Composition with gorillas

Pop Starz (explained)

What is Pop Starz? Well- many things, but in this context the pop star is significant for me, as a Chinese domestic product that in its essence is a distillation of many social and political factors at work in the fabric of chinese culture at the moment. Although the studies are predominantly works featuring established pop artists, (as catalogued in the myriad glossy publications aimed at championing, showcasing and exhibiting these contemporary icons) there are also studies of regular, normal young people whose appearance, style and awareness is parallel, intertwined with that of their heroes. The 'pop stars' I capture are both the gods and the mortals,each indestinguishable from the other, when crystalised in an image.

More Pencil Drunkard

and more Hang Zho...

More Pencil Drunkard

Study from Hang Zho, 2 hours outside shanghai.

pencil punch drunk

Shadow spine orchid pencil rubber

Very typical

This little gem is not just evidence of being lost in translation, it also talks about attitudes to the various strata of society, it offends on so many levels... great!

hurry folks

...only 364 shopping days till xmas

Postcard from Shanghai (another)

City fringes of Shanghai

As the city thins out, real estate is cheaper and projects and initiatives such as roads and factories are commenced but do not yet link up.

Found on a pen drive (cont)

Notes to self

- Subtitle for this blog: Pencil drunkard - diary of an idea-drinker in China
Being a drunkard also means that despite your better judgement, against current wisdom or current sense, one re-enters into a world in which anxiety, stress, agitation and anger are sure to follow any euphoria that might be promised from said indulgence.

Anyone who witnessed the screaming and shouting, anger and unruly behaviour that followed my recent painting session- namely my children who were innocently interrupting my session with idle questions and their will to be involved or to assist in the activity, will be sure just how destructive this habit can be to the family unit. My childish tantrum followed my frustration as sure as night follows day.

Despite the dangers, the personal trauma and torment that generally accompany this habit, I persist in its activity. I am wracked by its constant presence in my life- I cannot shun it because I'm an old soak(pencil wise), yet it makes me miserable and I am weakened by it. It steals time from me and makes me think Im something Im not.

Of course I dramatise, of course I am exaggerating. However when in the throws of inspiration or the lack of it, I feel hopelessly lost and desperate to be somewhere else where the goals and rewards, the rules and risks are far more prescribed and accepted- a regular job for example. A normal life.

Postcard from Shanghai - Hongkou

Found on a pen drive

Old material from the Jardim Miriam days

Found Sculpture

The natural occurence of beauty or design, in random and unchartered environments, is a rare treat. For me it reiterates the question posed by Marcel at the start of the last century, and which has been echoed ever since. Is it the same question as when does a person become an artist, though? I suppose it is...

A Familiar Sight

Crutches

I am compiling a list of the top 10 most irritating and unfathomably stupid things about crutches.

Near the top of the list will be the way that whenever you have to pick something up, you spend 20 minutes trying to lean 1 crutch against the table or work top without it slowly sliding one way or the other and falling to the floor-, only to hear it crash to the ground the minute your back is turned to pick up said item.

Also in there will be armpit chafing...

Off the rails so easily

My recent surgery and the ensuing incapacitation have made me realise (just like millions of (well documented) heart op and life saving patients before me, just how delicate the balance of daily trudgery is. The school run, making sandwiches, shaving, sitting, sleeping, washing up- all these things have had to be radically adjusted to fit in with my new physical state. Although I am regaining feeling and movement in the leg, I am still a long way from being able to action any of the afore mentioned daily nothings without quite some consideration and planning.

I will not bother to wax lyrical about the fragility of life and the taking for granted etc etc- millions before me have done so more competently and in a more qualified manner. I am just fascinated by the ways in which such mundane normality can be undone in a single (knee)twist, and how much effort and metamorphosis can be required to resume some semblance of that normality.

been a while

knee op one thing and another...anyway, same old art, new shiny wrapper- the '08 version of my site now up here

New tighter measures for your pleasure

In moment of clarity yesterday I decided to introduce some level of art historical context, at least some level of critique. Much of what I produce, think, say etc is in fact rubbish and though it can be construed as valid in terms of an honest cataloging of one 'stream of consciousness', I think it only serves to confuse and muddy the context of my output- visually at least. Therefore some images have now been 'graded' and accordingly re-represented, in an attempt to clarify what it is I am trying to say. I will not at this stage be assessing the written contributions to this blog, though one painful entry springs to mind as worthy of immediate deletion. Any comments will be welcomed which can provide some critical assessment of the written content- please feel free to recommend posts for deletion or which you find offensive, either in their nature or by their pointlessness. Comments also welcome on visual entries as well, of course.

