A lot has happened since...

As the title suggests above, there has been some increased activity art wise and art business in general. I have still got my studio within the old church but the students moved out during August and as a whole in Sept. This last push was made by Blackburn is Open as they believed the cubicles would have been taken over by other artists, but this wasn't the case.
So, the students moved into an old shop in Preston city centre that is owned by the uThink art company and they were excited by this as they thought it was a permanent position but alas, it wasn't to be. They tried to get me involved with the venture but I saw the flaws from the beginning and distanced myself away. This resulted in my lonely tenureship within the church and my becoming in the role of guardian of the building.

The students finally got thrown out off the shop because of a Black History Month exhibition in which I made two pieces called 'Nigger Queer Cunt" which was three typewritten squares of each word repeated until eligible. The concept was to purge each word from my mind and to highlight the obvious contempt of the gay community within black and Caribbean culture. My work wasn't shown and I haven't had any feedback. I discussed my piece to the gallery owbers and they were pleased with the outcome but I think the conclusion to the work spoke for itself.

As well as this work, I was involved with an exhibition held in Sheffield called Play by Sharon Mossbeck and Michael Borkowsky. This show was based on computers and computer programming based artworks and for this one, I exhibited two of my dot matrix drawings. My participation with this show was quite surprising as I have never met either of the two and it was Sharon who saw my work on facebook. She liked my work and suggested that I took part and I'm glad I did. I couldn't go to the opening night as I was involved with another show in Manchester as part of the Free For Arts Festival 2014 - Free For All Exhibition.

For the Free For Arts show I continued the 'the first waves of nothing' installation piece. This is the continuation of the edited prose that I have been working on through the summer and is now reaching its zenith. I basically retype the prose within the gallery where I am exhibiting and with this, the prose evolves with each sitting. I have now exhibited the piece at least three times now and together with the original, I have now five editions. The latest edition was typed at the FFAF exhibition and now is on show at the Soup Kitchen event called Malentandu-Nous magazine. This event is on tonight and I wont be typing the work here as this part of the project has finished and part two has been started.

So with that being the art activity, I have been involved with an ad hoc gallery within the old church which I have called the Corridor. I have had three exhibitions that are a month long. As I work in the studio, I leave the front door open and the public wanders in and I interact with them. I have shown the Lucien Fellowes work with the rusty nuts and bolts and the large scale road side markings, an open/varied exhibition with work that had been left behind by the students and lately, work by a guy called Ted Lynch and some of my assemblages.

The building now holds events such as a Halloween Ball, a rave and this weekend, Back to Blackburn starring Dave Haslam and Wayne Hemmingway. I have had work damaged in both of the former events and I had to take work down for the latter for some reason. I just hope I don't have work damaged at the weekend. There is a committee now involved with the church in which I am involved so I will push the gallery and have my say about the recent events. It is getting quite interesting now as they are so many people wanting there input with the building. I'm just glad that the building is being used and not just shut up, stagnating.

Oh, and lest I forget...Papergirl has now moved to Blackburn. This is the project by Alex Gallagher who sends out invites to artists to create and donate work to her so she can deliver these to the general public in the style of an American newspaper boy. This project has been carried out in Berlin and in Manchester. I visited the Manchester version a few years ago when I was studying there, I participated in the Blackburn one. The exhibition for the Blackburn one was held last week and the handing out of artworks is this Saturday so I look forward to the response to locals from a northern town to free art.

Masonic Gravestone | Blackburn

This grave can be found within the graveyard at St John's the Evangelist Church in Blackburn. It is where I am having my art residency and exhibition. It has as much symbology from the Masons that you can shake a stick at. It is pointing straight up to the Masonic Lodge in Blackburn, which is a coincidence.

It has:

The letter G
the Globes of the Stars and the Earth
the All Seeing Eye
the Compass and Set Square
the Arch and Centre Stone
the Jacob's Ladder
the Seven Stars
the Moon and the Sun
the Key to Heaven
The Pyramid
and others that I can't make out.

The ground was consecrated in 1786 with a stone carved with the Blazing Star.

Invigilators Chairs

Invigilators Chairs at The Old Blind School, Liverpool Biennial:Liverpool.

New Work - Open Studios

New Wall Mounted Assemblage


Open Studio with Typewriter and Assemblage


Tea Stained Edited Prose in 24 Installments

This was the result of the six week long open studio/residency at St John's the Evangelist Church in Blackburn. I decided to work with found wood that I searched for in the evirons of the church. Thankfully, a building was being converted from shops into a mosque so I was able to find some good materials. I have some left over for my next project. In total I have made nine different assemblages for the church but this new one has been a new concept in how I make them. I made the assemblage from the first to last piece found. I quite like this new way of making them.

The Edited Prose is called 'The First Waves of Nothing'. I named it after a phrase that is used in the second installment and fitted in with what I was doing. This piece took me two and a half years and certain piss taking to complete and a further six weeks to type up. I have used tea stained/dyed paper that I have experimented with. I started with too much tea and now know the correct method/times.

The piece is a 22 paged foray into a split second of someone's mind as they walk through the street. It is very schizophrenic in tone. I found it hard to read. The text is wholly grammer free and carries no punctuation.




Domesticity | 35mm Glass Slides, 3 Photographs, a Brick and a 35mm View Finder

This is my brand new project and I think of leaving the concept to speak for it self. The photographs needs to be a lot bigger though. I ned to find a relevant exhibition to show this work.

Posters for ALTAR exhibition

Poster for Art Exhibition-Main Event | Designed by me.


Poster for Art Exhibition-Music Event | Designed by Yves Leather

Images of brand new work

When I was on my birthday trip to Portmadog/Portmeirion, we stopped at a carboot sale in Tremadog. I bought a selection of glass 35mm photograph slides for a ridiculous price of 50p. Most of these were of some trip or other but I found three gems that depicted a lovely story. Basically, a photo of a car and holiday home, a man washing up and the couple smiling. The photos are dated in the mid sixties and I left them to one side.

A few weeks later, we took a trip to Fleetwood and visited some charity shops. I bought a backlight/batteryless 35mm viewfinder and looked at these slides for the first time in full blown colour. I took the the slides to the local camera shop and in now waiting for the images to be blown up.

I know how I want to present these photos and have a concept/installation planned out and took a mock up photo of what it'll look like. The piece will be titled [domesticity] and hopfully be shown soon. It is a very honest piece of work and is free from all baggage and pretense. I am very excited.


Mock-up of intended exhibition minus A2 prints of 35mm slides.


Scanned version on of the 35mm slides,

photos of exhibition

Angela Hoyland _ Fragments 2014


Michelle Whalen _ Composition 2014


Lee Wareing _ Jack 2014


Jodie Dee Webb _ Dad 2014


Sonny J. Barker _ Untitled 2014

These are selected works from the main members of a newly founded art collective called New Wave Arts [n|w|a]. We were founded at UCBC/Blackburn College to allow art to be shown in unusual places within the Blackburn and its environs. This was our inaugural exhibition and as a duo, Me and Lee Wareing are showing in October within the Free For Arts Festival 2014.