THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE : 20 - King Elvis Has surely come

        putting on de Stijl

    

so..

HOW ART MADE POP and HOW POP BECAME ART 

is the title of a book..

publish by the tate..

he's read it recently..

it explains a lot..

his place in the story..

regular bots and readers..

will know all about this sorry tale..

boy from the burbs..

makes good..

or not..

no where else to go..

but art school..

his mother said he was tone deaf..

he is the guy who listens..

so close to john and dave..

but no cigar..

SOME OF THESE DAYS YOU'LL MISS ME HONEY

“A few seconds more and the Negress will sing. It seems inevitable, so strong is the necessity of this music: nothing can interrupt it, nothing which comes from this time in which the world has fallen; it will stop by itself, as if by order. If I love this beautiful voice it is especially because of that: it is neither for its fulness nor its sadness, rather because it is the event for which so many notes have been preparing, from so far away, dying that it might be born. " from 'Nausea' John Paul Sartre..

those who have read the first instalments of..

the 'artist in residence'..

will know that Nausea was the book..

our artist was reading..

on the train to liverpool..

to deliver his painting..

to the john moores painting prize in 1969..

 

THE ARTIST IN RESWIDENCE 19 : Live in the studio

 

1983 a hospital residency..

1984

right in the studio shot above

this one didn't make it..

it was the one on the left in the studio above..

Lavender Mist..

in dialogue with..

  Pollock and Abstract expressionism..

American Gothic

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 18 : Enola Gay

yo!

the artist has noticed this American symbol..

how could he not..

seven years before he was born..

the skys over Europe..

were full of airplanes displaying this recognition symbol..

he thinks of this as the logo/pictogram..

of the American century..

AN AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

in American Art of the 1940 - 1950 period..

Abstract Expressionism..

was the result, in part, of a turning away..

from the horrors of the war..

the artist has read..

that the energy of Pollock's..

Summertime 1948

is descriptive of the energy released by the nuclear bomb..

the airplane that dropped the bomb was called..

Enola Gay..

Mark Rothko 

 

"There is no such thing as good painting about nothing"

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 17 : A BOOMER'S PAINTING

yo!

here we are in the artist's studio..

what a mess..

well it's a grey January day..

and the studio is cold and unused..

THE LANDSCAPE THAT WAS

this canvas was started in 1984..

and was part of a series about Idealised Landscape..

an American USAAF decal from WWII..

with a quatrefoil in the centre of the star..

a promised land..

this image was his thing for a while..

this was the first one in 1985..

a nice dove of peace vibe happening here..

Lavender Mist..

probably the artist's favourite..

Jackson would have approved..

military vibe here..

you may notice how the colours of the rectangles..

either side of the star are different from each other..

the idea was mood and balance..

a balance of power..

A BALANCE THAT WAS

so 70 years of Pax Americana..

gone like snow on the water..

next time on..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

painting over paradise..

the fool on the hill..

the future that was..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 16 : IN CAMERA

 inside a black room..

in the local contemporary art gallery..

the artist waits behind a closed door..

he has his Sony RX100 pointing at the blackness..

the door opens..

and our boy shoots..

this is what he thinks photography is..

the unexpected..

the happy accident..

the lucky break..

chance meeting..

like Kandinsky..

seeing his painting upside down..

in the moonlight..

abstract.. 

innit!

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 15 : In the shower with Janet Leigh

 WOMEN WASHING

people were maybe expecting..

something like a Degas or a Bonnard..

the artist in residence..

has come up with this..

it's Janet Leigh acting..

from the shower..

in 'Psycho'..

the artist in residence..

 has married her with this wifey..

from a Vim advert..

it's a play on Munch..

more or less expressive..

it is also about Marilyn..

and Andy..

it is the destruction of his icon..

it is a screen print..

a pattern..

but not a repeat..

this is interactive..

you get to play with the flaps..

re-arrange the image..

but not the ending..

SHE OPENS HER MOUTH TO SCREAM

but the pot has boiled over..

the acting dead..

are dear departed..

a moment of pure cinema..

"the darndest thing I ever saw"

worth 15 minutes..?

the suspense is killing me..

bit of a chameleon this one..

THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 14 : In Waterstones Cafe

 NEITHER WOLF NOR DOG

our artist..

is sitting in Waterstones Cafe in Nottingham..

it's a cool place..

great coffee and staff..

great big windows with a view..

he is reading a book he has found in the store..

it is a good book and he has purchased it..

by a guy name of Nerburn..

INDIANS I NATIVES I AMERICANS I ORIGINAL I PEOPLE

his mind is taken back to some paintings he made back in 2008..

he had this huge roll of heavy weight rag paper..

which was pure white..

and empty..

he cut it up into rectangles..

and put the in the bath..

to soak and get rid of the rolled ness..

once flat he decided that oil paint would bleed into them..

and leave a nice yellow linseed oil stain around the marks..

he just painted some figures..

in his 'survivors' style..

that he had been using for a short while..

the figures were on wheels..

after Giacometti..

and with a somewhat De Stijl look..

the paint was thinned down some and has run..

he has called this work..

NATIVE AMERICANS

and there are more like these..

INDIANS I NATIVES I AMERICANS I ORIGINAL I PEOPLE

these labels are discussed in the book..

NEITHER WOLF NOR DOG

as are many other interesting revelations about..

these people..

Dan an old Indian man..

makes a series of talks..

that are enlightening and pertinent..

he is able to view the world through both his eyes..

his Indian eye and his white eye..

maybe check this out for yourselves..

and get a coffee too..

SURVIVORS