White cake for everyone

As he swung higher, he laughed more- until the turning point at which he would begin to become scared and then beg for static- plead for cessation and to just slow down a bit or stop pushing daddy.

The air was white- sorry the sky was white. But the air was white- the sky was a tangible, solid, vapourous mass which engulfled all and obscured everything more than maybe 100 ft away. And the air tasted white. That which you breathed was actually noticeable by its blandness- to detect a quality of the air distinguishes it as noticeable and impure- air is for breathing- for automatically ingesting subconsciously without trace or inconvenience, if you can feel the air you are breathing, if you notice that you are breathing, then somethings up- the airs not right- its there and it shouldnt be.

So as he screamed and laughed, begged for more and at once pleaded cessation on the fibreglass dolphin swing in the park, he gulped and guffawed his way through lung after lung of this bland air- well thats all I could think anyway. I wasnt enjoying his shrieks as much as I could be, because part of me was thinking - 'yeah what is that bland taste- come to think of it who is burning plastic, electrics or something- some great distance away... who has left the heating element on and gone out, in some obscure location 20 miles away that I can barely detect. Yet detect it I can- like that strange phenomenon of only being able to smell the rotting chicken meat left in a forgotten corner of a student kitchen, when you turn your head suddenly, or open a cupboard.. only detectable ever so vaguely...

I had imagined that autumnal climactic normalities had precipitated this thick and claustrophobic atmosphere- you know its exactly the same as that oppressive feeling you get when the sky is heavy with snow yet has not yet begun- when the cloaking is of sound as well as of visual- that solid white sky... yet this was not snow. It was cold, but not cold enough for snow. The caustic plastic being burned miles away, the mysterious milky tangibility- blandness- detectable and threatening to all who would pause to think about it... this heavy whiteness that iggy shrieked in as he played in the park, that I breathed as I read on the bench- this was not snow, it was not entirely natural in its composition. It was not an interesting foible of meteorology. No it was the second day of its kind since I arrived in Shnaghai- the second day in which I suspect the climactic conditions conspired to condense and concentrate the city's heartfelt industrial outpourings instead of dutifully whisking them out to sea or up to the hills. For the second time only the veil had been lifted on the true nature of this air we live and breathe in. When he brings his son to playgrounds like these, will they be white? Or will China have been ordered to catch up...

Pop Starz III

Im loving the whole plush soft toy thing with these pop culture people... truly awe inspiring...

Getting the groove back on

Just recoiling from the unusual glow of knocking out a satisfactory illustration, that on the surface of it I feel happy with. Like coming full circle, my return to acrylics for this piece is a satisfying completion of what seems like a long (12-15month) roaming experiment through other media. Though I am not rejecting the competent pulp of watercolours, this success in my traditional medium seems to somehow consolidate my skills rather than provide problems of selecting a style. My style is painting, irrespective of media- unfortunately, the industry generally recognises the medium before the man- thats chris kasch the acrylic guy, or that scandinavian watercolorist ... Not sure how I might overcome that...http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Popstarz II - (edited)

more pixel blending

just one more - barcelona

(image removed)

All images now available in the new site here

And theres less... (edited)

also some painting

Im never going to get round to my website- so until I do , im uploading some highlights...

Pure poetry

Just returned from a beautiful weekend in Hang Zho... And as I have lost this year's digital camera (a canon ixus 700) decided that I would instead capture the essence and beauty of the weekend by writing a poem rather than take a picture... to that end I have to note a few key things that moved me... the afternoon sunlights as it creeped over the hillside and just managed to capture th tree trunks on the hillside. Then there was the little electric boats that carried -arrghe alas I am too drunk to get this down properly (indeed I apologise or the use of alas- but alan bennets alice in wonderland accompanies my daughter Matilda's slumber as it approaches and its flavour is quite contagious...) the boats carried young couples beneath the little canvas canopies, and the funny rubberised steeringwheels whose use affected little the orientation of the boats as the wind was strong and most boats had ended up in the nook at the end of the lake and then struggled to get away to any purpose from the dull corner of the lake in which they found themselves... also I remember the groups of capped pensioners, or grouped pensioners, or smiling pensioners- all grouped and boating or walking and usually smiling, spitting and shouting or all of the above... also after my morning walk to the top of the mountain behind our hostel, equiped only with my son whose early waking precipitated such a walk, which encouraged me to think on the nature of man's obsession with walking up to or over things- as on my walk at 6am I encountered huge numbers of walking fellow morning risers, all either returning from or tramping towards the peak of the mount- enough already...

