REVISITED PAINTINGS

About a year ago...or is it two years?...my Italian grand-nephew, when asked what he wanted for his birthday, made a rather unusual request for a young boy: a painting of my sister and me. He was thirteen only a few days ago and he and his father are coming from Rome to see me this weekend.

I started the painting...whenever that was...but wasn't happy with it and turned it to the wall for quite a while. I scraped out and re-started umpteen times until the canvas acquired a rough textured surface. Unable to procrastinate any longer, I have finally finished it. Probably it could still be re-worked but I'm going to leave it as is and hope Emanuel will like it.

I've called it Two Sisters in Time and inserted images of ourselves as children in the faceted background. Dividing a background into vertical strips of variegated colour is something I have found myself doing over and over again for a very long time, going way back to some of my earliest paintings as a teen-ager. It's not a conscious decision - it just happens. The feeling behind it, I think, is a desire to escape from realism into a more abstract dimension, but not entirely. 

Two Sisters in Time  Oil on canvas, 2010-2011 

Below is another painting using vertical facets but I allowed abstraction to dominate this one. It's from 1994 when I had a SPACE studio in Hackney - the first photo was taken there. I had the idiotic idea of using this unstretched painting as a coffee table covering, folding the edges down all around. Thus it remained until a few weeks ago when I suddenly decided that it deserved to be rescued from a utilitarian role and treated more like art. I had to cut off the damaged edges, so the canvas is somewhat smaller than its original version, but I think it's survived life as a tablecloth pretty well.

Hackney studio 1994

Music and Love  Oil on canvas, 1994 

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BORN FROM SCARVES

This African spirit emerged from digitally painting over one of my scarves photos. There may be more.

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RAIN AND REMBRANDT

Outside and inside the National Gallery a couple of days ago.

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REAL CHAIRS, UNREAL CHAIRS.... PROCRASTINATING

Took the photo in a nice Camden teashop where the chairs have personalities. Painted this abstractified version while "resting" - ie avoiding finishing the last episode of La Vie en Rosé.

Why is it that when something needs to be done, other things seem so much more inviting?

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APPLES AGAIN

Before I get back to La Vie en Rosé as I promised to do, here's a stage of the latest apple painting I started while procrastinating about La Vie. 

Multi-tasking is not really my thing but I pretend that it is in order to have valid reasons for procrastination. While one thing gets under way the other thing doesn't get done and the more things you start, the less you finish. True or false?

Anyway, the apple series will - come hell or high water and other distractions - get done this year and so will La Vie en Rosé. The current apple is, for art's sake, patiently enduring being suspended in front of a mirror above a mirrored surface. I began this painting last Monday and it's probably nearly finished, more or less.

Apple suspended, reflected, painted - NdA (work in progress) January 2011. Oil on canvas.

 
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I THINK IT'S FINISHED

Unless I see something else that needs changing (and I may) Frames of Reference (formerly known as Prism, formerly known as My DNA ) is done. Here it is along with a close-up of the top left-hand corner where I've painted a version of the whole snapshot of my parents which was the basis for the two central figures.

I believe this painting is about different dimensions of space and time and maybe multiple universes but any and all interpretations are welcome.

Frames of Reference  October 2010  Oil on canvas. 121cm X 91cm

 

 

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FATHER AND CHILD PICTURE

My youngest niece and her husband (I posted pictures of their wedding some time ago) had their second baby on September 14th. I haven't seen the infant boy in the flesh yet but of the photos they sent, one in particular just cried out to be painted. So here's my version, digitally drawn on graphic tablet, from the photo below. 

By the way, in case you're wondering, I don't use photos as digital layers to trace and paint over or to make more 'painterly' by using filters. In this and other digital portraits I start with a blank page and look at the original photo as if it were a live model, drawing and painting directly from it onto my graphic tablet, using Photoshop brushes. I consider it cheating to manipulate a photo itself with digital processes in order to produce something that may look like a painting but is actually an altered photograph. 


Mother-and-child paintings are legion but, at least to my knowledge, there aren't that many of father and child. This one has got to be a contender, don't you think?

September almost gone already! Sorry for the long gaps between posts - have been busy offline. I will (really really) be posting more Vie en Rosé soon.

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RECENT PORTRAITS

Just to show I'm not sitting around brooding guiltily all the time, heh heh, here are some recent portraits done for the ongoing Julia Kay's Portrait Party. If you go to my Flickr page there you can see bigger versions by clicking on each picture. And I'm nearly nearly done with the big Prism painting. 

