In progress

two continuations on the graf/linguistic/youth cowcha theme... these will be perspex backlit and clear block plexiglass, eventually. I got till tuesday to get it finished, which is a bummer! best get my shit together!!!

oh and one more for screenprinting, probably as part of a sculpture...

New work, kind of

well some recent painting. Though all my time these days is spent carving up polystyrene or buying perspex...

Pimp my gallery

Next piece is large format graffiti sculpture. Because the styrofoam was delivered in one 10m x 1m x 1m chunk, I have to work on the stuff actually in the gallery space. Ive been sawing, filing, melting and cursing at the stuff for the last couple of days. Gallery now looks like a badly managed harvey nicholls window display with all the polystyrene fluff everywhere...

It needs coating with car body filler, then spraying.

Screen printed watercolours

heres an example of other work for the Automata show, maybe. White on whie screen prints of punk lyrics, over the punk band pics...

realisation

It was a fantastic feeling to see the workmen hang my finished sculpture collaboration (with the chinese metal worker who realised my designs) on the wall of the gallery. Being part chinese the piece should sell easier than my other pieces...

Automata

New exhibition at Island, due to open the 24th Oct, is entitled Automata. I am working on a big painting featuring a lottery machine, some sculpted graffiti, some screen printed punk lyrics and following the reading of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman (JP Donleavy) want to enterpret the quote:

"Kildare, you are being automatically stupid"

...as said by Darcy's tutor...

watch this space

Sculpture

Spent monday afternoon at the studio making maquettes of my grafiti sculptures, because the metalworker who was to make them was due at the studio later. He arived late, then Thomas later than him, so by the time we actually got to dicussing the feasibility in terms of cost and production, it was already way past hometime. Anyway, his quote was high so we decided to explore the possibility of making the piece in fibreglass, using another worker who had a factory in the north of the city. Unfortunately it was VERY north, and took an hour to get to his house in a taxi, and a further 20 mins to reach his workshop in god knows where wasteland beyond baoshan. He works in a big shed, uses clay to build the mould then applies the fibreglass around the hardened mould. The place was strewn with wire, welding tools, shovels, chisels, lumps of clay in varying sizes and dryness, cracked sculptures that had over dried and wet clay pieces under construction. A makeshift vat constructed of breezeblocks contained a hideous looking mixture of fibrous material and grey mulch, with an old broom handle caked in the half dried liquid as a giant spoon. There were empty plaster cast shells of the moulds from kids funfair toys, mac donalds fake trees with eyes and smiley mouths, random ugly tableux commissioned for unknown characterless retail outlets. It was a strange place to come to commission the realisation of my modern urban masterpiece.

One reason for soliciting the assistance of a local fibreglass tradesman, is that his own 'low art' of manufature and creativity for industry is a worthy artform nonetheless, and he and I should stand shoulder to shoulder in the creative process, with each due their acclaim on the name plaque in an exhibition. The other defining factor is that he is Chinese. A Chinese name on the name plaque, even only as workshop assistant, will increase the saleability of the item. I would have sold my 6 paintings (currently on display at Island6) long ago, had the name been asian, not european. Nobody comes to china to buy european art. And the Chinese middle class are not yt tuned in to Western art- they are tuned to Western Buick cars, Western apple iPhones, Western wine and Western luxury luggage- but they are yet to extend their embrace to more subtle manifestations of flaunting wealth such as high art. But it will come, my gallery assures me. Before I leave Shanghai, I wonder? That depends- on how quickly tastes develop, and how slowly I tire of metropolitania with rice.

Nervous system

So I spent the day on the studio whcking out some screens... a selection of flock wallpapers, cansons watercolour stock, woven paper and odd shtoe made for some interesting results... i took the camera to capture 'life in the studio', but the battery was flat...

anyway, life is buzzin at the studio which is good. The solvents we use to clean the screens are carcinogenic and rot the nervouse system, but are great at getting the ink out of an expensive screen that you want clean for the next 6 print sessions, so make for the perfect cleaning juice. My palms are still itching, which surely is a bad thing...

photos of the prints as soon as i can get em up here (china blocked blogs yesterday)

More 3 dee feetee

continuing experiments in sculpture. I remember an anecdote by Harrison Ford who said to george lucas 'you can write this shit [about the star wars script involving complicated made up space jargon] but that don't mean you can say it' - I am beginning to feel the same way about the metalworker who may have to make these things...