Breaking at the elbows

One thing that becomes apparent as I cast my memory back over the last 3 months of contributing, with a lazy eye and torpid wrist, is that the overall flavour, the gist and direction, seems to be a whinging self pitying and paltry kind of squirming around this notion of poor old tortured me, how difficult I have it here in my creative ivory tower. This odour, this washing left in the machine over night and only starts to reek as the body heat warms it up type dawning of understanding I am now seeing as I peruse all that is written before me is a little disturbing. It is unsettling because the odour is lying- it is not actually telling the truth as it seeps from the page like invisible mist, carbon dioxide maybe, as it lies to people about the teenage angsty artistry of struggle... because it is not artistry or struggle that I have tried to capture. It runs deeper. To whinge, to bemoan, to lambast the world which I have created for myself as a creator, a creative, is teenage and angsty. Perhaps even cowfold. Thats what I am not doing. What I am doing started at a cafe in Prague, at a small metal table, tin like and rocking, as the elbows of Jody and me rocked the ideas and the round metal back and forwards from one to the other. As he reached up to relieve his mouth of the rolled up cigarette, so the table would rock to me, and as I reached for another sip of my beer bottled, so the rocking would incline jodywards, usually carrying on its crest another idea, or same idea half volleyed back. Other than the table's unique movement, the other crystal memory is of the ash tray- loaded with greyed burned golden virginia, and atop this a beautiful and perfect mobius strip, roughly fashioned from daler rowney sketchbook page and cellotape (or was it purely saliva and epiphany that held togeher its magic ends?), as sole testimony to the previous three hours' interchange and rocking, to the world-changing universe-encompassing god-devouring art that we had just created, baptised and inaugurated to the world at large. What I meantersay, is that the creative thread that runs through this encounter, and as many after it, through the creative encounters that perforated our remaining 2 years at college, and indeed beyond, was actually my/our chosen language, voice, artistic being-reason-style-whatever you'd like to try and pigeonhole it with using your cumbersome and clumsy written language. What Jody and I discovered there in prague, aside from the worldchanginguniverseencompassinggoddevouring ideas themselves, was the mechanic of, the route to, the method to our collective madnesses, In discussing 'it', 'that', 'them', 'us', 'art', (or more diabolically 'illustration') we were happily and gaily producing the finest work either of us had ever achieved (...jody will I hope forgive me for tying his greatest achievements to this particular phenomenon, which so blindly ignores his entirely competent and beautiful canon of figurative painting, his photography and his sculpture, not to mention his writing- though indeed that may have had lots to owe to our 'art of conversation'...) Its was thus that our joint exhibition, my first and finest hour, was conceived and executed. Show and Tell was a hastily thrown together and beautifully opportune carpe diem, an ambitious and dynamic crystallisation of the rocking table, the stella artois, the elbows and the cheap crystal ashtray. When the Hoxton Biblioteque folded, and shrank back into the minds of its creators, no doubt leaving debtors and sobbing partners, it left a vacuum on the corner of Old Street and Pitfield Street. It was a shell in which the vacuum was allowed to exist for just a handful of weeks, two of which Jody and I procured for the handsome fee of 200 quid. To have a gallery in hoxton to yourself, for 2 weeks, for 200 new english pounds was at this time (to us) a miracle. On reflection the fact that it was not a gallery but an empty shell with some DeWalt industrial flourescent tubing left over from the demolition of the biblioteque, and not much else, was probably the reason for the nominal fee. That and the fact that it was completely illegal, and if some person of even vauguest legal persuasion had bothered to notice the exhibition at any time during its glorious 2 weeks, they would have notified the authorities and we would have been arrested for squatting. This aside, the environment suited our needs perfectly. Jody and I spent £30 and 36 straight hours constructing 18 5'x2' canvasses with cheap B&Q timber and end of line canvas from covent garden in my one bed flat in victoria park road. We then hauled the canvasses to Old street in a wheel barrow via Hackney Road, and hung the primed blanks on the wall. Over the next 3 nights Jody and I resumed our dynamics and conversations, this time aided with diagramatics and explicatory glossaries and thumbnails. The ideas swung from the nature of art, illustration, creativity and the contradictions between the three, to religious literatures and different types of lager. We covered the reason behind exhibiting, for a person, an artist or an animal. We probably covered the legal implications of mounting a display in someone elses old biblioteque, without prior consent. It was a beautiful, fresh, immature and precocious effort. The end result was not entirely satisfying, neither for the creators nor viewers. It was however entirely honest. It was also the starting point, the launch pad, the seed crystal for this and any other blog I may attempt to produce. When I smell that odour- the clothes in the machine too long reek, the whingeing self important self pathetic struggling rant- I am reminded that I am not whingeing, not reeking, not pathetic... I am merely carrying on where I left off. The conversation has not changed. Perhaps the medium reflects the decade- and indeed we are tuned in to mono (logue) not stereo- but the essence is the same- shit the whole thing is the same. Its the same dialogue, the same conversation, the same voice- its the same fucking day as the dawn that broke in prague at the elbows.

