t disappoint 14 years on.It was barely asif a day had passed, it has a timeless almost Dickensian quality like the ancient temples and shrines. I went to Harajuku and met some of the punks there and made loads of portraits. You really haveto be very alert when doing street portraiture , not a genre I particularly like because most of my set ups are extremely controlled in terms of lighting and composition and pose, there is a kind of “winging it” approach and you just haveto take what you can get and hopr the lighting works. I certainly worked my way through a lot of punks and groovers and psychobilly’s , and ravers and costume play girls who congregate there on a Sunday morning, even with a hang over. I had some business cards printed up in Japanese before I went over saying basically I’m an artist from England doing a project on Japanese people, can I take your photograph please. I handed the cards out to peolpe on the street, in cafe’s and bars, in zoo’s, in temples, jazz clubs, everywhere I went and they read it and 9 times out of 10 they obliged.
I love travelling with a camera because it really makes you look at everything twice as hard and completely hightens the visual experience of travelling, I’m always looking , like they say about authors they are always analysing people at dinner parties for their next character or plot. I’m always looking for the next picture and then onto the next, it’s almost like a drug to me.
I also went to Kamakura where the fantastic and huge Daihatsu Buddha calmly sits. Man alive, they knew something about sculptural spirituality back in the 9th century. That whole area is filled with temples and shrines and is the most beautiful place. I got some great portraits of monks there, again just winging it.
I met up with my old friend Anthony from my foundation course in Stafford 20 years ago. He lives in Tokyo and took us to a great underground Japanese Jazz club in Tokyo (ticked that box – as Anne said) . Akita’s club – Dark, dingy and holding an audience of about 20 people. I had pre -arranged to take some portrait photographs of Isao Suzuki. He has played with the giants of American jazz including Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Art Blakey – ( indeed he was one of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the 1960’s, good chops and credentials for sure) He’s in his 70’s now but still looks super cool and I got some great shots and will definitely be doing a portrait of him.
Other areas I especially enjoyed were Asakusa and Ueno, they felt particularly authentic and in many ways the working class areas of Tokyo I guess, in comparison to the gloss of Ginza , Shibuya and Roppongi.
So, lots of inspiration and subject matter, I’m just digesting it at the moment but I know that there is a a lot of potential paintings and drawings there, it’s a case of strict editing I think. For the past 6 months or so I’ve been thinking endlessly about my next big project. While I walk our dog Max twice a day I’m constantly thinking about my work and the next projects. I never sit at a drawing board or easel and wait for the “muse to strike”, ideas come all the time and at any time and never sitting infront of a desk with a white page sketch book. So, I’ve been pacing the streets of Walsall with Max thinking about which direction to push the work. I knew that it was going to be about portraiture, my first love but who. For months I thought about comedians, musicians, outsiders, Hells Angels , Tokyo portraits etc, etc, etc…….. The ideas always come thick and fast and I have problems sorting out the good from the bad like all artists but my usual rule is that if it still seems like a good idea 6 monthjs later then it’s going to work. I felt that a neat, comfortable group of portraits , eg like musicians would work well but after much thought, deliberation, sketchbook work and attempts to contact people I decided that the project would be about PORTRAITURE. 6 months of walking and thinking and development, around my core commission work, and the answer was Portraiture, which I knew all along. I want to keep it open and organic. It’s great to do a full project on Tokyo people or comedians but I enjoy the ecclectic mix of portraits and people. I always say that you can travel 1000’s of miles to find good subject matter but it’s on your own doorstep if you look for it. I love the serendipidy of walking around your own environment and finding interesting people and I didn’t want to neglect that aspect of portraiture. I want to keep it alive and as I say , organic , and constantly growing and open. This will be an ongoing project, certainly not over night so just hang on in there and watch this space.
Finally I’d just like to say thanks to Alex and Eun Ju and Anthony for there kindness generosity while I was in Japan.
November 30th, 2008
I’ve been looking at Leonardo’s sketch books and liked there image text combination and thought process. By no means comparable to Leonardo, just an idle doodle really, “a bit of fun” as Rob Brydon would say.
November 30th, 2008
The endlessly inspiring Bandana.
November 30th, 2008
I had a walk around one of the many allotments in Walsall recently because I thought I’d meet some interesting looking people there. This is a portrait that I finished yesterday so it’s hot off the press. It’s a portrait called “Ron in his Greenhouse”
Ron in his Greenhouse – charcoal, carbon and graphite on paper – 56cm x 49cm
October 14th, 2008
I’m fast approaching 40 now and I thought it was a good time to take a look at my face again. I’ve not really done that many self portraits before , mainly because I was busy doing commissions and other stuff and also because I never thought I had a very interesting face which makes quite a difference. Now that I’m nearly 40 my face has begun to age and seems more interesting to me now. There are wrinkles and sags starting to form and I find the aging process very interesting. A nice strong light helps too, dramatic chiaroscuro lighting enhances the face and detail. I think 40 is a good age to start and I think I may try and do a least one a year and follow Rembrandt’s example.
