The Magic of Colour, Kent Seas and Skies, Exhibition

I have been painting a new series of pictures for my exhibition at Bernie's Chocolate Bar in Margate. link to the Chocolate Bar 2-14 High Street, Margate, Kent CT9 1AT  Tel  01843 221420  facebook page here

The exhibition, The Magic of Colour, Kent Seas and Skies will be open from Saturday 2nd January from 2pm till January 28th, 2016.

As the title suggests I have been influenced by the amazing colours we get in the skies and seas here in Thanet, Kent.  A number of paintings will be on box canvases and I'll also include some framed prints of my work.

The show will be an affordable exhibition,  with cards and unframed prints too.  Let me know if you are coming to the exhibition and I'll try to meet you there. Great hot chocolates for a winter's day and the sea outside.

 

Mr Lion exhibition at Turner Contemporary

We, Blank Canvas,  have a second exhibition, based on the mysterious and enigmatic Mr Lion, at Turner Contemporary, on show now till the 8th of January.   Link to the website here.

  In this exhibition called Mr Lion 14, we are showing a couple of short films with a soundtrack and a series of photographs which have been printed in the polaroid style. The work in part, reflecting the fictitious relationship we created to Mr Lion.

The film is as mysterious as the character of Mr Lion, using film we shot in various locations including, Dreamland, Quex Park, Turner Contemporary and Margate seafront.

Our photographs explore what we realized was the uncatchable nature of this figure, working with shadows, reflections, movements, balloons and spheres to indicate fragments of who we thought this Mr Lion was, and what sort of life he lead.

The exhibition invites the viewer to also explore this character, using the fragments and clues we provide. We also welcome any ideas about Mr Lion generated from the exhibition to our  twitter feed here

Venice Agendas and the Breadman at Turner Contemporary.

Tatsumi Orimoto

Not being able to get to Venice for the Biennale, I was intrigued to see that Turner Contemporary were advertising, the Venice Biennale comes to Margate. with a day called  Venice Agendas.   Crossing Borders The Right to Fail.

The day featured talks, performances, discussions and films. with a whole series of events streamed live through the Periscope App.  This is an app that works on phone and tablet primarily, so I could set it up on my pad.  Turner Contemporary were streaming a lot of events in their gallery on the day too.
This meant I could  watch Jon Adams's performance in Games with the Waterhorse, at home before I went down to the gallery in the afternoon.


 

 I was interested in seeing the artist Tatsumi Orimoto, who has performed all over the world, especially as 'Breadman' Strapping loaves and baguettes of bread on his face, Orimoto travels by train and bus and walks in public performing his communication art. Bread has many associations, with the body, as food, currency and with poverty, but for Orimoto its also about investigating how people respond to him.

Yesterday Orimoto took the Loop bus from Broadstairs to Margate as Bread Man, he is filmed on these performances, and at Turner Contemporary, I watched his travels on the bus before he arrived, smiling at the other passengers expressions to this strange sight.

The weather was terrible, really strong winds, so it was a struggle for Orimoto to walk to the gallery, where he also held a drawing performance, Breadman Performs Lies and signed pieces of bread for visitors.

Breadman Paints Lies

I enjoyed seeing him and watching the performances, Orimoto intrigued me, an elderly Japanese artist, who has been performing Breadman for 30 years or more across the world, he was engaging with a sense of humour and obvious love for his mother, who is also a part of his life and art.

 

In the downstairs gallery there were a series of lovely photographs showing Tatsumi Orimoto's performances and his mother often with bread too. I asked Orimoto if his mother knew much about his art, (she has Alzheimer's) he said not, which I thought was sad, she is in hospital while he travelled to do his performance this time. Orimoto said he is the sole carer for his mother, Art Mama, they share a traditional house in Kawasaki.



Artist Ruth Proctor also performed OK, Set, Drop at one of the exhibits in the Risk exhibition. I watched and filmed as Proctor climbed the 4metre scaffolding and dropped backwards onto a stack of cardboard boxes, with a loud bang.

Disarm (Mechanized) Pedro Reyes

I watched the Disarm(Mechanized) performance by Pedro Reyes, Reyes has for some years been transforming weapons, seized by the Mexican army from drug cartels and turning them into musical instruments. They are controlled by computers and perform in the gallery regularly.

So good to see these events, which left me with a desire to find out more about the artists, especially
 why they were doing the things they were doing.

The Wateland and Altered images

 

We are working on a project looking at TS Eliot's The Wasteland in Blank Canvas.  A poem, part of which was written in Margate, with Eliot sitting in the shelter at Nayland Rock, near the station.

The poem is rich in symbols, imagery and references, as far as I can tell, to much classical, literary, religious and secular thought.

The Wasteland would not be a choice of reading for me, but as an exploration in visual terms, I do find it interesting.

I've not tried to make any art using poems as inspiration before, so this is a new way of working.

Here are some altered images, working with ink on found images of land and seascapes and on paper.
I will continue altering some of my own images next time.

Autumn Themes

With the Autumn season moving on into Winter, I have been working on some of my prints and photographs with an Autumn theme.

My Acer tree's leaves turned red this year, after a couple of years of staying mostly green in the Autumn. I particularly love the vibrant reds, yellows and oranges of  the trees and shrubs, helped by the sun shining at the right time.

I often collect a few leaves on my walks, just to admire them for a few days, along with conkers, with their tactile shape and size.

Seeing trees bare branched with their leaves on the ground around them, I am struck by sense that they have shook off a set of clothes.

Studying Sunflowers

My daughter Ruth bought a lovely bunch of sunflowers this week. I have been enjoying looking at them, taking a few photos and doing some sketches.

We also had a sunflower self seeded in the path at the front of the house, it seemed right to leave it to flower.

As the weather is getting colder, the sunflowers bring a sense of warmth and summer in the house.

I used my water colour pencils and pen and ink for the sketches and some digital processing for the photographs.

Viking Gallery Exhibition, Thanet Selfies.

My two seascapes in white frames.

I am pleased to have two pictures in the Viking Gallery Exhibition, Thanet  Selfies  Two of my colourful seascapes are hanging in the gallery.

The opening was on Saturday 3rd and I enjoyed seeing all the art works and chatting to some of the other artist exhibiters.

There is a good variety of styles of work and mediums, and it's a great space to show work.  Apparently one of the previous uses of the building was as Turkish baths, and one of the huge metal furnace doors is in the exhibition space, which adds to the character.

The gallery is open Thursday to Sundays 12-6pm and the exhibition is open for a few weeks.
The Viking Gallery, Cliftonville Ave, Margate CT9 2AH

New paintings

I have been painting intensively for a few weeks now, and sorting more work for the Art Market in Maidstone  website here  on the 19th September.

I have been using a mixture of watercolour mediums in a series of  seascapes, watercolour pencil crayons, watercolours and acrylic. And using some very thick watercolour paper.

This paper means I can build up layers of colour and create textures and depth to the pictures, which I have been enjoying.

 

I've also been painting some more of my more stylized trees with bright colours, along with Avebury paintings and Cherry trees.