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PRISM PAINTING IN SLOW PROGRESS

I've been working on it and staring at it so much that I decided to take time off and make a slideshow of some of the stages up to now. There comes a time in every painting, for me anyway, when every part of it is frozen and something radical must be done in order to get the flow going again. That's where I am at the moment but I haven't yet taken any radical steps.

Do you see a black rectangle?  The slideshow will start playing in a minute or two. If it doesn't, you can watch it over at my blip.tv page. Unfortunately, the shape of the video screen doesn't allow for the whole height of the painting to show and the panning effect distorts it even more. Ach! Next time I won't use it. 
For some reason, the music doesn't play over here but it works on the main Blaugustine and at blip.tv.

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LATEST STATE OF DNA PAINTING AND PRE-BIRTHDAY REQUESTS

I've been working on it, hoping to finish before my birthday (August 7) but I can't predict what the painting wants to do. Here you see it in my studio and how it sort of flows into the surroundings. I think I'm going to change the title to PRISM . The colours in this photo do not accurately represent the real thing.

Speaking of birthday: can I have some requests as to what you, my loyal visitors, would like as my birthday post? You know, like those radio request programmes. I will try to comply with your wishes, unless they are awkward questions like, how old are you?. The answer to that, my friends, is blowing in the wind. 

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LUCIEN FREUD (et moi) AT THE POMPIDOU

I'm about to make sweeping statements but this is my blog and I'm allowed to sweepstate as much as I like. You are encouraged to refute, agree, elaborate, contradict, and I hope you will do one or more of these things because, frankly, comments are few and far between over here lately and I'd like to boost the participatory factor. So, here goes. 

There are two types of creatives: receptives and obsessives.


Receptive-creatives have hyper-sensitive antennae which are continually picking up visual, verbal and subliminal information and sensations from the surroundings. Receptive-creatives are easily distracted because of the abundance of stimuli bombarding them. When an object or subject captures their attention, they will give it total concentration but only until the next stimulus becomes impossible to ignore. The variety and intensity of input vibrating their antennae is such that the degree of success (in worldly terms) which their creativity achieves depends on the amount of time they are able and willing to give to any particular message the universe sends. A state of readiness to absorb, combined with uncertainty about whether the material really merits absorption, is the receptive-creative's normal modus vivendi. I, ahem, am among those who fit into this category. 

Obsessive-creatives are driven by a compulsion which demands single-minded focus on a chosen path and the avoidance of anything which might disturb, distract or question this choice. They too are receptive but in a one-track way and they arrange their lives so as to feed their compulsion and insist that anyone who comes close should either support it or stay out. Dedicated, opinionated, blinkered, uncompromising, workaholic, eccentric, egocentric, extraordinary, are some of the adjectives frequently used in describing them. I would prefer to be an o-c rather than an r-c but I have never succeeded in remodelling myself. Lucian Freud is among those who are probably born into this category.

I have not been one of the many admirers of Sigmund's grandson's painting (or of his grandad for that  matter - don't let me get distracted!) but I didn't want to miss this exhibition because I hoped to be goaded into pursuing a completely contrary path. So I took my lethargic body to the Pompidou - nowadays ressembling a decaying community centre designed by committee - and escalated, via a bird's eye view of the Rue Beaubourg, to the sixth floor galleries where Freud's Atelier paintings were impressively hung. 

Pompidou Centre entrance hall.

View from sixth level of the Pompidou Centre. 

I did not expect to be impressed. But I was. Not impressed as in awestruck but as in, this is important stuff - must sit down and take it in slowly.

First of all, his colours. They are greys, browns, ochres, meat-red, black and the occasional dusty yellow-green. They are Old Master-ish, museum-ish colours, destined for posterity and weighty gold frames, defiantly academic, you could even say anti-modernist. 

Then there's the light. The grey light of London bed-sitters in lonely winters and sweaty summers. The cold light of dawn, post-coitum triste. The sleepless night light of regret, apathy, desperation. The merciless light of hospitals, morgues and bus stations at 4 am. 

