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