Shanghai Postcard

Didnt have my camera so you will have to picture this:

A little boy is walking along the street with a small stick held high in the air, because caught on the end of the twig is a plastic carrier bag, that has caught the wind and billows like a small flag. It dances around as he gazes at it, almost unaware that he is supposed to be following his grandma who walks a few yards ahead. Unfortunately after a few paces the bag catches an updraft and blows off of the stick and billows out behind him and falls to the floor. The boy quickly turns to recover the bag, and is relived to see it has not blown away. While he is turned he fails to notice a man who is waling down the same pavement, but coming towards him, not going in the boys direction.He is an old and fairly frail man, with a low slung paunchy belly and thin arms. The man sees that the boy has his back turned and that he has not noticed the old man, and that now that the boy has the bag in his hands he is straightening up and setting off quite quickly to catch up with his nan further ahead. The old man fortunately has pre-emptied the boys movement, as he can see where the boy aims to speed off to... but instead of adjusting his trajectory to avoid a collision, he extends his hip outwards, as in a body check, to directly enter the path of the boy. The boy doesnt even see the old man, and is knocked backwards from the force of the collision before he even knows what he has hit, and lands on his back on the pavement. The old man continues his walk as if the sudden change of direction and subsequent collision were always part of his planned perambulation. The old man expresses no emotion, no sentiment as a result of the impact or the reactions thereof. The boy begins to cry still stunned and disoriented, and now a block away from his grandma.

I saw this on my walk home tonight. I just thought Id mention it.

New Project

Theres tons on the go, my gallerist Thomas is one my case for new work, I have been busy researching punk bands and now Im playing with sculpture..

Proposal for the new island6 exhibition entitled automata... this baby will be stainless steel welded, if the guys are up to it!

snowball

Had the opening night of the new show at Island6 on saturday. Heavy ole night, as you might expect. Drank the place dry (that was just us artists, not the punters) and spent the latter half of the evening rocking out to dub and weirdcore. That said it did resemble a very pro affair for much of the night, with some of the shanghai art glitterati in attendance. Highlight was probably the 'music' performance that featured 6 artists and musicians dressed in boiler suits that i had decorated with 'BLASTIC' logos who performed with hose pipes, hammers, buckets of water and other strange objects I could not begin to describe. I was charged with filming the whole performance, which I duly hashed cos i was a few glasses under by then.

For what its worth my work was well received, and Thomas has been on my case for new work already this week. Onwards and upwards!

Never thought Id see the day

...when a door bears a little silver plaque like this!

Youth Culture in South West China

Down in Yunnan, South West China province that lacks the development, sophistication and infrastructure of eastern China (shanghai, beijing etc) the youth are attending military camp, not smoking in bus shelters. Notice how keen iggy was to see the spectacle, at the risk of being arrested and deported for spying!

Light Visual Relief

And now for something completely different: Matilda made some Jelly. This just makes a nice image...

Postcard from Shanghai (Moganshan Rd)

Peeps live on the 2nd floor of the end house, and throughout the rest of the block. A common sight in shanghai is people living in traditional housing as the rooms around them are ripped down to make way for whatever...

And this is just the type of dude who lives there- god knows what he hawks, but its more or less a wooden plank with a small motor at one end. Polishing, grinding - god knows!

Urban Lust mini project

As well as featuring in the new exhibition at Island6, I was asked to design the invite for the exhibition. My only guidelines were that it should not be a piece of existing work...

I spent yesterday at Moganshan Road testing then implementing my concept which I hope conveys the essence of the title... It was very addictive being out with the 'shaky cans' and the stencils... may experiment with this tecnique further









Thanks to Zane Mellupe at Island 6 for the support and for taking the pictures...

