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 2

A boy sits in a public library in the village of Wollaton. (pronounced Woolaton) He is looking at the large books on Art. It is a nice day in summer and he has recently left school. He is nearly sixteen years old.

The library building is new and very Modern. Steel and glass like Mies van Der Rohe would have approved. He is lucky to have such a place to learn about painting and painters. He is gamine, wears plimsoles with no socks, is entirely lost as to where life could take him, has not one clue about jobs or careers. 

He turns the pages of the colourful books and remembers the names of the artists and the style of their paintings. He notes the ones he likes and the ones he does not like. Soon he will know all of the famous artists or at least all of the ones in the books in this library.

He comes here every day in the mornings. He has illusions that he will go to Further education College in September. He is not a swot. He looks only at the pictures and does not read the text.

At school he has taken Art at 'O' level and passed as well as English language. This is his academic base. he has decided that Art is the way. He imagines living a louche, bohemian life which appeals to him. He is painting in oils by now and he has a friend who takes an interest and soon he is mastering the medium and has ideas of his own. He has influences from the library books and is serious in his work.

That he should be able to paint and exhibit his work seems realistic, all things seem possible at sixteen.

A boy who has never yet heard of Mies van Der Rohe sits in a Modern library building and dreams the impossible dream. 

I see him as if in a Vermeer. A boy with a pearl earring, lacemaker, milk maid, a figure in a light filled interior. an innocent studying a book.

Is this the start of something big?

or is it..

The end of something small?

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

FIND YOUR BABE

 

uBABE is here for you..

but you have to find the babe yourself..

the babe is here..

only you have to look..

there are no adverts..

no paid influencers..

no shops..

no tik tok..

your eyes only..

https://ubabe-art.pixels.com/featured/ubabe-logo-ubabe-style.html

PROMISED LANDSCAPE

 

         everyone believes in a promised land..

innit!

whether in some afterlife..

or here on earth..

you know..

some place where the grass grows greener..

and all the folks can live in peace together..

and the lamb can lay down with the lion..

and not get ate..

trouble is..

here on earth..

here in palookaville..

we can't always agree..

on who really owns  it..

it's all about identity..

and recognition..

just so y'all stay cool..

evvaboddy gotta know who boss..

an not fall out..

an play nice..

heaven and hell..

itta carrot anna stick..

choose honey..

not vinegar..

choice is yours..

but then..

evva body know..

 this is palookaville..