WALKING IN THE SOUK

 yo!.. time a thief.. innit!

figures glimpsed..

passing by..

hanging out..

coming together..

in a dance..

some kind of jive..

 some sort of beat..

can you imagine..

the morning light..

the heat of the night..

figuresinasouk.com

A MAGIC CARPET

 yo!.. Persian Rug.. innit!

I was in art class..

one day in 1970..

and I had this really great black brush stroke..

on this otherwise poor..

painting that I was doing..

the lecturer commented upon how this mark was very strong..

and I was hooked..

over the years..

I developed a style that consisted of a mixture of..

soft focus and bold gesture..

and nowhere is this more evident than in the..

FIGURES IN A SOUK

now it should be realised that not all figures..

are people..

squares and circles etc..

are figures too..

so an abstract figuration can be realised..

These blue stripes above..

are what lead to the more human figures..

and for a while they were, together with the square..

all that was there..

some time later..

I started to develop the figures..

and they became more 'real'

it's interesting to me..

that I am no happier with the new figures than the old..

one is not 'better' than the other..

it just happens when I paint..

I see them emerge..

and try not to cramp their style..

ON MY PERSIAN RUG

is a song

hope you like it..

because this is all one souk..

knowledge is finite..

imagination is infinite..

and all of life is in the souk..

it's a magic carpet ride..

figuresinasouk.com

AN ANGEL IN THE MEDINA

yo!.. Christmas present... innit!

out here in the cold.. 

 in the artist's winter studio.. 

I'm wondering why there is an angel.. 

 hiding in plain sight.. 

 on a canvas.. 

 in the rain.. 

 NOBODY MUST KNOW 

these days you cannot have an angel in a painting.. 

 it's bad enough you paint at all.. 

 but angels are not modern.. 

 not post-modern.. 

 not even contemporary.. 

 it's OK for balloon dogs.. 

 tins of artist's shit.. 

 plaster casts of house interiors.. 

interventions.. 

 installations.. 

 but angels? no way.. 

 maybe that's why it's so cold out here..

 

can you see the angel?

click on the pic for a larger image..

 NOBODY SETS OUT TO PAINT ANGELS 

 that there is an angel in my painting.. 

 is not my fault.. 

 I blame the past.. 

 and claim immunity.. 

 and plead the fifth..

FIGURES IN A SOUK 2

yo!.. rembrandt, turner, rothko... innit!





where the square came from..

I cannot say..

nor were the blue stripes figures..

until they just were..

this is the earliest example of the style..

it has all developed from here..

the souk idea is from the first one I showed you last time..

the figures just emerged..



this is how you paint..

by not looking..

until you look back..




this is the first version of the figures..

see what I mean..

got to be casablanca..

got painted over though..

more than once..

figuresinasouk.com

FIGURES IN A SOUK

yo!.. mature style... innit!


how long did it take you to paint this picture?


A LIFETIME OF LEARNING


the first 'figures in a souk' was painted in 2014..





they just evolved out of a session of starts..

you know nine blank canvases..

splash on the colours..

sit back and see what you have..

at first you think they are great..

so you leave them alone..

then later you get tired of most..

if not all of them..

so you go at them again..




I used to paint large canvases..

60 inches high x 96 inches wide..

now I prefer to paint small..

whereas before it was all about images..

now it's all about painting..

the big brush is bigger..

the smaller the canvas..

it's about marks..

and..

gesture..

and..

surface..

and..

colour..

so nine red ones..

six yellow ones..

later colour greys..

so six years of 'figures in a souk'..

sixty six years to paint this painting..

figuresinasouk.com