THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 32 : Long Island Sight

 yo! in among The Hamptons with Jackson Pollock.. innit!

here is a self-portrait of the.. 

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

he looks pretty spaced out..

but really he is just 'in the zone'..

he has been at the easel..

trying to cram some drama into his work..

he is drawing with the oil paint tube..

he is slathering it on as well..

and then he is throwing great gobs of the stuff at the canvas..

from distance..

DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME

we are on Long Island..

with Jackson Pollack..

it's f*ckin freezing..

he has no money for heating..

he is still dirt poor..

but Jackson is dancing..

he has the music playing loud..

and he is dancing to all that jazz..

dancing above a huge unrolled canvas on the floor..

and he is carrying a can of paint and a brush or stick,,

he swirls as he goes..

dribbling and dripping..

a rhythmic record of his dance..

soon they will come for him..

photographing and filming him..

making him famous but stealing his soul..

he will drink himself into oblivion and kill himself..

in a .. 

WRECK ON THE HIGHWAY

when he is in the zone..

our artist in residence that is..

he is acting out his fantasy of the artist as hero..

they ain't no outlines..

no perspective..

no restraint..

the artist is mad..

he throws the paint about..

and then he picks up the pieces..

interprets the mess..

and brings it home..

back from the edge..

back from Long Island..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 26 : Fun

 all the fun of the fair

the artist is having fun..

he is painting them nine at once..

it's all speed. gesture. movement..

and colour of course..

lots of it,,

he's throwing it everywhere..

RIDERS ON A STORM

it's a storm alright..

impressionism meets futurism..

at the speed of light..

Terry Frost had said to Alan..

'paint whilst not looking'..

in other words..

don't think about it..

just do it..

and do it fast..

it's all too easy for him..

he fails to realise..

this is him..

this is who he is..

unplanned, thoughtless, hasty..

wild, abandoned, happy..

because the night..

once you edit out the noise..

it's a dance..

a ballet..

a nocturne..

a symphony of colour..

Whistler would have approved..

https://www.saatchiart.com/en-gb/all?query=Charles%20Stuart%20fairground

SEE THE VIDEO ART ON UTUBE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNa_ElSeOg4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw2tEeMnKqs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCiB9Huk3xg

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 24 : Dream Marine

 THE FIGHTING TEMERAIRE

he has crazes..

one of them was boats..

he had toy boats in the bath..

plastic ones with rusted up engines..

in 1995 he goes on holiday to Portugal..

they have lots of brightly coloured..

wooden boats..

everyone knows that..

he goes mad..

charging around the Algarve..

looking for more..

too many are in the water..

or he has to photograph them from the bows..

what he needs is the stern..

the power's in the ass end Mick..

always was..

the best ones are beached..

and bleaching out..

high and dry..

left to rot..

on a trip to Tavira, a sleepy, salty,  town..

on a very hot afternoon..

whist on a river cruise he spies..

a pair of old wooden fishing boats..

sunk into the mud..

in the river estuary..

these two above..

 are a small oil on canvas..

he usually paints the boats in gouache..

TURNER

 painted many boats and marine images..

but no-one calls Turner..

a marine artist..

the artist in residence is just having fun.with one of his many Muses..

he does not see the sadness..

of the passing on of the beautiful wooden boats..

he only loves them..

https://charles-stuart.pixels.com/collections/boats+and+beach

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 23 : Icarus

SPLASH !!!

Gone from this place

Silence only

Earthly delight

Soundless in oblivion

Silent night

Mr Icarus Rising..

Glowering, stammering

Headache hammering

Tears fall shimmering

Hope comes a glimmering

Rising from ground zero

Remade Remodelled 

Undeconstructed

Our hero..

Returns

Found peeled

Appalled

Apart for apart's sake

Lost

Lonely

Destroyed

Icarus rising..

 

reach for the light

Icarus risen

 

All wrong but alright 

Born again bruised, broken and beaten

He stands and delivers..

Howls of frustration

Lust for life lost 

Fallen from favour

Lie about failure

Promise the future..

Perfection in flight

Flight of fancy

From salt water solution..

To new resolution

https://charles-stuart.pixels.com/featured/icarus-in-red-charles-stuart.html 

 

Waxing and waning..

Spend time in training..

Sleep while the sun shines..

Fly while it's raining

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 6

 IN THE CONA BAR WITH DOCILE AND BRUIN

It is 1967 or 8..

our boy is coming of age..

he is 'in town' in Griffin and Spalding a department store..

he is with friends from school..

nick names only..