Good 'n Crooked

"In order to produce good work, in order to be a succesful illustrator, one needs to have a nice line. A really nice, soulful, warm, deliberate line. And one needs a good 'n crooked imagination- a kinda twisted, mirrored, awkard-to-front thought pattern that put 2+2 together and gets fries." - Discuss...

{aside I have neither... my line- whilst acceptablein pencil on paper will not reproduce to any effect in process, and is thus redundant. My ideas are at times vague, usually irrelevant, and generally impractical as I cannot articulate them in any visual capacity anyway- watercolour, drawing or painting. Those works which I consider have succeeded are merely decorative matter which contain neither of the above (self defined) illustrative prerequesites, and thus my work neither succeeds nor satisfies.}

Crows everywhere are equally black...

Final version of the crows proverb...

reminiscence...

A cross between pulp and introspection, fuelled by antique snaps of a good lady wife

Drawing with pixels (edited)

Opening for a movie

The character I am drafting had this to say in his most recent monologue as he washed up a green and an orange plastic bowl. (He stared feeling an ease and a fondness that the familiarity of his vista afforded him; the three adjacent car parking spaces and the little pathway leading to the block over the road in his condominium, the worn and familiar road markings and parking space numbers- their random order a beauty to him in itself)

Im am feeding them poorly. My children eat nothing but noodles and porridge at the moment. Not together, but alternating or sometimes sequential meals of nothing other than these two packet servings... but to more pressing matters- this certainly would not make much of a blog entry, though it is indeed the sort of entry that is both prolific and XXXXXXXXXX in the 2.0 at the moment- what I would write if I could remember it is far more worthwhile, more respectable and 'blogs of note-worthy'. It is you see, about a writer (or is it an artist) whose blog is read only by two people. He knows this because he has only ever told two people where to find it. The blog is not often read- if at all in fact- because the subject matter does not deviate from what is happening (creatively speaking) in the lives of his two friends- his blog features only contributions that his two friends have made creatively- one is a writer, the other a clown or a doctor Im not sure which (maybe one is a designer...) but all he writes about is what they have said to him adn shown him. Their latest trick, or painting, or discovery- he just writes it down as though its his blog- which it is- but its him writing the lives of others... so its difficult to say if it really is his blog or theirs. But this is not a clever post modern comic book style twist like the great comics I used to read and which fuelled my own creativity- no it would have to feature articles about doing nothing things- boiling eggs, brushing teeth- thinking about nothingish things whilst waiting for a bus- no it didnt have any of those fantasticly dynamic traits. No it had awful, dull, uninspiring rambles about this new minimalist outpouring or some nuance of complexity in an inane operation, that somehow called forth zen like echoes in its execution. Such things were useless or atleast uninteresting in 2.0, in blogs of noteland, in the peaceful parking spaces where I stare.

And the staring is worrying my character too. 10 minutes ago he was talking to someone. (I cant remember who) Then quite suddenly his focus had slipped, like some slab of gelatin off the side of a pork joint, and slopped to the floor. It was as worrying as slopping real gelatin on the floor would be to a real kitchen porter. It wasnt just his gaze that had slipped, but more his consciousness- his attentive focus had fallen away, like harrison ford falling through the floor and landing in a new and unknown antique world... and it was a comparable struggle to lift himself back into focus, into cognitive reality, from his gelatin-slopped, whip cracking muse. It was worrying that his mind should fall away uncontrollably at any given time. It would explain a lot, but it was no less worrying to be so.

