Recent Paintings

A Selection of Large Paintings and a Drawing

Study in Pink and Grey

 

A painting from the end of last year that is still up in the studio. Sorting stuff today and preparing some boards and canvases, thinking about what to do in school tomorrow as another half term rears it's ugly head. Haven't posted anything here for a long time. Too busy letting life get in the way. Changes, movements, ill health, things going on with the house. Should we stay? Or should we go? Working on a new painting in part inspired by the poems of John Clare. Which is more of a re-working. I often find after a break that I rework an old painting to get back into the swing of things. Painted out a landscape that has hung in the kitchen for about ten years as well today. The cathartic sweep of white gesso over old acrylic, funny thing is that I think the painting that will replace it in the 'new' kitchen will be even older. So old that it was in my degree show, a painting that I still go back to. Does that show a distinct lack of progress in the last 30 years? Probably. Maybe it's my one hit wonder. Will get a decent picture of the Clare inspired painting when it has developed a bit more, and the weather is slightly less grey and wet.

The Badger Question

'Blue Sky Above' acrylic on canvas 100 cm x 100 cm.
The painting pictured will soon be on show at the Affordable Art Fair in Stockholm with the lovely Stock Gallery. Along with three other large canvases and a raft of smaller paintings it should be quite a display. I hope the dear people of Stockholm enjoy.
In other news I have lots of exhibitions and opportunities all coming together this month. This week I am really pleased to be showing some work with Comme Ca at the Buy Art Fair in Manchester and will even make the preview evening on Thursday. Just spent the weekend at the first Wilmslow Art Trail event showing my work alongside Di Metcalfe who I have exhibited with previously at the White Gallery in Bollington. Had a very enjoyable weekend even without sales, and so to the title of this post, coined from another art fair in the company of Julie Miles and Hilli Mcmanus the phrase has come to me to illustrate that idea that as artists we can trace a trend or even anticipate one. I expect at every moment in time someone catches the  Zietgiest, the girl with the great bobbed hair and super slim figure in the 1960s, the bleached blond boy with the biggest wooped hair and ripped jeans in the 1980s, but I don't believe you can second guess these things, I always remember Jarvis Cocker of Pulp saying that they played the same music for fifteen years and during a brief moment became trendy and in front of the public gaze. That I believe is the way of these things. Was it that the Beatles and Elvis were super talented? (undoubtedly) But also they were there just at the right time as many other people could have been or weren't.
So if on an endless unrewarding day trying to shift your art onto an unsuspecting public they are dismayed by your birds or rabbits or alpacas and ask 'have you any Badgers' you must simply politely say that unfortunately not and hope that next time you set up your stall you find the bird lover with art on their mind.

As Fast As My Little Brush Can Go

New paintings recently completed for inclusion in a group show this November at The Gorstella Gallery. Enjoying playing with the composition and keeping the backgrounds simple and light. Got lots on this summer and will post images and information as it happens. Images are 'Song Thrush', 'Three Tree Sparrows', 'Three Wood Warblers', 'Two Gold Finches', 'Two Great Tits, Three Coal Tits, Thrush and Sparrow' and 'Two Robins'. All acrylic on board 15 cm x 15 cm except 'Two Great Tits..' which is 30 cm x 30 cm.   

Starlings and Trips to Liverpool

Painting nearing completion for the King of Cats Touring exhibition. Birds still need their speckles and beaks and eyes. The painting is 70 x 50 cm on canvas in acrylic and is based on an idea inspired by the Starlings that are not in the chimney knocking down soot.
Been to Liverpool and the Walker art gallery to collect my rejected painting from the John Moores 2014. Didn't do too badly getting in from over 2500 entries to the next stage of 180 but not through to the actual show of 52 works. Did get to speak with the project organiser which was very interesting and lifted my mood enough not to chuck the canvas into the river.
Thought I was in with a good chance this year and it seems that I was pretty close. Do I continue to waste my time and effort on these things? Can I get validity from some other avenue?
Decided to try and push the bird paintings toward a more fluid interpretation of how I experience the wildlife around me. Trying to add a feeling of that fleeting glimpse that you get from watching the birds in the garden. Will post the results when they arrive. 

Anxious Green

Painting completed yesterday (09/02/2014). 'Anxious Green' acrylic on canvas 40 cm x 40 cm
Number 2 in a series exploring ideas of mental health. This one has the top of Tina's head and a selection of garden birds (it is not a comment on her mental health). Not sure about the green, could be read as grass, when I am more interested in a slightly uncomfortable colour scheme.
Went to a seminar about approaching Galleries and Curators on Saturday co run by Castlefield Gallery and a-n. Came away feeling as if I could not forward my practice without already having a relationship with a curator or to be leaving an MA course (in London), a continuing feeling of 'them' and 'us' that I have had for the last few years. Back to being much more positive today, I would be making these paintings even if I was the only one to see them, everything else is a bonus.
Think I might enter this painting in the National Open Exhibition, I have another in planning so might wait and see how that turns out.

A Strip of Trees

'A Strip of Trees' acrylic on canvas 100 cm x 100 cm reworked and revisited for a group exhibition at the Lowry Hotel in Salford. Exhibitions starts on Thursday 16th January.