Docile is Stones but Bruin is Beatles..

they are 'Mods'..

of a kind..

not the Parker and scooter and soul kind..

these guys have

back combed hair and flares..

they also listen to..

Incredible String Band, Spook tooth, Ten Years After..

They are townies where our boy is strictly Burbs..

he is doing 'O' level Art at school..

this is probably an after school thing..

before going home..

on a bus..

NO KEDS YET

our boy is only 15..

these guys are 16..

as is nearly every one in his school year..

Docile and Bruin read 'Oz'

and like underground stuff..

they are aesthetes of a sort..

and so we are in The Cona Bar..

not

THE FOUR SEASONS

where all the proper mods and townies sit..

where a cup of coffee is 8 old pennies..

around 60 cups for £1..

3 cups for two shillings..

that's ten pence in New Money..

about 24 cups of Joe for a $1..

at that time..

here in the Cona Bar..

all are drinking Russian Tea..

tea with no milk in a glass with a slice of lemon..

they are Uptown Top Ranking..

THE PHONE NEVER RINGS BUT IT POURS

nobody needs to wear noise cancelling headphones..

as there are no mobile (cell) phones..

no laptops, no idiot videos for juniors..

who cannot sit at table properly..

here in The Cona Bar..

silence or just a gentle hum of real conversations..

our boy is just a junior partner in this meet..

is is hopelessly out cooled by these guys..

yet he is here..

just as one day he will be an artist..

he is expecting to fly..

and is still but a fledgeling..

but he is both..

Four Seasoned and Cona Barred..

and will struggle to take off..

not an early pick for the team..

he would only have become arrogant..

anyway.. probably..

there are many stories in the tale of..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

will he succeed?

or snatch defeat from the jaws of victory/

can the boy from the Burbs..

be the golden boy..

or has the boy with the glasses..

blond mop and gold lame jacket..

left only muddy waters..

and the blues?

WATCH THIS SPACE

the sugar paper of the Art Class..

will become..

the large canvas of..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

see it all unfold..

in precious technicolor..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 5

The Great Wen

Imagine an office boy.. the office junior..

Imprisoned from 8.30 until 17.00 five days a week..

He is going nuts writing poems and imagining great paintings he will make..

He goes out at 10.00 every day to fetch the sandwiches and pastries for the morning break. 

He dawdles in the square to waste time away from that place.

Then a friend who has stayed on at school to do 'A' level Art and other subjects has news. His Art Teacher has arranged a trip to London for the students to visit The Tate Gallery and see the Magritte Exhibition. 

He has asked the Teacher if Peter can come with them and the answer is Yes. 

It's February 1969 and our boy from the library is in for an Experience.

He gas seen the Magritte's

He is standing in front of 'WHAM'

He is standing in front of Dali.

He is now standing looking at the most exiting painting he has ever seen or imagined. 

Interior II by Richard Hamilton

 is a combination of images both painted and applied and in a variety of media. 

It is, to our boy, stunningly beautiful.

out of all the amazing art he has seen this day it is this picture that will create..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

He wants to make Art like this.

powerful and beautiful..

memorable..

inspiring..

He must get qualified academically and must come to study in London. 

He must find a mentor. 

Go to the best Art Schools. 

Drink with the artists. 

He must become himself

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 4

 A young fella.. 18 just.. 

He is sitting on a park bench in Bangor, County Down.

It is dawn and the sun is rising on the rest of his life.

A rabbit sits nearby as they often will in the early hours.

It seems like the Garden of Eden.

or is it the Garden of Gethsemani?

He has been staying with friends ten years older than himself.

They are Hippy-ish veterans of early LSD and jaunts in Canada and Mexico.

He is really only here because his girl friend has gone home to parents in Jamaica for the summer holiday.

We view him from behind his back so that we can see the vista..

You might think of Casper David Friedrich.. 

"the celebrated German Romantic painter who is best known for Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, or The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. Painted in 1818, it is an image that evokes the full repertoire of themes we associate with European Romanticism: loneliness, sublimity, and the transformative encounter with spiritualised nature. It shows an unknown man whose back is to the viewer – a Rückenfigur, or figure from behind – a posture that draws us into the landscape that is spread out before him. Poised upon a rocky precipice, the Wanderer gazes down into a chaotic landscape of tempestuous clouds – a sea of fog that is pierced by jagged rocks."

Our guy today is dressed in his Civil Defence greatcoat that he got fro the army surplus store. He has long hair and flared trousers because this is 1970.