Shanghai Zoo

Pop Starz (edited)

New Direction

The hundred flowers of your love...

Its a strange world in which my family lives. There is spit, and strange voices. Anger isnt really anger but there is often animosity or just plain fleecing. Nobody likes to have wool pulled over any part of their face- let alone the ears. Three wise primates, following red stars to bethlehem... and everywher else.

I dont think I am going to be anyone in politics, but I doo believe in the power of Pop. Pop will lead us forward, from temptation and deliver us from evil. The monkeys cannot decipher the pop. Pop is the message- until it eats itself

More proverbs

Green Lady

Read this the other day

Read an excerpt from a diary of some unknownon the internet the other day...

"So there was this situation where after discussing with a friend the merits of LSD they agreed that the fun, or interest in the hallucinagen waned once you managed to learn how to think on acid. It's not something that would conscienciously happen - it was just that as the brain got used to tripping it would manage to form the standard logical links in the brain that acid had so much fun mingling with - as if the brain learned the sleight of hand, learned the jokes and didnt find them funny any more. This happened after about a year of regular use, but it didnt mean his aspirations were shot... "I was determined that I would break through and manage to reach that 'other side' that I would be able to taste and touch and speak and sense utter loss- utter oblivion, where reality was unanimously engulfed in lysergic myth, unreality where logic, sense, familiarity, reality were all abolished in the swell of glorious abandon..." yet the quality of the acid that they were buying at the Pub was perhaps limited- indeed maybe the method of application (shop bought tabs at £5 a pop) would not sufficient for these purposes, irrespective of the cumulative quantities used.... He had already learned that consecutive dropping was useless- taking one at 8, one at 9, one at 10 was as bad as just taking one at 8 (more or less, as far as breaking through and understanding the daffoldils was concerned*)

* Ill explain in a bit

so tripple or quad dropping was required... or indeed keeping an ear out at the sussex for what might be the next big thing... purple stars, red dragons, purple dice.... these names took on mythical proportions as life seemed to suddenly revolve around just two things- GCSE's and acid...

One night at a party He came as close as he could remember to that hallowed ground of the other side... "I remember finding myself in the garden (well to be honest someone else found me in the garden...after looking for me for a few hours...). I was stooped over the flower beds, the daffs were in full bloom. When my friend pulled me inside, (much to my distress) they had to convince me that I could no longer stay in the garden as it was too cold and I may freeze... I protested so severely because (as I was later informed) "I was so close to understanding what they were saying- I could almost make out the words- they were speaking to me, and I knew what they were saying- but they were just out of audible range - {this may have explained the close proximity of my head to the petals and soil as my friend found me} - but however hard I tried I just could not hear them...."

He tried on several other occasions to understand them, he tried upping the dossage, tried intensifying the dose or the method of ingestion, but nothing worked. He found a new master- a new voice to tune into- it was a small "pet rock" that someone had at their house where we used to trip regularly... but the problem was the same. "Every time I got close, it seemed that the voice just became that little bit imperceptibly quieter... just tantalizingly out of range. A bit like when you look at the night sky, you see stars everywhere, then when you focus on a dull or remote star you cant see it- you can only see it in your peripheral vision..."

Not long after this he gave up. He had lasted much longer than any of my contemporaries in my quest for 'understanding'- wait- not understanding but just 'hearing' what was being said to him- but even he had to give up in the face of stiff competition from other drugs."

I include this story as a post only because it somehow shows a striking similarity with the creative challenges of my surrent situation, in as much as a search for the intangible or inaudible...

A Brief respite

No Pulp today - just pulpography.

inspired

just found out via my guardian football podcast of all places, that my constant inspiration have taken the inspired decision to release inRainbows without record label, and for a voluntary contribution, not any fixed price... beautiful...

Dear John

terry fit for tomorrow, though he's usually pretty sketchy when in an england shirt. watch the injuries mount up eh!
Im aching all over played again tonight - just indoor but it was a good laff. some boys take it so seriously though.... also did another painting - just some more pulp for the portfolio but at least it was another one of my Chinese proverbs series. Im still not happy with much that im producing at the mo, except the stuff that fits into a tiny little category of 'facial portraiture from contemporary fashion' which is a practically unsaleable market to put myself in but any deviation from this subject tends to get all muddy and unattractive. Also Im yet to put oil to canvas but I feel it coming on- am working with a group of homeless, teaching english...trying to suss who would make a good portrait subject... spending time and gaining a bit of trust but not there yet... want to take em all on a picnic to claridges or something and do a bit of a performance... hmm...

