Cardboard construction with help from the children of The Young Carers Festival 2013 and The Children's Society

Day Four: Go! Rhino, Done!

Final finishing touches and varnish. Tomorrow, one very colourful rhino will be delivered to Southampton Central Library / Southampton City Art Gallery.

I hope the young artists who created the designs are happy with my interpretation.

Taking advantage of the bank holiday sun. Drying in the garden 1

Drying in the garden 2

The Secret Garden complete with varnish.

Water Lillies complete with varnish.
 

I am looking forward to seeing lots of rhinos popping up all over Southampton this summer. Go! Rhinos.

Go! Rhinos: day two

Sunday was a sunny day, and while I imagine, the world and his wife were out enjoying the sunshine. I stayed in to tackle the rhino.

It still was a very pleasant day for me. I kept the patio doors open, the cool breeze helped speed up the drying time.

I have finished the underpainting and have just started to put in detail.

Underpainting started



Underpainting - three coats later... it actually had a final fourth coat just to make it look smooth and glossy.

Towards the end of the day I started to map out some of the detail on the waterlillies side.

Magenta for the waterlillies.

The British House - Ink and Watercolour

The British House

Detail one

Detail two

Detail three

The Other Art Fair 2013 Ambika P3, Marylebone Road, West London

The Other Art Fair 2013 Ambika P3

My Space

Wow, Matt Lucas pop in on Friday - here he is with the brilliant Artist Agnetha Sjogren. I was too shy to ask to have his picture taken at my space.

Swoosh with pink and gold

"Swoosh with pink and gold" 2013
Water-based mixed media on card
9 inches by 6 inches

Untitled (flow / form / gesture)

"Untitled (flow / form / gesture)" 2013
24 inches by 35 inches
Mixed media and oil paint on canvas



 

If a form isn't right, if it's erased, the correction has meaning. It's the process of the mind, moving and making. The form didn't drop from outer space. ~ Elliot Green 

I ♥ gold paint

"Little breezes, dusk and shiver" 2013
5 inches by 3.5 inches
Water-based / mixed media on card

Sol Lewitt's letter to Eva Hesse

I dont need to add much of an introduction, the letter speaks for itself. For all you artists out there... just do it!

Dear Eva,

It will be almost a month since you wrote to me and you have possibly forgotten your state of mind (I doubt it though). You seem the same as always, and being you, hate every minute of it. Don’t! Learn to say “Fuck You” to the world once in a while. You have every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itchin, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rumbling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO!

From your description, and from what I know of your previous work and you [sic] ability; the work you are doing sounds very good “Drawing-clean-clear but crazy like machines, larger and bolder… real nonsense.” That sounds fine, wonderful - real nonsense. Do more. More nonsensical, more crazy, more machines, more breasts, penises, cunts, whatever - make them abound with nonsense. Try and tickle something inside you, your “weird humor.” You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you - draw & paint your fear and anxiety. And stop worrying about big, deep things such as “to decide on a purpose and way of life, a consistant [sic] approach to even some impossible end or even an imagined end” You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO!

I have much confidence in you and even though you are tormenting yourself, the work you do is very good. Try to do some BAD work - the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell - you are not responsible for the world - you are only responsible for your work - so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be. But if life would be easier for you if you stopped working - then stop. Don’t punish yourself. However, I think that it is so deeply engrained in you that it would be easier to DO!

It seems I do understand your attitude somewhat, anyway, because I go through a similar process every so often. I have an “Agonizing Reappraisal” of my work and change everything as much as possible = and hate everything I’ve done, and try to do something entirely different and better. Maybe that kind of process is necessary to me, pushing me on and on. The feeling that I can do better than that shit I just did. Maybe you need your agony to accomplish what you do. And maybe it goads you on to do better. But it is very painful I know. It would be better if you had the confidence just to do the stuff and not even think about it. Can’t you leave the “world” and “ART” alone and also quit fondling your ego. I know that you (or anyone) can only work so much and the rest of the time you are left with your thoughts. But when you work or before your work you have to empty you [sic] mind and concentrate on what you are doing. After you do something it is done and that’s that. After a while you can see some are better than others but also you can see what direction you are going. I’m sure you know all that. You also must know that you don’t have to justify your work - not even to yourself. Well, you know I admire your work greatly and can’t understand why you are so bothered by it. But you can see the next ones and I can’t. You also must believe in your ability. I think you do. So try the most outrageous things you can - shock yourself. You have at your power the ability to do anything.