The first image features me and our dog Max. It was very spontaneous, I just saw Anne’s winter “Pixie hat” and decided to put it on and Max got in on the act and settled into the composition. I wanted dramatic lighting which traditionally would be accompanied by a dark background , pushing out the lighter detail, so often used by the old Italian master Caravaggio. I like the more clinical and modern white background which doesn’t detract from the 2 figures and focuses attention on me and Max, coupled with a tight edit. There is also a Richard Avedon feel to the portrait with the white background which wasn’t a concious decision but occured to me afterwards.
The second self portrait again picks up on the datail in my face but is a more traditional chiaroscuo lit portrait with the darker background as my face emerges from the shadows. It doesn’t necessarily depict mt character, I look quite sinister in this portrait, which I can assure you that I’m not so I guess there is a sense of acting for the portrait or role play, again a traditional theme in portraiture.
Both portraits are in charcoal, carbon and graphite. “Max and Andy” – ( after Max and Paddy) is around A1 in size and the other portrait ” September 2008″ is around A4 in size.
September 30th, 2008
Here is a new press release from My gallery in Santa Fe ,Andreeva, regarding their recent successful sale of two of my paintings to The Smithsonian Institute in Washingto DC.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/Smithsonian/portraits/prweb1263134.htm
I’ll be posting some new work in the next 2 weeks or so.
September 11th, 2008
I will be doing a series of 3 talks about my work at the National Portrait Gallery next year in their excellent lecture theatre. They are scheduled for 15th, 16th, and 17th June 2009 in the morning of each day and will coincide with the opening of next years BP Portrait Awards.
The talks will focus upon all of the portraiture works that I have done from 1991 to present day. It will largely be in sequence from my early work in 1991 when I was working on my MA project and I will explain my thoughts, reasons and techniques behind each of the portraits. I will be discussing paintings and drawings and showing sequences depicting the build up/progress of a selection of my paintings. I would imagine that the talks will last around one and a half hours and are primarily aimed at school groups but I’m sure that they wouldn’t mind small individual groups attending too.
If you would like to know any more about these 3 events please contact Tanja Gangar, (Learning Manager at the NPG) on;
[email protected]
August 10th, 2008
Here is the second picture of the fantastically aesthetic Bandana. He is a Hell’s angel that I know from The Rising Sun pub in Walsall, just down the road from me, which is a bikers pub that is run by the Hells Angels. I did a painting of him earlier in the year using dramatic chiaroscuro lighting with quite intense eyes looking out at the viewer. (please see earlier posts for description and photograph). Here I have done a drawing which is more detached in feel and he is in thought as we talked. This is quite a big drawing and is done in charcoal, graphite and carbon on paper.
July 5th, 2008
I went to the opening of the BP Awards last week and the announcement and dinner on Monday evening which was lovely. Ian Hislop announced the awards and gave a great speech…extremely funny infact. “I don’t know a lot about art…..no that’s it” was his opening gambit.
Overall I enjoyed the show but as many are now saying there is a little too much photorealism. I remember back in the mid 90’s when there was only the excellent Philip Harris and me doing it and and then the show was criticised for being too much like Freud and Euglow in style. It has certainly turned right around but those mid 90’s shows did seem more varied. I think it is the impact of digital photography over the past 5 years or so has made a big impact. It has absolutely revolutionised the way that I work and I love photography more than ever before now. The digital revolution is just wonderful and I think artists/ painters are captivated by the ease and absolute control you have with digital photography and it’s seemingly limitless possibilities that they want to incorporate it into their work. Certainly I never leave the house without a little snapper, even the cheapest little cameras give excellent quality results and I’m snapping and thinking all the time and the images are so disposable you can take as many pictures as you want and review them when you get home. Just incredible, and I think this is the reason that we are seeing so much photorealism at the moment, artists are just responding to modern technology, as I think they should.
My own personal favourites are Jason Walkers “Natalie” which I think should certainly have made the shortlist again, great use of pattern in a painting and beautifully muted tonal colour and the Mexican artist who came second in 2006 Raphael Rodriguez Cruz with a portrait of a woman with so much pain in her expression it almost reduces you to tears just looking at it – very powerful I think and nice to see Paul Benney again, one of the past heavyweights from the competition with his beautifully composed Californian looking swimming pool portrait.
June 22nd, 2008
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