Then there's the flesh, his subject. Passive flesh offered up to be penetrated by his dominant, hypnotic gaze. Naked but not erotic bodies splayed in apparent abandon on the bed, sofa or floor, seemingly obeying the master's stage-instructions to "be themselves" but, in truth, being only what he requires them to be. He says that what interests him in people is their animal side and that he likes seeing his subjects "as naturally and physically at ease as his dog." However, far from being at ease in their theatrical set-up, Freud's actors are more like tranquilised laboratory animals, their vitality suppressed, coerced by the painter's will into becoming still-life - even the dog must relinquish all doggy energy if he's to play a part in a Freudian tableau. But in the coruscating self-portraits, perhaps the only time the artist allows his model to confront him as an equal, Freud achieves magnificent, courageous insight. 

I understand the necessity of establishing rules of engagement when absorbed in the intensely difficult process of looking at and transcribing a human presence. The artist may be inwardly saying to his subject: go away! I mean stay, but don't talk, don't move, don't interact, just be still so I can observe you without being observed. So it makes sense that Freud prefers his models to be asleep or in a kind of trance induced by long hours of posing, but his determined focus on flesh as meat, to the exclusion of any other aspect of identity (as far as he's concerned, the matiére of his portrait of a person is that person) must be the reason I left Lucien Freud's Atelier very impressed, but ultimately disappointed. The old Peggy Lee song ran through my mind..........Is That All There Is?

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THERE IS A SEASON TO UPDATE THE UPKEEP, TURN TURN TURN

Maybe it's because of the better weather but this time of year brings out my governmental instincts ie: cleaning up, clearing out, re-organising, making new lists, tearing up old lists, feeling guilty about having failed to do all the things on all the lists sooner, and so on. The local charity shop has received yet another huge bundle from me and my website, the online version of home, is also the focus of my beady-eyed resolve to IMPROVE THINGS BY GETTING RID OF STUFF AND ADDING MORE STUFF IN DIFFERENT PLACES. Elimination followed by accumulation. Turn turn turn. 

My ART pages in particular badly need a make-over. For the moment, I've added a portrait section. You can see some recent faces over there and maybe you'd like to bookmark the URL? I'll be updating it frequently. Thanking you. 

Back to my duties now. 

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WORDS AND PICTURES

Dylan, creator/editor of the brilliant tinywords, has chosen one of my poempictures as the cover of the latest issue of this international daily magazine of haiku and micropoetry. I am lost for words to say how delighted I am, so a simple thank you will have to do. 

Another reason to celebrate is that I've finally reached what seems to me to be a happy ending for a portrait I've been working on lately of Jehane Markham, a neighbour and fine poet/playwright. As The Jehane Markham Trio  she reads her work with a backing of two musicians - a subtle, original and hugely enjoyable blend of jazz and poetry. Rough Winds Productions was created with her partner, the actor Roger Lloyd Pack, "to support the search for pleasure and understanding in the poetic realm". You may remember I did a sketch of Roger reading The Wasteland  four years ago (scroll to April 13, 2006 ). He's performing it again on June 3rd at the Free Word Centre and Jehane will be presentingThe London Series with her trio. I'll be there for sure. 

Jehane sat for me for two hours and I made a good start then proceeded to wreck the painting slowly and surely in the next few weeks. There's no explanation for BUAPGSS (Buggering-Up-A-Perfectly-Good-Start Syndrome) but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I gradually dragged the portrait out of the limbo it was threatening to remain in and did something I haven't done before: I painted words as a background to the face: her words, a poem that I like so much: Fear of Falling. Somehow it all came together then. What do you think? 

The poem is in her collection THIRTY POEMS  published by Rough Winds. The last five lines, hard to read in this photo, are:

if I'm not careful,
I'll fall right through,
knocked out by emerald knuckledusters,
the weight of water,
electric blue. 

Portrait of Jehane Markham with her poem 'Fear of Falling'. Acrylic on canvas. 50 cm x 40.5 cm. NdA  May 2010

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POST-ELECTION BLUES and a PORTRAIT PARTY

Very disappointed that the Lib Dems didn't get more votes after all the enthusiasm they generated during the campaign. Most of all I'm shocked by the outrageous excuses given for voters being turned away from many polling stations on election night: why isn't more fuss made about this in the media and everywhere? Supposedly, 'an inquiry is under way' but that just isn't good enough. If this were a third world country, there would be world-wide rumblings about ineptitude and conspiracies. But we're a civilised, sophisticated, efficient democracy, aren't we? 

PORTRAIT PARTY 

Some of us prefer art to politics and pay more attention to art than to reality and would rather play than work and can find hundreds of good reasons not to do the things we should be doing in favour of things that have no agenda other than fun. So when I saw on Walt's always fun-supporting blog a mention of Julia Kay's Portrait Party, of course I immediately had to go there and now I'm completely hooked. Here are my first three portraits of artist members of that vibrant ongoing all-day all-night party. I drew these digitally on a graphic tablet, using Artrage software for Wally and Blue Sky Day and Photoshop brushes for Allan. 

