Here are a few shots from the recent show in London at Plus One with Philip Harris ahd Simon Hennessey. The guy infront of my painting “The Curious Case of the Levitating, Tattoed Man” is Ray, the subject of the painting and he is able to levitate approximately 12 cm off the ground for about 30 seconds at a time when he is in his meditative state.
Phil and Simon made some great work for the show and it was a real buzz showing with them in a figurative basd show.
May 9th, 2011
Here’s a portrait of Anne’s excellent niece, Kate. She came around to my studio one Sunday morning and put on a selection of hats, the one on the right I have used in quite a few portraits and I always think a beret looks incredibly cool and I liked this image ( on the left) because it felt quite timeless, almost asif it could have come from the 1940’s.
She’s not quit as solemn as she is in these drawings, I asked her to look serious.
It’s a drawing on A2 size paper so the overall mounted size is just bigget than A1
May 9th, 2011
click to enlarge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWQwFSpsXWc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY36gf62nzU
Here is a recently finished drawing of the Birmingham based Jazz musician Andy Hamilton CBE. I think Andy is now around 92 years old. He’s been playing in and around Birmingham for years as well as internationally. I saw him years ago at The Bear jazz club in Birmingham where he played weekly for years. I’ve been meaning to catch up with him for a long time, a little like Kitty, and back in the summer I arranged to go around to his house for a sitting which went wonderfully. When I arrived he came gliging down the staircase on his stair lift dressed in his perfectly appropriate pin striped suit and trilby clutching his saxophone. Andy is exactly the kind of sitter I love to paint or draw because he looks so fantastic and authentic and also because of my interest in music.
This one will be in the show at Plus One.
February 27th, 2011
invitation-black-and-white-1.pdf – (click on link)
The Frissiras Museum , Athens. 2/3/11 – 31/7/11
The Frissaris Museum is about to stage an exhibition called “Black and White”. It features work from their collection of drawings, etchings paintings and lithographs. They sent me a catalogue yesterday because they are showing one of my paintings and it looks like a great show. I like the poster with the fantastic Greek typography. Quite a lot of the artists are Greek and I’m not familiar with most so it’s lovely to see what they are up to. There are a few names I recognise, Aurback, Hockney and Rego so we’re all certainly in good company. It’s nice to see galleries doing shows in monochrome, it’s a wonderful area to explore.
Americans Now, The Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. Continues until 10th July.
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/americansnow/index.html
This exhibition features to of my portraits, Cormac McCarthy and Prof. Murray Gell-Mann.
In Focus, Plus One Gallery, London. 16/3/11 – 9/4/11
http://www.plusonegallery.com/Shows-Detail.cfm?ShowsID=215
This show opens in a few weeks and features the figurative work of 3 artists, Philip Harris, Simon Hennessey and myself.
February 27th, 2011
I met Ray a few years ago and admired his full body tattoo from neck to ankle in a japanes style. I invited him over to my studio for the day and took a series of shots. We decided to do the whole shoot with Ray naked , which kind of made sense. Anne had been out for the morning and forgot Ray was coming over and barged into the studio with Max, our dog. Ray was in a curled up foetus position and Max went straight over to inspect Ray’s bum. Quite an entrance. It was a great shoot though, we must have done about 18 different compositions and this is the first painting that I have done from the sitting. I liked the idea that he was levitating because it was such a calm, contemplative pose and I just imagined Ray in a Zen like trance, gently rising up just a few inches off the ground.
This will be in the exhibition in London during March ( together with other new pieces and some previous work) with the excellent artists Philip Harris and Simon Hennessey.
I’ll be completing my portrait drawing of Andy Hamilton CBE very soon so I’ll post that next week.
(click on the image to enlarge)
February 19th, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpJ9G3jjxvo
I went to see C.W.Stoneking last weekend in Birmingham with Mike, my brother in law. What a great gig, he’s not too famous yet but I’ve been listening to him for the past 18 months or so and he’s great. A kind of fusion of delta blues from the 1920’s , New Orleans Jazz with a sprinkling of Tom Waits , and the strange thing is he’s Australian but it’s a great gumgo of sound.
February 19th, 2011
I received the sad news that Kitty Godley had died last Monday morning from her daughter the following day. I think we all open e-mails in a rather automatic way, each one seems to have the same weight and importance but when I resad the message I was really taken back by the sad news. I ‘ve left a few days before I posted anything because I hadn’t seen anything in the press until Fridays’s obituary piece in The Times.
