on-going work

This is ongoing work based on decollage amd Jonathan Miller.. These photos where taken at the Russell Square tube station last month and is the basis of my newish project on the process art, decollage..I need to do more research than Pop Art and Dada.

work at the LINK

So I have been part of two different exhibitions at the same time. Both exhibitions has been really hard work and the concepts so very different. I had one solo show in the Link gallery at MMU which was photography and artifact led and alos part of a collaboration show at BlankSpace in Manchester, at this one sculpture led.

The theme for the Link was based on my Lucien Fellowes project which involves a man who is lost within a cubicle of time and just sees snapshots of our time..the 3rd Dimension. He sees our road side markings as broken hieroglyphs and not as continuous lines. He denotes these markings as messages and is tryting to decode them. I believe that as Humans we leave traces; the traces that we leave are caught by Mr. Fellowes and he collects these remnants as talismans that binds us with him.

I have been working on this concept now for at least a year. It all started when I found a blue wheel nut laying at the kerb-side and then found another completely different wheel nut further down the road. I started to find and collect what I had found and this lead to photographing and archiving human traces which I have collected under the [facebook] umbrella title of; Lucien Fellowes and his Collection of Particulars. From this I have developed a side-line in road-side markings that which has been the focus of my creative mind.

After being allowed into the Link for a solo show, I have been througfh a tolling selection process and from a collection of over two hundred images I have selected 12. I have four A0 and 8 A1 prints all on Matt paper. I have then mapped out the link with a narrative and after a month of printing, rejecting, placing and then finally deciding where they'll go, the cabinet of artifacts had to be decided upon.

I wanted the Link to have a travelling museum aspect to it and had a dialogue from start (foyer) to the finish (entrance to the Holden Gallery) and I think I achieved what I set out. In the foyer was the artifact display, the small collection of Polaroids and the projector flashing black and white road-side markings. In the link was the dialogue of prints. The all where hung using jumbo-sized bulldog clips and looked professional.

I was happy with the excecution and thought I had done a good job of curating my first solo show. The concept was highly personal but I think I had achieved fluidity in the work. The titles that I had given the work where a little oblique and strange and I think I need to refine my concepts and how I explain to other people a lot more.

hindu colour signifiers

Colors in Hinduism

Red - In Hindu religion red is of utmost significance and the color most frequently used for auspicious occasions like marriages, birth of a child, festivals etc. A red mark is put on the forehead during ceremonies and important occasions. As a sign of marriage, women put red powder on the hair parting. They also wear a red sari during marriage. Red powder is usually thrown on statues of deities and phallic symbols during prayers. It is also the color of Shakti (prowess). A red colored dress is put on deities who are charitable, brave, protective and who have the capacity to destroy evil. On the death of a woman, her body is wrapped in a red cloth for the cremation.

Saffron - It represents fire and as impurities are burnt by fire, this color symbolizes purity. It also represents religious abstinence. It is the color of holy men and ascetics who have renounced the world. Wearing the color symbolizes the quest for light. It is the battle color of the Rajputs, the warrior caste.

Green - Symbolizing peace and happiness, it stabilizes the mind. The color is cool to the eyes and represents nature.

Yellow - This is the color of knowledge and learning. It symbolizes happiness, peace, meditation, competence and mental development. It is the color of spring and activates the mind. Lord Vishnu's dress is yellow symbolizing his representation of knowledge. Lord Krishna and Ganesha also wear yellow dresses.

White - It is a mixture of seven different colors hence it symbolizes a little bit of the quality of each. It represents purity, cleanliness, peace and knowledge. The goddess of knowledge, Saraswati is always shown as wearing a white dress, sitting on a white lotus. The other prominent deities would also have a touch of white on their dress. A Hindu widow would wear a white dress in mourning.

Blue - The Creator has given the maximum of blue to nature (i.e.) the sky, the oceans, the rivers and the lakes. The deity who has the qualities of bravery, manliness, determination, the ability to deal with difficult situations, of stable mind and depth of character is represented as blue colored. Lord Rama and Krishna spent their life protecting humanity and destroying evil, hence they are colored blue.