Pulp II (edited)

"Crows everywhere are equally black"

This is a piece I have been working on as part of a series of interpretations of chinese proverbs. Maybe Ill upload the finished image sometime but for now im enjoying the 2am tired camera shake version...

Pulp-

Sneek peak

Over the next few posts I will be 'previewing' some of the new work I have managed to sueeze out since arriving in Shanghai. Little or none has anything to do with the environment around me, nor is it a reflection of inspiration or experiences I have felt since arriving. It is however the first and necessary stage of the creative process, in which writers block is removed by gym-like pencil or brush exercise which stops one's brain from becoming addled.

There are shanghai projects in the pipeline, but like all projects actually worth doing, they are long term, involved and complicated to undertake- as such I have learned in my recent repatriations that it is foolish to try and rush into them... so for now I stick with the 'pulp' that I am planning to showcase in full when my website relaunches in, err, a little while...

Peoples Park, Central Shanghai

The beauty of the park is paralleled not only in the way the subject wishes to have his photo captured beneath the fine statue, as if some of the virtue, honesty and vitality of the monolith might rub off on him as their images are intertwined for eternity, but in the way that a nokia n82 is the method of choice for capturing this testament to the people and to the brave. Publish Post

Peoples Park, Central Shanghai

Ahhh Bless

Poor old blue- this year is not our year. How incomprehensible it is that we should find that hard to swallow, yet how satisfying that we should choke on the failing of our champion gladiators performances, for all and sundry who spectate. This year is indeed not ours, and what embitters and enrages is the knowledge that next year can at best be spent recuperating and reforcing our mettle, whilst languishing in 4th. Bring on the champions league...

Tomson Garden, Luxury Condominium

Rust

It seems perfectly appropriate that the bicycle that we had bought 4 weeks ago is now so rusted and discoloured that it looks as if we have had it for years. It was not an expensive purchase- remarkably cheap in fact, but not so cheap that it should disguise itself effectively amongst age old domestic stock which it parks alongside in the bike shed. It is appropriate, because like the fish tank that we bought, it was clearly marked domestic use only- do not export. Im not quite sure why this leaves a bitter taste in the mouth- but somehow it does. That manufacturers should be so explicit in their elitism of production- so unabashed in their 'its good enough for the locals but don't ever show it to the real world' attitude, is I think the reason for the distaste. Its a theme which is doubtless being explored by many artists at the moment, but the rust and broken plastic seems to me the most resilient and unequivocal symbol of this New Dawn.

Postcard from Shanghai

10th September, Pudong

A creative

Often in these kinds of situations, the sort where the rituals of socialising and 'settling in' are fuelled by latte and wide smiles, the phrase 'oh your an artist- my (insert relation here) is an artist' comes up, usually accompaned by a qualifying term of modesty or humblemanship. (No one ever says 'oh yes my (insert relation here) is an artist- he's bloody succesful and is currently showing at the Whitney...')

It's not a bad thing, or offensive or derisive. I don't feel like Victoria Beckham when she meets Mrs Average housewife and is told 'oh my fred is a ranging midfielder, he loves a dead ball too...'. Or Mrs Rushdie when A N Other says 'yes I also love the storytelling narrative- Ive done a few myself would you like to hear them...'. No, I find it sweet and inoffensive, but it does draw coser to my mind the question of what is an artist- again- as it is a theme that seems recurrent in my musing these days.

One of my favourite books , currently at home in storage, is a 1950's tome aimed at a roughly secondary comprehensive audience, and is titled 'How to write, speak and think correctly'. It's name has always appealed, in its conviction and clarity, and its broad subject matter. I bring it up now because I think the lot of a artist (read A N Artist) is roughly under the same vacuous premise- how to write speak and think creatively. Or perhaps originally. Because the art of even a painter is most definitely entwined in the thinking process, the discussion and the written shorthand that surely preceeds any kind of creativity or originality. I am all too aware of the restriction that 'just painting' can bring- a fact which is compounded when you can actually paint quite well (note the ambiguity that clouds and swamps the phrase quite well just then. Artistic philosophers the world over are scribbling 'well how, well what...' in their notebooks. But the fact that my line an my figurative form seem well polished compared to most of humanity has been the largest millstone of all in my research and creative enlightenment. It leads to endless nicely painted things that mean- well what exactly? And as such a tremendous amount f unlearning has had to be undertaken over the last 5 years as I search for a meaningful thematic or consistent motif that expresses the written, the spoken and the thunk thoughts that in my opinion categorise the artist, as distinct from the (insert relative here)