I remember when I was about 16 seeing a poster of a profile portrait of Kitty by Lucian Freud which was in the collection ate the old Walsall museum and art gallery. I immediately loved it and at this age had timmid hopes / aspirations of being an artist. I went into the gallery , the first time I had ever dared set foot into a gallery in fact feeling crushed by the feeling that I shouldn’t actually be here and hoped no one would speak to me and I looked at the painting that I had seen in the poster. As the years went on I went to art college and graduated and worked professionally, almost forgetting about the profile of Kitty having devoured so many images over the years. It was still at the beack of my mind and towards the millenium I started to wonder if Kitty was still alive. I carried on working on my own work and commissions and around 2005 I thought right, if I’m going to catch up with Kitty I’ll haveto do it soon. I liaised with The New Art Gallery ,Walsall and got in touch. I first spoke to her on the telephone, I speak quite quickly, like a machine gun some say, and with a broad accent and Kitty spoke very very quietly and slowly, almost in a kind of distracted way. Kitty was extremely obliging and agreed to allow me to visit. It was a idealistic gentile picture postcard little country village, thatched cottages, duck ponds and village pubs. I immagined the locals to be like the Warmington on Sea home guard or John Gielgud and it certainly felt more like the 1940’s than 2005.
I walked up the overgrown pathway to Kitty’s door. I hadn’t seen any photographs of her since the 1950’s and as soon as I saw Kitty I thought “Wow, waht a fantastic face”. I went in and had a glass of water with her. “I like your wallpapaer” I said. “Morris” said Kitty. It was very much the bohemian cottage I would have expected , Aga, log burner, and paintings, drawings and etchings on the the wall. But not your ordinary pictures. Kitty’s family donated their art collection to Walsall Art Gallery in 1972 and what a collection it was, Van Gough, Picasso, Constable, Freud the list goes on. So, as I walked around Kitty’s house I walked passed a Courbet landscape or a Goya etching. Kitty was a keen painter herself and in one corner was an easel with a painting in progress. Celotaped onto the wall was a newspaper cutting about her former husband, Lucian Freud’s recent exhibition. I was trying to settle down to the sitting but was constantly interrupted by her cleaner who was dusting and hoovering around us, then a carpenter came to work on the front door and later came the meals on wheels for Kitty and her husband Wynne. So, there was a kind of Chaos going on but we managed to settle an chat. We both shared the same favourite Freud portrait which was of John Minton. Kitty talked about when she used to be married to Freud and Francis Bacon used to come over for the weekend and disappear to the next village in pursuite of male company and gambling. Kitty really didn’t care for Bacon she said. Towards the end of the sitting I met her husband Wynne Godley and we had a long chat about America and the two of them living in New York in the 50’s and how glamorous that seemed to me. I could tell that they loved eachother very much and I think their relationship is the thing that I remember most about my visit. Despite the chaotic sitting I left feeling invigorated because Kitty had let me into her world I knew I’d got some great material to work with.
January 17th, 2011
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, busy Autumn. Here’s my latest commissioned portrait. It is of a local Reverand, Father Michael. I don’t do that many local portraits but it’s so handy to have sitters just around the corner. It is set in a church called The Mount which is in Caldmore in Walsall. Over the years it had been , I guess neglected and beautiful ornate sections of he church were boarded over. In the 1980’s it underwent a full restoration, getting it back to how it would have looked when it was built and it is a beautiful building inside. I must confes I’ve passed it many times and only went in when the commission came to light and I couldn’t quite believe that it was so opulent inside.
The size of the portrait is approx 48″ x 38″ framed and it is acrylic on canvas
December 22nd, 2010
This is a painting for the group portrait show in London in March. It’s a self portrait of me and Max my dog. I did a soimilar drawing some time ago. It’s reasonably large scale for me, around 38″ if I remember correctly. I found the scale rather overwhelming becaue I usually work slightly smaller than real life. I’ve begun to really love doing self portraits, I guess in the tradition of Rembrandt , but not in a concious way, it’s just interesting to see how your face changes over time and the older it gets th more interesting. It’s certainly something I think I’ll continue with throughout my life whether paintings or drawings , certainly not for any interest in self vanity, just an interest in the ageing process.
Acrylic on canvas
December 22nd, 2010
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