He looks out on a fractured dawn skyline as if the world is coming apart at the seams. The painting is on a tarpaulin which is stretched across another canvas painted with the universe or the stars at night. The tarpaulin is coming apart and is held together only by string. The seam where the tarpaulin is stitched together dissects the cavas diagonally. Reinforcing the idea of stress. The young fella has had an interesting night and all his certainties have gone awry.

Whilst the events depicted happened overlooking Belfast loch we see instead a fractured 

Mountains of Mourne.

The Artist In Residence is coming of age.

His world has fallen apart and must be remade..

The painting is called 

'All You Need is love'

because love is all you need..

isn't it?

and because he and his friends sang that song from the trailer pulled along behind a tractor whilst on an adventure to collect and bring back turf for the fire at the farm near Ballycastle.

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 3

 Picture this..

A youngish man stands on a railway station platform. He is in Crewe. To get to Liverpool with his painting he must change at Derby and Crewe. This is a centre of the rail network even more than Derby.

Imagine him as if painted by Edward Hopper he is lit by slanting light just like in a Hopper painting. What is most striking about this person? Is it his hair? Is it his clothes? Is it his air of confidence? probably not.

The first thing you might notice about this figure is the eight ft wide by five ft high oil painting that he stands with on the railway platform. Is it wrapped up in brown paper? is it in a box? In a crate? 

No this oil painting is naked.. stark naked.

This is not a nude. This is 'Bring Back my Glen-Bott To Me' it is a large canvas divided by two diamond shapes. it has lots of paint marks strewn upon the whole area.. music actually or at least a rhythm. In the centre of the canvas and nearly as tall as the canvas is a figure.. It's a quote from Steve Ditko from the cover of Amazing Spiderman 27 'Bring Back My Goblin To Me'.

The Spidey figure has an old school uniform on.. sans blazer.. the face on the figure is the half Spidey face that he gets when his Spider sense is triggered. The other half of the face is the boy from the library.

Behind the figure is an open door from his old school classroom. A girl passes by out in the corridor.

Four school boys in full uniform point and laugh at the scene.

There is a lot of colour and the canvas is unmissable among the various travellers but no one seems to notice.

To get a painting to the John Moores Painting Prize submission agent in Liverpool you have to put in some effort.

Margaret Glen-Bott was a lady Gynaecologist and the school was named after her.

To travel in hope is a good thing.

Will he be successful and will he win the purchase prize?

Will this picture hang next to 'Peter getting Out of Nick's Pool'?

Find out the answers as time goes by..

In future editions of..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

 A sixteen year old boy sits on a train. he's reading a book and has a painting wrapped in brown paper by his side. it's an old train. The carriage is tired and so is the boy and bored too, the book not withstanding.

The book is a famous book by a famous author with an even more famous painting on the paper cover. to be perfectly honest it is the cover that the boy has been drawn to and it is the reason he is reading it. It's a Penguin Modern Classic with the grey spine. This series of paper back books all have modern paintings on their covers.

The painting is by Salvador Dali and was, I am told, inspired by melting cheese. Peter perseveres with the text. he is determined to finish it and more to the point, be able to say he has read it. Mostly he has read marvel comics and also John Wyndham but he has a new friend who is working on his education.

So why is a sixteen year old boy reading Sartre in a tired railway carriage in Derby station? Why is there an oil painting size 40x30 inches sitting next to him? Why is he not in College or at work as it is a work day and not the weekend?

The facts are that he is dreamer and a fantasist. He dreams of being a famous artist and has entered his painting into the John Moores Painting prize the seventh in a series of biennial exhibitions intended to bring the latest in modern British painting to Liverpool.

Peter thinks his painting 'Self-Portrait With Blue Jacket' a quasi Cubist, Juan Gris-ish work will win the purchase prize of £5000 and that he will not have to work in an office anymore.

Is he wrong to dream? Is he ambitious? Is he brave or self-deluded? Is he any good? What chance does he stand at this point? What other chance does he have?

The last purchase prize went to David Hockney and now 'Peter' is getting out of Nick's.. in Liverpool.

On this day in 1969 this boy will travel a long way.. through the potteries, The Black Country, Runcorn and Widnes. He will see a crane lorry tipped up into a canal, the arse end of the Industrial Revolution, Holman Hunt's 'The Scape Goat, Alan Jones's 'Hermaphrodite' David Hockney's 'Peter getting Out Of Nick's Pool'.

He will deliver his painting to the receiving agents for the Walker Art Gallery. He will travel back home again undaunted but a little bored by Sartre and wondering what all the fuss was about. Will he win the big prize? Will he ever win anything ? Will he make it big? Will he make it pay? Will it all be worth it?