Its a long and ardous, painful, depressing and undermining process to fnd such a groove, such a voice as an artist. I have found it tremendously difficult, and still to this day have no common thread or consistent marketable, understandable commodity that a critic or historiancould apply to my output. I am encouraged by the permanence of, or consistent resurfacing of projects
such as the street kids or burmese refugees, and perhaps therein lies some kind of motif or narrative. However it is still a very long way from being at all respected or even concreted in my own mind, and as such the difficult writing, speaking and thinking- correct or otherwise- will continue to trouble my waking thoughts.

beauty in the mundane

back in the flow

As a creative journal, this blog has fairly satisfied its cause. the lack of contributions over the last few days belie a genuine lack of creativity or inspiration on my part, other than those thoughts that spring forth whilst I am ironing, cleaning, washing clothes or feeding offspring.

Today however I find myself inspired by a visit to the Zendai museum of Modern Art. Inspired inspite of what I saw, as opposed to directly by it. I was happy to have critically written off one of the exhibitions there- of so called 'new painting' (a bland description of a flimsy concept if you ask me...) a genre in which the painting occupies more than just a wallspace, but where it comprises some sort of installation in that it its environment and the manner in which it deals with a subject or emotion transgress the traditional conceptual arena of figurative painting. To me its like painters tryng to get in on the installation/coneptual act, despite being confined to 2 dimensions. Any conceptual angle that these artists try to engineer seems trite and (to use a matthew collings phrase) a bit windy. the paintings were still hung on the wall, and that an ultraviolet light would intermittently reveal som 'underpainting' did not to me generate the conceptual notion of an installation. It would be to do installation art down to concede that such gimmickery be reclassified thus. Add to this the fact that the concepts revealed by the intermittent switching of these lights was flaky to say the least (portrait of bush is suddenly revealed as bin laden, asian business man is revealed as skull etc etc) and you have little more than ambitious diploma level teenage mediocrity. So nerr.

Hanshoi Lu

Football fest anyone?

6 hours of premiership action starts 8:15pm tonight. Come on!

2 weeks in

And so we are coming to the end of week 2 in the big brother house- make that big brother republic. The list of off limits sites is extending gradually, but nothing orwellian or excessively prohibitive.

So 2 weeks in and 102 to go, to reach my personal target of being in an established career of some kind. Oh how Ill look back at this little entry and laugh.

There's a woman in the next block. I think a floor lower than us, but not much more than that because I can see into one corner of one of her apartment rooms. No no, nothing like that. The corner of the room that is presented to my vista as I wash up is bare, sparsely furnished- looks kind of functional fr some reason that I cannot put my finger on. Perhaps the unfinished wood which makes up the back of a type of furniture unit, that is pressed up against the window, is giving the utilitarian feeling- but I guess most furniture looks like that from the back. It's just that usually the back of a cupboard or dresser or shelving unit has no audience other than extreme proximity to an opaque and oppressive wall. It seems strange that I am allowed to witness the nudity of the unit from my vantage point- like being backstage during a performance and seing the plywood and nails that constitute the illusion of a rolling scene or stormy sea at a theatre production. But does not seem strange for long. Why should you care who sees the back of your unit, when you are three or four floors up, and a gulf of at least 30 feet separates your apartment from another across the little mock roads that snake around the condominium? You see, the proximity of others is completely forgotten somehow when you are dimly aware that you are living high up in the air. But I digress. The perceived chink through which I witness the utilitarian room- at least utilitarian unit (should I be specific and say the utilitarian looking back of the possibly ornate and frivilous fronted cabinet?) and its accompanying room is like a little window into someone elses life- I mean their entire life and not just their life in that room. Sensing a small old woman doing something I am unable to fathom in one corner of a room, the rest of which is hidden from my view, allows my mind to ticker away for hours on the very nature of her existence, of her struggles, her aims and ambitions, of her daily routines and customs that in her mind pertain to the realisation of those dreams... Perhaps there is a reason that she wears small plastic disposable gloves whenever she is in (that corner of) that room, a reason for her economic refinement in selecting a bare floor and undecorated walls. Perhaps. The human mind, well my one at least is not entirely comfortable settling for an explanation devoid of intruige or some possibility of unknowable mysticism. I think the gloves mean something. I am sure the room and its decoration are also a key.