Holi Festival at Platt Fields

Today, I attended the Hindi festival of Holi. I have had only heard of this festival by word of mouth and from certain television programmes. As a friend was attending, I decided to go as well.

It is the 20 March today and tomorrow it is the 21st, the significance with this is that it is the Spring Equinox and is the first day of Spring. It is also a bright Full Moon. Holi is celebrated at the last full moon of winter and brings in the Spring portion of the year. It is a feat for all this coincide at the Equiniox so it is bringing cultures together at such an important time of the year i.e. Easter. It is also known as the ritual of love.

well with all the blurb over I'll continue..When we eventually found the place in Platt Fields, the walkways and the people where sprinkled with multi-coloured powders.. They danced and danced with glee and wafted, placed and smeared each other with these powders which a stall vendor was selling. Me and my friends became enticed within the celebrations and eventually lost our British inhibitions and joined in.

A few of the acts halted the proceeding somewhat and the dancing and fun died down until the music began again and fun was had in earnest. After a few more layers were added by the hinhi people to my face, everybody else became even more technicolor. I saw certain people became even more colourful and some evolved within the colour spectrum from green, violet, yellow, red and eventually magenta. I need to look up the relevances of these colours..red seems to signify passion!!

the making of [MOTHERcreate]

The construction and concept of the piece changed ever-so slightly, lthough the basic premise did stay true to what I intended to achieve. As stated below, it was based on the concept of GAIA, trhe Earth Goddess.

The hardest part of the process for me was getting the shape into the CNC people at Uni, I usually hand saw my work but with the sheer size and scale, I needed help. This meant that I hand to vectorise my hand drawing into Illustrator, convert it into another file and then use a dongle to open up another program so that the CNC machine could read what I saved. This in turn had to be done again because I added an extra six inches and I should really save in millimetres. I couldn' t buy any wood until this process was over with. In all, it took a week from asking until doing.

When the two side pieces was cut I then quickly bought and naiuled the central portion and had a free standing structure. It was very wobbly and thought I needed to adhere it slightly so I bought some Expanding Foam. I sprayed the central portion and it looked a mess. I left and went home and didn't sleep, mulling over what I should do. I thought of getting canvas and stapling it tautly and then..schting..CARDBOARD and GUMMED-STRIP.

When at Uni, I invaded the bins and found sufficient cardboard and promptly started boxing in. A tutor said that she didn't like the hardened foam..but I did and was wondering what to do with it. After boxing most of it, I had it driven to the gallery space and placed it where it was going to be shown. I then carried on with the construction and as this was the next day, began painting with a mixture of Blackboard paint and Radiator Enameled white paint. With some new expanding foam I filled the small gap that I have intentionally left and molded it to look liuke it was oozing from the area. It was the first time that I've used this material. I had a concept of Chaos..the father of the planet and the whole concept then took shape.

For some reason the structure began to sag, the cardboard after getting wet and then painted fell over the wooded sides. I asked my fellow artists what to do and had the suggestion of buying a roll of cardboard..at 6.30pm. I phoned the relevant people and the best response was to wait until the next morning.

I thought long and hard about what to do and took a scalpel to it and began to slice chunks off the sculpture..all the sagging bits and began carve it back into shape. From wanting to destroy it to doing cosmetic surgery was a fine line, a very fine line indeed. This took me until 9pm when I had lunch and when I finished encircling the piece, I picked up a paint brush and applied sand-infused black paint in large expressionist waves. I then left at 10.30 for my bus home.

The day after I asked a fellow artist to buy some black paint ready for me to use and she did some painting for me. She then suggested to leave areas un painted as she thought it looked good and fell in line with my concept and work ethic. After reaching the gallery, I agreed and when a mini-understanding with another exhibitor was over with, I began the finishing touches. With shifting slightly the location and adding sifficient lighting..I have the sculpture that I have before you.