Guess who's off to the Party after all

Thanks to Kevin who called up out of the blue and asked if I wanted to join him for the opening games held here in Shanghai, Argentina Vs Ivory Coast but I may be wrong.

genius

just re-listening ro the roots mahuda, the ital vision of the rodney smith. man is legend. lyrics tripping like nothing n earth, put kool keith to - no wait - as good as KK, kicking cack, kickin the program... to use his words 'french kissing the chaos' - that right there is modern poetry mike skinner would be proud of... while watching barbara windsor on telly in some freaked TCM madness - tis a crazy telly night indeed
that right there is poetry , i think you will find...

weird shit

just caught a scene or two of a film which confused and amused. The scene I saw was basically a jewish market scene, and being a musical the film spent the next 10 minutes making a musical out of being jewish and how jovial it was to be a nomadic and disenfranchised people, but what jolly good fun it was... but then it got better because it descended into a market place disco meltdoen, with traders formation star jumping to a pretty damn cool disco dub, beards, caps and all. It was surreal, to say the least

Desert Island Disco Party

I have been asked to sign a 5 year contract with Island6, the contemporary art studio who first supported me in my initial projects in shanghai. The work that I produced for the Chinese Pro Skater Project surprised and exceeded their expectation, and will be exhibited in its entirety at in August. I would like to thank Joe at Wildrampage for his unrelenting support in my work here in Shanghai...

work in progress II

Its been a busy and I felt very drained earlier- painting takes it out of me in a way nothing else does... after a full day I am left feeling hollow, emotionless (except bad tempered or intolerant) drained mentally like something has sucked my brain dry- its a peculiar feeling. Gin helps. And the Depeche mOde album exciter...



It looks a lot worse in real life, but then most paintings do- except Freud's, which look better. The photograph smoothes the edges and fills the gaps...

Call for entry

Island6 have asked me to submit works for their new exhibition. Having recently moved to a new space they wish to kick off with an exhibition entitled Urban Lust. Hmmmm. If my work fits curatorially then I'm in with a shout... but I am not that happy with my offerings. Heres one, but its not typical of the other 5 I submitted...

meditations on being

Spent 2 hours in the park today thinking. Had gone there to take iggy skateborarding - his new passion (how cool is that, im a proud skater dad!) - but he fell asleep in the pushchair on the way there. So I was left with 5 cans of beer and plenty of time to pinpoint what it is that makes a person an artist,. Its a recurrent theme, and one which frustrates me still. I also thought about ways in which to exploit my skills and current position to further my myth- for i have calculated that every artist needs to perpetuate his or her own myth, one that people can buy into and believe in, criticise, shoot down, commemorate, exhibit etc etc. Its a point Mathew Collings raised, using the examples of Warhol, Pollock and someone else... picasso i think. Bottom line is that you and/or your audience must perpetuate the myth. It has to have meat on the bones, be plausible or risible, but always present. That Israeli portraitist who I went to see (whose name escapes me) fully believes in her massively cultivated myth- from her dreadlocks to her nosering to her poorly executed middle eastern faces- it all forms part of the story, she doesnt ever doubt her work or its capacity to 'artify' the viewer- to make them believe what she believes - and that is that SHE is an ARTIST. Thats its poorly drawn or the colours are a\straight out the tube does not deter her belief. And she is a success. Where am I? Worrying about skin tone and underlying theories of my direction and sincerity, silently and anonymously indoors through a drunken fog.

So today I spent 2 hours drinking and evaluating what I need to do to be more like our Israeli friend. As I have said before, I only wish I was gay, or black, or penniless, or unhappy... its not easy being a white middle class comfortably off father with a beautiful wife, 2 beautiful kids and a mediocre income.

But todays meditations have left me with a bit of direction. I just need to keep creating. night, day, here on this blog, in the studio, at school- I just need to keep producing, keep drawing.