Find out more in the next instalment of..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

KITCHEN SINK REDEMPTION

yo! .. portrait of god.. innit!

 

long ago when I was a young boy..

I came home one evening..

from playing out in the snow..

in the winter darkness..

I was freezing cold and soaking wet..

my knees were black..

from the dye of the cheap black jeans I had on..

my mother sat me on the draining board..

in the kitchen..

and bathed me in the kitchen sink..

I thought of this much later in my studio..

at the general hospital..

in 1984..

I thought of painting a portrait of god..

I was younger then..

anyway..

I look at this painting now..

(above is not the finished painting)

or at least a jpg of it..

and what I see now is not a deity..

but a pope..

a figure at the base of a crucifixion..

a screaming pope..

WHERE'S THE SCREAM ?

well look at the face of this teddy bear..

not all screams are alike..

this one is more like a smile..

or a look..

it's a sunburst..

a grind..

a smirk and a chaos..

it's not an ever fixed mark..

it 's a moveable feast..

a great notion..

it's an anomaly a gap in time..

warped space..

I had used all the colours that I had available..

to make this odd..

unnatural..

cosmic..

different..

it's an ecstacy in paint..

NOBODY EXPECTS A HANGING

this painting was bought by Leeds schools art loan scheme in 1986.. 

and was on my page at artUK..

but that scheme has closed and the painting..

is awaiting adoption by the Leeds city art collection..

this has been going on for some years now..

so I sit here in the sink..

in the cold kitchen..

here in palookaville..

and it's beginning to feel like..

an eternity..

LOS ANGELES TWO

yo!.. closer than that walter.. innit! 

So..

angelinos..

here is the missing image..

the painting with the angels..

EVERYBODY KNOWS THEY AIN'T NO SANITY CLAUSE

nobody believes in angels..

yet here they are..

not observed from life..

obviously..

but here in art..

they appear..

and reappear..

sometimes in the great paintings..

of the old masters..

(how long before that name is cancelled)

THE OLD MISTRESSES

are always the best..

and there were often angels..

with messages..

or immaculate..

concepts..

LATER THAT SAME DAY

get to the f*cking point..

I am dawdling here..

because I am awaiting..

divine inspiration..

ah that's better..

here at last..

better late than never..

evidence..

yes there are angels..

but only in art..

and only before modernism..

when you are painting..

things happen..

figures reveal themselves..

sometimes immediately..

sometimes they emerge gradually..

sometimes they appear darker..

sometimes they appear so cool..

no two angels appear the same..

sometimes they look just like ordinary joes..

like waiting for the walk sign..

walk..

 don't walk..

believe don't believe..

free will an all..

your choice..

figuresinasouk.com

city of angels

MONA LISA NOT

 

yo!.. diffrent strokes.. innit!

in the movies..

it's all about faces..

it's what created the big stars..

really big faces..

up there..

on the silver screen.

huge and..

in your face..

imagine the power..

of two huge beautiful faces..

kissing and canoodling..

and..

looking back at you..

and later..

talking to each other..

and again to you..

POWER'S IN THE FACE MICK

always was..

so

wtf is going on in this little epic..

three figures..

without a face between them..

Leonardo would not approve..

BEAUTY IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

could be..

that these figures..

have beautiful faces..

but they have to keep them covered..

so as not to create desire..

incite lust..

THE OPPOSITE OF PORN

hide beauty and avoid lust..

like covering up..

the legs of a piano..

SOMETIME LATER

thing is..

the human face..

is the most erotic..

part of the body..

THE EYES HAVE IT

they attract..

they stare into yours as you climax..

you know how to climax don't you.

you just put your lips together..

and blow..

the eyes again..

the lips..

the tongue..

this is where the action starts..

when you are teen aged..

you want to see the hidden parts..

the opposite sex..

(not sure you're allowed say that anymore)

but you miss the obvious..

the really great sex..

is right in front of you..

face to face..

innit 

so  maybe mona..

is the racy image..

and all those..

faces in art..

and photography..

all portraits..

of profane love..

VANITY OF VANITIES

meanwhile

back at the souk..

it looks like three figures in burkas..

but really..

it's just a gesture..

or three strokes of the brush..

the big square at the back..

well that all started as a carpet..

a simplification of the souk..

into a single shape..

a magic carpet maybe..

a sacred symbol perhaps..

SO WE PAINT ON

backs against the current..

bourn back ceaselessly..

into the mystic..