I do think now that I have created my first ever sculpture. The other pieces that I have done are/was constructions and structures in that I have constructed them. With MotherCreate I have sculpted the materials with implements and thought of it as a completely different process. It was a lot harder to make and the work evolved over time and I had to use my wits and intelligence to overcome the obstacle. I have learnt a lot of processes both creatively and mentally and I think I have grown as an artist.

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The Final Concept behind [MOTHERcreate]

The outer shell is Gaia, She isn' t perfect but is beautiful, the insides is Chaos who is post-coital and is oozing after the unison. The white smooth wood circle is the earth and humanity.

We try to make what we have perfect as in GM Food, Biotechnology and the like but we have Chaos and Gaia looking over our shoulders (and with the light effects that are placed over the sculpture) and as they are omnipresent, do their utmost to remind us of their powers as in natural disasters, warfare and disease.

first evidence of - [no offence intended]

Me describing the concept of .. | [MOTHER create]

Intervention Art and the perils of

I am new to the concept of Interventaion Art. What I know is basic. I don't know the artist and what the consequences of their actions are. Well at least I know what the consequences of my own action though. It made me quite shame-faced, on tenterhooks and slightly embarrased. The origins of the opening statements have transpired through my own slightly ad-hoc interpretation of the whole Intervention genre.

It all happened on the 10 March when I found a very screwed up invitation to a gallery opening in the computer room of the University...there was three names of international art students from my university and they was from three different aspects of art. Sculpture, Painting and Video: but all 3rd year Fine Art students. I decided to check them out as one of them was a process artist and that is what my art is slowly evolving into. With a few friends we attended the somewhat small scale exhibition but wasn't that impressed with it. It seemed to be lacking pizzazz somewhat. I saw one of the processed art (sculpture) pieces on the upper level and liked it. I tried to find the artist but after looking and asking to indifferent gazes I became a little erratic.

After a while I decided to do some Intervention and place some sweets within a box which had panel pins in it. I didn't think this was really part of the piece (which is the board with pinned see through jiffy bags) and it had four empty chambers. I placed the four squared apple-sour cubed sweets and left.

The day after, I was in Uni doing computer work again when the artist, the painter and the artist's mother tracked me down and began berrating me. I apologised 'whole-heartedly' twice and I explained why. I basically said that I loved her work and wanted 'augment' the work. She wasn't that impressed and began beratting me again. The mother lookeed at me like she wanted to do things with my internal organs and I walked away a little crest-fallen and went home feeling like a little child.

At home I did some large scale research on the genre of Intervention Art and it's begins and found that it was performance based and evolved from the Dadaists, Situationists and other performance based artists such as the Flux communities. I felt less shameful and began to think of the reprecussions of my actions.

As I have two exhibitions coming up, one external and one at the Uni-Link Gallery, I am supposing that Marianna is going to have her fun (at my expense) which she is truly entitled as I have...ruined her work...by placing the sweets. We met on Thursday where I am part of a collective where I was finishing my sculpture. She told me me that she was coming to the gig and asked that she con 'Intervene' with my work. I promptly answered in the affirmative and the even quickly warned the group.

She did arrive two hours after the opening and I greeted her then showed her to my sculpture. I then welcomed her to start her intervening which she answered "no", she left after a few minutes. Well, if her idea of having fun was to make me stew, she succeeded. The whole interaction was recorded onto digital video.

To summarise, Intervention is fun when doing it but has to be done either covertly or mutually. I like the concept and going to play with the format some more. And I do apologise Marianna if I have offended thee but it wasn't intentional.

After talks with some other artists, it transpired that this was an 'intervention' piece of work and the intervention was that the viewer has to knock pins into the piece with the tools left on the desk. It all meant that my action was the 'wrong' type of action to take and I feel it very elitist. The artist's next show surprising was a 'intervention' piece that enabled the viewer to respond and to create, interestingly.