I would like to see your work and will have to be content to wait until Aug or Sept. I have seen photos of some of Tom’s new things at Lucy’s. They are impressive - especially the ones with the more rigorous form: the simpler ones. I guess he’ll send some more later on. Let me know how the shows are going and that kind of stuff.

My work had changed since you left and it is much better. I will be having a show May 4 -9 at the Daniels Gallery 17 E 64yh St (where Emmerich was), I wish you could be there. Much love to you both.

Sol

New work at the dawn of 2013

Water-based / mixed media on card

Untitled. Water-based media on card. 2012. 5 inches by 3 inches

 

Untitled (for Tom). Water-based media on card. 2012. 5 inches by 3 inches

 

 

Far East. Water-based media on card. 2012. 5 inches by 3 inches

 

Untitled. Water-based media on card. 2012. 5 inches by 3 inches

 

Cloud form #1.Water-based media on card. 2012. 5 inches by 3 inches

 

 

Untitled (waterfall). Water-based media on card. 2012. 7 inches by 5 inches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re-visited - my cardboard constructions

Cardboard Constructions:

Domestic everyday landscapes and the things that occupy them inspire me. I draw from childhood memories as a means to construct a narrative that explores identity, scale, status and inadvertently politics.

I am drawn towards objects in environments that have ambiguous or multiple meanings. I am after a flexible art that devours itself: forever a fairy castle to the hopeless drunk inside.

In research by Maria Kylin through the Department of Landscape Planning, at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, on children’s dens and forts, she outlined that most of the children who made dens did so out of a basic compulsion to create a secret or private space, where they could act out and explore group and individual identity. My practice heeds to these desires and reflects a basic human necessity for space, identity and boundaries.

My sculptural work is also a personal reference to my early childhood in South Africa in the late 1970's to the early 1980's. I grew up in Rondebosch, a place just outside Cape Town. The box constructions remind me of play-dens and long lazy days in the garden. At the same time the cardboard structures are, in part, reminiscent of the shantytowns dotted along the motorway towards Cape Town airport. For me, the constructions hold, at the same time, both pleasurable and uncomfortable memories.

The cardboard constructions also act as a safe haven, away from the hustle and bustle of contemporary life. The experience of being inside the box sculpture is quite unique and has, in the past, invoked strong emotion in a number of the viewing public. The sensation I get is that of security and warmth, and strangely almost a return to the womb. This notion sits uneasily with the crude visual aspect.

The work’s meaning change depending on the viewer’s position and I am particularly interested in this ebb and flow.

The sculptures are made with recycled cardboard, corrugated plastic, paper, plastic sheeting, packing tape and occasionally paint. I like the utilitarian quality of cardboard and the fact that it can be easily found on street corners and behind buildings. Recycling materials is an important aspect in my work; I am fascinated by the notion that what once began as one thing can metamorphose into something completely different. 

If you stay in your hiding place long enough, you will stop hiding and you will become that place.

A childlike exploration of mortality: slipping between the hide and seek of fragility and bravado.

The words of May Swenson rang in my ears “We play in the den of the Gods and snort at death.” 



My den is ephemeral, a dance of shadows and a hiding place for dreams.

re-Working

The way in which we view the world around us is not set in concrete; instead it changes depending on a wide range of circumstances.

My work tends to be realised through an amalgam of digital imagery, cardboard sculpture and painted elements, the status of which rises and falls depending on the context, but, all the while alluding to an ever shifting understanding of myself, place and time.
My current work revolves around re-Working previous motifs that questioned the nature of authenticity of material / medium within our contemporary culture of the copy.

Seymour 2012 - Digitally re-Worked of my oil painting Seymour, after Hans Holbien. 199 x 149 cm



re-Work

My Cousin Wellington  2012 - Digitally re-Worked painting - 199 x 149 cm

After Holbien 2012 - Digitally re-Worked painting (Portrait #1 Girl with an oven glove on her head, after Hans Holbien) - 199 x 149 cm

After Artemisia - Hey Jude 2012 - Digitally re-Worked mixed media projection - 199 x 149 cm