NdA Exhibition opens at Casa 5

It all went quite well yesterday, apart from the arrival of an uninvited horde of cockroaches a few hours before the private view in the gallery. A dozen or so were milling around the front door, obviously not art-lovers, so we attacked them with insect spray and in revenge, a whole army started crawling out, threatening to take over the premises. Much more insecticide and bashing with broomstick, then sweeping cockroach corpses out into the street. Who knows why the critters chose this particular day to emerge from wherever they were hiding, but emerge they did. Anyway by the time the real guests started arriving, the nasty intruders, dead and alive, were gone.

I exhibited 35 works on paper (works much appreciated but no sales)  plus a video interviewing some Tavira people in their surroundings. Here's a link to this video. I had to compress it a lot so it's not as sharp as the original, especially the written titles, but I hope you can still get the ambiance.

http://blip.tv/file/3281352

And below some photos of Casa 5 gallery walls before the opening. I didn't manage to take any photos while people were there, too busy chatting.

CLICK ON PICS TO ENLARGE

 

  

  

Portrait of Matthijs Leijenaar NdA Feb.2010  pastel on paper

 

 

  

  

MORE FROM TAVIRA

No time to write. The workshop went well, we did monoprints from collagraphs and monotypes from the ink left over on glass sheets after printing. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Will post some results later. Now I'm preparing for my exhibition which opens on Saturday and lasts for the few days until I leave on March 3rd. Can't believe it's nearly all over!

Below is another painting, again from that cafe the earlier monoprint was about. It's called Anazu, not azul as I said before. And some more photos of Tavira.

CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE

Cafe Anazu  NdA  February 2010  Acrylic on paper

 

Uma Flor  Found poem, Tavira

Found profile on Tavira wall

Fishing boats on the Gilao river, Tavira

 

The view from Casa 5, Tavira

A PORTRAIT AND A CARNIVAL

Yesterday I did a portrait in pastels of Isabel Macieira, partner of Matthijs Leijenaar and co-director with him of Casa 5. I was going to work on it some more but am afraid I'll ruin it so am leaving it alone. These are not oil pastels but the dry chalky kind, lovely to work with for spontaneity as long as you don't smooth and fiddle too much. Next I'll do one of Matthijs. On Saturday I'm giving a workshop on monoprinting without a press. Will post some of the work produced then.

It was carnival here on the weekend, cold and raining on and off, but that didn't deter the high spirits. I was bundled up wearing three layers of clothes but some people didn't feel the cold at all.

 

 

New work progress

Words seem to be failing me since images have taken precedence. The right brain left brain division is in evidence and my left brain must be waiting for me back in London.

A lot of rain in the last couple of days and the temperature has dropped so I've been working indoors, as close as possible to a gas heater. Have been doing some monoprinting from stencils such as the first image below, not quite finished.

CLICK PICTURES  TO ENLARGE

 Cafe Azul monoprint.   NdA  Feb.2010

 

Portuguese Woman  monotype  NdA  Feb. 2010

 

Inside-Outside  NdA  acrylic on paper  Feb. 2010

SOME OF MY TAVIRA IMPRESSIONS SO FAR

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White Shawl, Tavira Cafe - NdA Acrylic on paper

 

Gallery, Casa 5  NdA  Coloured pencil on paper

Park, Tavira  NdA  Watercolour pencil on paper

Cafe Mira, Tavira  NdA  Watercolour pencil on paper

Cafe Azul  NdA  Watercolour pencil on paper

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TAVIRA TIME GOES BY

I can't believe I've already been here ten days! The sun is out and everything looks amazing and I want to do more than I'm doing - by more I mean less fiddling, more coherence, more simplicity. The devil is in the detail, yes, and it's devilishly difficult to resist the temptation of detail. I ruin a good start as soon as I start adding more detail, out of some kind of slavish obedience. Have just ruined the picture you see on the easel, of a woman with white shawl sitting in a cafe. That  was the start and it was okay. Now I've"finished" it and it's no good. Well, there'll be others. Not much time for blogging.

Click on photos to see full size.

1. Works in progress.
2. Tourists asleep in the sun.
3. Human made up as statue (he stands on the Roman bridge almost all day).