TERRACOTTA WARRIORS

 

oil paint and gouache on arches paper..

drawn in the 'survivors' style..

 

if only all armies were all made of only terracotta..

instead of..

scorched earth..

and airplanes built with paper wings..

and drones and missiles..

were only kites..

to decorate the days..

and sleep on the wind..

 peaceful nights..

 

if only men..

and women too..

could make only love..

and never war..

or if they must..

create a proof that they once were.. 

make terracotta armies..

to bury in the ground..

to guard the peace..

without a sound..

 

BRING BACK MY GLEN-BOTT TO ME

    so it's 1980..

             

graduated in 1975..

into a big recession..

but up and running as a graphic designer in 1980..

when guess what..

yep another recession..

we got a16% pay rise one minute..

due to inflation and 15% mortgage rates..

so my lovely job just upped and died..

anyway..

here in palookaville..

when the going gets tough..

the tough start a new canvas..

IT'S THAT SPIDER-MAN AGAIN

the central figure is from spider-man 27..

'bring back my goblin to me'

just love that ditko artwork..

the scene is a recreation of my old school..

margaret glen-bott..

note the uniform and tie..

the radiator and the see-through panel in the door..

my style at the time had all these diagonal gestural marks..

the large diamond shapes were something I just wanted in there..

I guess that is me..

self portrait..

eat your heart out rembrandt..

school is tough right..

coming of age in wollaton park..

(pronounced woolaton)..

even when I had the job..

I was longing to be back in school..

talk about ambitious..

REJECTED FROM THE JOHN MOORES

like so many of my other master works..

this too was refused by the judges..

I took it all the way to Liverpool..

on the train..

60 inches high and 96 inches wide..

I had to sit in the guards van with the other parcels..

John lennon was not there to greet me..

but could only wave goodbye..

I was 16 when I first entered..

the Liverpool exhibition..

I believed I would win first prize..

16 will do that for you..

THE PLAN CHEST OPENS UP

yo!.. first look... innit!

in a perfect world..

the drawers would not be crammed together..

they would slide out..

alone and with ease..

note that this is far from a perfect plan chest..


MANY THINGS IN ONE DRAWER


in this top drawer..

first up we can see..

on the left..

oil and gouache on hand made paper..

from the native american survivors idea...

while on the right are..

some of the..

uncle sam's buttons series..

oil pastel, gouache on water-colour board..

looking at these again..

with 'primitive' showing in the drawer..

more stuff appearing now..

another of the native american survivors..

in the drawer some experimental quatrefoyles..

and on the top..

native australian influenced 'primitive' images..

gouache on cardboard..

return of the primitive..

IT'S CURTAINS FOR PETER

yo!.. naval gazin... innit!

THE SIMPLE MURDER OF ART

this is a painting from..

figures in a souk..

but really it's also from..

EAST 100TH STREET

yes it fits with the souk..

but the single figure reminds us..

of the little girl in the bruce davidson photo..

and so today we are going to..

investigate a mystery..


MEAN STREETS


In everything that can be called art..

there is a quality of redemption.
It may be pure tragedy,
if it is high tragedy,
and it may be pity and irony,
and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man.

But down these mean streets..
a man must go who is not himself mean,
who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

1979

evidence from the sketchbook..

you can see top left a simple drawing..

of a take on the bruce davidson photo..

and other ideas I had based upon the..

window, cutains, blinds..

there is a tv also..

and that is important too..

so..

the paintings..




this is our ian modelling..

yes it is a real old glory..

yes it is a funcioning roller blind..

interactive innit!




yes it is the silver surfer..

and the tv image is from..

philip jones griffiths

and the little boy behind the curtain..

is our paul..

the blue tarp. is real and so are the red ropes..





the yellow rose of texas..

draws a curtain across the ever creeping mission..

so that was in 1979..

I wrote this at the time..


KING ELVIS HAS SURELY COME

no child can see..

without the object being obscured by the image..

the tv and the radio and the movies..

have drawn a curtain over the world..

that no x-ray specs can see through..

and a mythology has grown..

that is stronger and makes more money for someone..

than all the gods of asgarde or olympus..

the greeks (ancient0..

had no 70mm dreams..

to rival the panavision..

of the youngest of our sons..

the vikings never had a god as powerful..

as the one that gets 60 minutes..

of tv time on sunday..

circe has not the special effects of..

 the bbc, itv, nbc and metro-goldwin meyer..

nor did any visionary of the past..

see as far as superman..

nor did any plagues of egypt..

pour as many plagues on man's imagination..

as the six o'clock news..



CURTAINS CARPETS AND FIGURES IN A SOUK

work in progress 2018 ish..

and who the fuck is peter anyway?

I MUST GO DOWN TO THE SEA AGAIN

THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY

I must go down to the sea again..

the lonely sea and the sky..

I've left my shoes and socks there..

I'm seeing if they're dry..


I have always loved the sea, coast, boats, beach..

you can see it in the paintings..


and here at the beach..

IMAGINED ST IVES

ST IVES CORNWALL

Although they did not see themselves as part of a group or school,

the term St Ives School is often used to refer to the artists..

associated with the fishing town of St Ives in West Cornwall,

which became a centre for modern and abstract developments..

in British art from the 1940s to the 1960s

imagined st ives

West Cornwall’s special quality of light has drawn painters to St Ives since the beginning of the nineteenth century. However the extension of the Great Western Railway to West Cornwall in 1877, which eased access to the remote town, made St Ives even more appealing as a destination for artists.

In 1928 the artists Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood visited St Ives where they met naïve artist Alfred Wallis, whose painting was to have a profound impact on Nicholson, confirming the modern direction of his work. In 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War, Nicholson and his then wife the sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth, both by then fully fledged abstract artists, settled near St Ives, where they were soon joined by the Russian constructivist sculptor Naum Gabo. After the war St Ives became a centre for modern and abstract developments in British art led by Hepworth and Nicholson (Gabo departed in 1946).

From about 1950 a group of younger artists gathered in St Ives and it is with this group, together with Hepworth and Nicholson (until his departure in 1958), that the term St Ives School is particularly associated. As well as a shared interested in abstraction, the St Ives artists were also inspired by the landscape of West Cornwall and used its shapes, forms and colours as a source for much of their work. The principal figures of the St Ives School include Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Paul Feiler, Sir Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon, Karl Weschke and Bryan Wynter, together with the pioneer modern potter, Bernard Leach.

The heyday of the St Ives School was in the 1950s and 1960s but in 1993, Tate St Ives, a striking purpose-built new gallery in a remarkable situation on Porthmeor Beach in St Ives, was opened. It exhibits the Tate collection of St Ives School art and related types of art, and has given the town a whole new lease of artistic life.

PICTURE LINKS TODAY

yo!.. links only today... innit!

click on a pic to view link

TALES FROM THE SKETCHBOOK 2

TERRACOTTA ARMY

just thinking about chinese art an stuff..

I made these sketches among others..

from looking at the terracotta army..

they are not documentary..

just imagined..

most of my stuff is..

imagined..


SURVIVORS

in the waste wood box..

in the design and tech. dept..

I went looking for off cuts that..

I could use to make figures..

these figures were..

created according to how their parts..

were already formed..

you know off cuts..

I was inspired by picasso..

his painting..


THE BATHERS


for which he constructed wooden figures to draw from..

mr. cut out gun..

was one of the first..

here though we are looking at the..

oil on paper drawings..

inspired by the terracotta army..