And the other, more important revelation. An ode to Jilly Booth, my printmaking tutor- PLAY. I need to play, to fuck about a bit- push things around, step and repeat, invert, re-arrange- just keep playing, keep on PLAYING. Jilly said it to me repeatedly during,my education, and I found it so difficult because I was intent on producing cool or beautiful images... but she was AND IS right- keep playing. That is my myth- I am the ICONOCLAST (secondary school art teacher Mr Ross, now expired, coined the phrase in my school report - Nicholas is a cheerful iconoclast- and I have never felt prouder than when I read this) and still to this day spend my time not taking things quite seriously- myself or others, a sort of defensive mechanism I am guessing. But it is probably the cosest I have come to shaping my myth - that is that I am a cheerful iconoclast, and that I need to keep on playing, keep on prodding, jibing and playing the fool. That is the artist. it is he whom I need to reconcile myself with. Starting today.

ds,mf,.sdfam., ><

god drun k again, cant be fucke dto rage agaisnt the article in th eguardian hat offended me about global waorming, gfeeel satisfied to listne to beck, all ogwhich i am inlo ve with ... more batmND

...how it looks this morning

Spent another hour in mi pants at the easel... dont picture that

Free - time

So I have around 10 days with which to indulge myself... its just the boys in the house, Kelly has gone back to england to pick up our daughter after her bold independent England trip.. a valuable exercise. What it means is 10 days of painting, blogging, researching, housekeeping, holidayplanning and drinking, basically. Already today I have spent 6 hours painting a portrait of a boy that I started about 6 months ago. I have been a little lost, well actually completely screwed creatively since the start of the year. The watercolours that I have been working on for Thomas (my gallery) have been pretty much all shite- labour intensive and weak in production, they just basically dont cut the mustard. The reference is partly at fault, but Ive been slaving away with what Ive got- some look ok but its not what I would consider the best possible kick ass work that Nick Hersey would like Shanghai to know him for... then again nor is the work that is currently being exhibited at Arch. Its a great theme, and theres a good project in there somewhere... but the stickers just arent as good as Id like them to be. Anyway, a day spent at the canvas today has gone some way to allaying fears and lack of self confidence that have been brewing since feb. Not that the work is dynamic, its just passable... but thats a lot to me right now. I aim to get a few pieces done over the next 10 days, and hopefully get back on track with some stuff that Thomas might be able to exhibit in the autumn...


As you can see its a bit of a monster at 2m x 1m, and it fills up our little rabbit hutch... but its going ok for today wahey

Postcard from Puxi!

Lovin this menu from a little restaurant round the corner from our new house in the french concession...

Brief Summary

Arch Cafe went off smoothly. It certainly was not a consumate expression of the time and efforts spent in the 2 months previous to this time, but it looked ok, and got a good review in the City Weekend and was listed in a few magazines...








The question now is whether to continue with the exhibition (the cafe want to organise their own private view and have the band play there) or jump while i'm ahead (I picked up a commission at the show which will cover all my costs)

I can see it becoming a money pit as the cafe are not that sound when it comes to paying for stuff... so am moving my focus back to Thomas's project with the skaters...

Postcard from shanghai

Right in the centre of Shanghai, this sort of scene (old making way for the new, at the expense of any heritage or architectural reference) is rather common.

assorted samples

Heres a preview of some of the files from the show. Its been adjusted so many times I have got image-fatigue from staring at these bloody images...

Nick Hersey: First Exhibition in Shanghai

PUNK is dead

So the arch cafe project is nearing the sharp end... I was supposed to have a meeting with the gallery owner about my installation, but fortunately for me he cancelled, whic hbuys me 2 more days to polish my artwork (though many say you cannot polish a turd, a phrase of which I am most fond).

Anyway heres where we are at. Initially the factior which bound me to the punk band 'loudspeaker' was the fact that we were both independent artists. Now however, and since I cannot in fact find anyone to translate the lyrics of their songs to english, my plan of a cartoon like storyboard of their songs with my graphics just wont work...(apparently its not possible to translate from chinese to english - it just does not work, there are not enough agreed parallels in the languages to make any useable translation worth its effort....)

So I had the brainwave of contrasting the maoist manifesto of the cultural revolution with the punk manifesto of any given era. Its working quite well, and some of the hrases from the situationist manifesto that inspired the punk movement in the 70's, are echoed by the mao literature of the same era, but for different reasons. Add this to the fact that Punk is only able to exist in China today because China actually has developed a consumerist bourgeoise worth rebelling against, and you have a delicious multi layering of references- albeit doubtless lost on any punters to the installation once it is up and running. Ho hum....

Anyway, heres a taster of where we're at so far...