Nervous Yellow

This morning I have submitted my digital image for the John Moores painting prize for 2014. Shown above acrylic on canvas 40 cm x 40 cm. Been trying to imagine ideas around mental health and that gesture that people make to indicate you are crazy where they spin their finger at their temple. Read somewhere that this comes from the idea that your head is full of birds fluttering around which is quite an interesting description of how you might feel if you are going a bit crazy.

So I've tried a typically Rainham way to illustrate this idea. In searching for the information about the gesture I came across a book called 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman which describes the descent into madness for woman at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

Her mental health, described as nervousness, deteriorates when she is kept in an attic room of an old house that is wallpapered in a horrid, florid yellow paper. She begins to obsess about the pattern of the paper and thinks she sees a woman moving around behind it. The room is described as a nursery but shows signs of being somewhere where someone has been kept by force. there are iron rings in the wall, bars at the window and a big heavy bed screwed to the floor.  

The original colour of the background of the painting was my usual blue but I have changed it for this vivid yellow in response to the book.

Will know if the painting gets through to the second stage in February.

Of The Corner of My Eye

Newly completed painting acrylic on canvas 40 x 40 cm. Off to Will's Art Warehouse for their winter exhibition (not mentioning the c-word). Trying to illustrate the experience I have of seeing wildlife in my environment, that fleeting glimpse and playing with the decorative elements of my work. Tried it with green leaves as they were the ones I selected from the garden, especially the tear shaped Bay leaves, great to draw round and you get a lovely waft of herb, but I realised that I really have a problem with green. So an autumnal feel which I suppose is suitable for the season. Interesting to hear on Grayson Perry's much quoted lecture that blue paintings are what people want and I have also read that red ones sell for more, so I'm hitting two criteria with one image and avoiding horrid green.
More completed images soon and details of where my work can be seen over the next few months.

Buy Art Fair Manchester

This little painting 10x10 cm acrylic on board 'Willow Tit and Blue Tit' one of a group on show at The Buy Art Fair in Manchester with Comme Ca stand 83. Fair is on Saturday and Sunday 28th and 29th September in Spinningfields. Lots of interesting things to see at the fair and The Manchester Contemporary too

New Studio

It's taken most of the year so far but I finally have my studio back as a working space and much improved it is too. Still need a few finishing touches and a shelf for my paints and brushes but I have actually been in it and done some painting. Have a few days left before school goes back to sort through and catalogue all my teaching materials and painting resources and choose which art books can go on my shelves. Looking forward to painting and being able to have some heating for the first time in two years.

Things of Joy and Beauty

Had a very uplifting and thought provoking evening on Tuesday at Manchester University listening to the Cockcroft Rutherford lecture by Richard Thompson about 'In Place of War'.
Richard is obviously a man at the top of his discipline using drama and theatre in war zones and places of conflict to help those involved come to terms with the situations they are in. His belief and the concrete evidence of the pro-active use of creative intervention in such situations was inspirational. How wonderful to hear of arts and creativity being used, supported and participated in, right at the heart of where you would think it would be the last thing on ones mind. The value of what he does was never under question, in fact one member of the audience felt he should be stopping wars with his theatre, an unusal position for the arts to find themselves.
My practice is very far removed from Richards and the team he works with but I couldn't help feeling a little bit of that value and belief he had in  things creative could rub off on me and that in my heart the hope that all people want something of joy and beauty will save the creative industries and all the things that are good and positive in world. I wonder if our government would be as supportive as that of Sri Lanka? 

Hampstead Affordable Art Fair

The Hampstead Affordable Art Fair starts today with lots of wonderful affordable art work to buy. What could be a better way to start the weekend? All details at Affordable art fair website or www.wills-art. com
Image above 'Three Blue Tits' acrylic on board 15cm x 15 cm part of a group of four paintings that fit together or stand alone, still on show at Harvey Nichols Manchester 

Spring Birds

Four more images from the exhibition at Harvey Nichols Manchester. From top 'Hours in the Garrden' 15x 15 cm acrylic on board. 'Robin' 10 x 10 cm acrylic on board.'Two Jays in a London Park' 50 x 70 cm acrylic on canvas and 'Coal Tit' 10 x 10 cm acrylic on board. Exhibition on until 17th June  

New Paintings for Harvey Nichols Manchester

Three of twenty three paintings deliverd today to Claire at Comme Ca for an exhibition in the restaurant at Harvey Nichols in Manchester. More images to come soon. Pictures are from top 'A Stray Moment of Perfection' acrylic on canvas 100 cm x 100 cm. 'Three Blue Tits' 15cm x 15cm acrylic on board and 'Two Mistle Thrushes' acrylic on board 20 cm x 20 cm

Battersea and Hong Kong

Not two places you would usually connect but The Affordable Art Fair opens today to the public in Battersea and moves on to Hong Kong for the 15th March . I have a new selection of bird paintings in both so pop on the bus or the Star Ferry and go and have a look. Picture above 'Sing The Silence' acrylic on board 30 x 30 cm  

Battersea Affordable Art Fair 7th to 10th March 2013

Last painting completed and ready to be sent to Will's Art Warehouse for the next Battersea Art Fair 7th to 10th March 2013. If you would like tickets please leave a comment 

Painting for The Affordable Art Fair

New painting of Wrens in the Witch Hazel tree that I can see from my kitchen window. Acrylic on canvas 40 cm x 40 cm destined for Will's Art Warehouse and the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea in March

Birds Bound For Hong Kong

A selection of small acrylic paintings on board ready for the Affordable Art Fair in Hong Kong