And I'm happiest leaving it there and knowing no more- at the moment the possibilities are boundless and the imagination limitless. She remains a mystic and a yogi to me, wrapped in ritual, ceremony and behaviour from another world altogether. And now to the dishes.

Matilda behind the lens

We All know about deterioration. We all know about breakdown- of friendship, of communication... I am all too familiar with the breakdown of human interaction - but what about fundamental breakdown. The There is a mathematical formula that can predict the deterioration of a nuclear substance over time- indeed the decomposition rate of a particular isotope forms the basis of our most accurate timepiece- the atomic clock. So what measures musical the deterioration from Beatles (1985) through Electro (1984-1988) via Velvet Underground and The FaithHealers, to Beltram (arguably not deterioration) and back to Led Zepellin (more a transgression...). Its an organic evolution, which by defenition is a deterioration or evolution (depending on your slanted mind/eyes)... could somebody please send me the formula...am i growing or shrinking, erroding, washing away in my own floods of doubt, of self criticism, of fear... or growing stronger? Evolving....

Just how many pictures of the Colonel does it take to sell a chicken burger? The neon of this pedestrian street near Peoples Square is actually quite an attraction, and on one evening I saw several locals rocking up to capture the spectacle on their shiny new cameras. Whether it was this KFC/Pasta city/others ensemble, or the more popular giant coke bottle down the road (complete with white neon fizz that oozed forth as you watched- well, was lit white periodically to represent the phallic spurt of an unleashed bottle) the shining gallery of all that is derided as corporate in the west was actually a big attraction to those of the east. I was even seduced by the spectacle, swept up by the emotion of a crowd of happy faces in awe of the bright and radiant light show that seemed more harmless and gay, less a corporate and oppressive call to consume.

A very strange thing happened today...

...as I was lying on the floor in the lounge I noticed that my body had begun secreting a very fine oily substance- not quite a liquid, but certainly not a gas or solid. I had never noticed it before, but was definitely aware of something as I lay there. the sun streamed in through the large window that faces the city, and I thought I might have been sweating. However, in the same way that you accept that if you sit in a hot bath your forehead will pirspire with small droplets of salty sweat, so I accepted that secreting something oily was a rational thing for my body to do as I lay on the floor of a luxury apartment in a strange city. I didn't have anyone to tell about it, so I just lay there for a bit, thinking about the chores that were ahead of me for the rest of the day. I had made good progress with cleaning the floors, and polishing the surfaces- a task which had left me feeling tremendously satisfied upon completion- perhaps because it was the first real task I had completed in around six weeks. Everything else in that time had been compromised in some way due to the fact that I was living out of a suitcase and so nothing that I had executed felt like it had any permanence or lasting effect. All had been transitory and ethereal until the polishing. Now the gleaming surfaces- my gleaming surfaces- provided concrete evidence of a very real sense of completion. As such I looked forward to sweeping the three flights of mahogany stairs, but only after a new cup of coffee. My thoughts drifted to the other two people who could well have been lying down- or producing oily myrrh- at this time in their respective corners of the world- one in New York and the other in London. And of course of the imlpications of eternal life that the reality of my secretions behest.

It reminds me of Buenos Aires... Tree-lined avenues, wide pavements, broad open spaces, modern architecture juxtaposed with traditional. Delicious...

Welcome, One and All

Arrived in Shanghai one week ago, more or less. Shanghai is a very strange place, says the man who has lived in London, Birmingham, Sao Paulo and Pattaya (Thailand). For one it's very clean, (don't believe the hype) and another thing the people are charming. Odd, fascinating, fascinated and charming...

Sneaky Peek...

Over the next few posts I will be 'previewing' some of the new work I have managed to sueeze out since arriving in Shanghai. Little or none has anything to do with the environment around me, nor is it a reflection of inspiration or experiences I have felt since arriving. It is however the first and necessary stage of the creative process, in which writers block is removed by gym-like pencil or brush exercise which stops one's brain from becoming addled.

There are shanghai projects in the pipeline, but like all projects actually worth doing, they are long term, involved and complicated to undertake- as such I have learned in my recent repatriations that it is foolish to try and rush into them... so for now I stick with the 'pulp' that I am planning to showcase in full when my website relaunches in, err, a little while...