AWOL Studios

My work is featured on the AWOL studios website, soon there will be the opportunity to purchase direct from this site. Click here to view

My Berwick paintings are coming to a close now with only 5 more to complete. I have a large one on the drawing board and a number of smaller ones yet to start. There will be 12 in total and a number of limited edition prints aswell, once complete I aim to exhibit in Berwick and am currently chasing down a couple of galleries.

October is one of my favoutite months, the raking sunlight and crisp dry mornings are perfect for searching out locations and making those all important preliminary studies......

Killing Jar V Meadowland August 2011

My Meadowland V Killing Jar project is really coming together at the moment, visit the blog for more information and to follow its progress. http://thekillingjar.wordpress.com/

Slow Progress

6 paintings now on the go for Berwick Upon Tweed, back in the groove and then out of it.... Meadowland project growing and requiring my attention, summer heat and endless jobs slowing me down...slow progress.

New Online Shop

Due to a number of recent requests I have now set up an online shop where you can buy original pieces of work . At present I am only shipping to the UK for the larger paintings to keep costs down. To visit the shop please click here http://jamesbloomfield.bigcartel.com/

Primed and Ready to Go

This week I have started to prepare for a body of work on Berwick in Northumberland. I spent a fascinating few hours here walking in Lowrys footsteps (who was fond of a holiday here, no wonder I found it inspiring !) Some of the buildings and streets really did get me excited, a lot of the buildings I find interesting have now been demolished in Salford and Manchester and Berwick was bristling with charm!

Here are some Wikipedia facts:

Berwick-upon-Tweed (pronounced : BERR-ik ə-pon TWEED) or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles (4 km) south of the Scottish border.

Berwick's strategic position on the English-Scottish border during centuries of war between the two nations and its relatively great wealth led to a succession of raids, sieges and take-overs. Between 1147 and 1482 the town changed hands between England and Scotland more than 13 times, and was the location of a number of momentous events in the English-Scottish border wars. One of the most brutal sackings was by King Edward I of England in 1296, and set the precedent for bitter border conflict in the Scottish Wars of Independence.

In 1174, Berwick was paid as part of the ransom of William I of Scotland to Henry II of England. It was sold back to Scotland by Richard I of England, to raise money to pay for Crusades. It was destroyed in 1216 by King John of England, who attended in person the razing of the town with some barbarity.

Henry Travers, born in Berwick in 1874, was a character actor best known for his roles in Hollywood film productions, most famously as Clarence the angel in It's a Wonderful Life. One of my favourite films!


Over the next few weeks I will be posting my progress so watch this space!

Residency at Lime

Today I started my residency at LIME arts and have begun to plan out how I will spend my time here. It is a fantastic opportunity for me to develop my practise and create new work.

Lime develops, co-ordinates and delivers a wide range of creative projects within health care. The aim is to show how the arts can play an important part in enhancing quality of life and quality of care.

New Beginnings! New Ideas! time to breathe!

BP Portrait Competition 2011

This years entry to the 2011 BP portrait competition measures 200mm x 250mm, it depicts Abdel Ali al-Megrahi. It is presented in an english swept frame made from black oil resin which has been decorated with european and antique gold.

Title: Abdel Ali al-Megrahi 2011

"On 31 January 2001, Megrahi was convicted, by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, of 270 counts of murder for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment."

"Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government on 20 August 2009 following doctors reporting on 10 August 2009 that he had terminal prostate cancer and was expected to have around three months to live. In December 2010 it was reported that his condition had deteriorated and that he was in a coma. Some questions are still being raised into the reason for his release, and whether if he had appealed his conviction might have been quashed"

"On 16 July 2010, four United States senators made public their concerns over the release, stating they believed that the oil company BP pushed for his release to secure a deal with Libya. BP confirmed that it did press for a Prisoner Transfer Agreement"

source:wikepedia

Turner Prize 2010

The turner Prize has been announced along with the usual outrage. Its the same every Year, I don't know why they act so surprised at the winner. This year is no different with two painters, a sound artist and an installation team. The award ceremony was incredibly boring to watch with the only interesting thing being the students demonstrating in the background. Nicholas Serota sounded like old man Dorrit , professing his belief that "art should be for everyone where ever one lives and from what ever social background....." " I am a gentleman you know and you can leave a token of you appreciation , a small testimonial, that would be most gracious as I present the award again in London, one doesn't want to travel to the provinces...."

The sound artist (Singer) won, I forget her name and I'm sure most of you will if you give it a few weeks, I think her work would sound great on the Scottish bridges but probably loses its impact in a gallery setting. The turner prize achieves its aim by causing controversy but also fulfilling its quota of pushing Art forward in new directions. Sound art though is nothing new with John Cage work coming to mind as well as many others like Robert Wilsons "The Sundance Kid Was Beautiful".

The Turner prize again gives out a prize to let the public know what it already knows, on a day when 33 recording artists release a version of John Cage's 4min 33 secs to reach the Xmas number one.

I think that art should be moving forward especially with the wealth of technology available at the moment. To me we are stuck in the post modernism movement of art plagiarising the past and regurgitating it as something new. Where is the avante garde? where is the "shock of the new" who is really out there being creative and challenging audiences. Artists are so concerned with originality in a market that demands novelty, it is not possible if you are too afraid to break out of the norm.

A few years ago you could put anything in a gallery and call it art, with the right statement and process behind it. Sometimes there was no process at all, today audiences see through this, they have literally seen it all before and have lost respect for it. Art needs to re-address this through integrity of artist vision and complete honesty about the way the artist works, and why he/she works.

Art today has many different layers, more people than ever are in a position to call them selves artist, 100 years ago most would be working in mills, or down pits, or be shopkeepers or merchants sons/ daughters. With the improvements in lifestyle and readiness of materials it doesn't take much for an artist to be borne. In this new society though art has many roles, it is decoration, talking point, investment, status symbol, the old manifestos of aesthetics, beauty, truth have been washed aside.

For me personally an Artist should use their vision for the greater good, to highlight how we are living, to enrich our lives, to offer contemplation of existence, to de-mystify false gods, to shape the future, to leave a legacy.

Hemingway always started to write with a truth, there is something noble about this approach, it is a difficult path to follow and might not be what you want to hear but ultimately will lead to a greater understanding of your self and the world around you.

The War Cabinet 07.XI.2001

This is the second Piece in My Killing Jar project , documenting the invasion of Afghanistan by the USA and UK. The piece depicts two common houseflies that were bugging me in my living room and finally passed away on the windowsill. Upon further inspection I recognised them immediately and placed them in an antique entomology case circa WWI. The piece entitled The War Cabinet 07.XI.2001 will be exhibited at Hope Mill Studios in November 2010.

I have also started the third piece in this series titled The Flag, more to follow

The Killing Jar 2010

Friday night and another week done! I thought I would put some information on my latest work. At present I have been extremely busy with Restoration Work and the work I do with Pool arts and Gorton Visual Arts. I have had little time for painting apart from a few pieces here and there. My big project has been a bit of a Pandora's box, I have looked inside and spent three months dealing with what I have seen.

The project is a departure from my usual practice of painting but still feeds into the large spectrum or world view that I take. The Killing jar is an ongoing project that has been fuelled by the conflict in Afghanistan, with UK casualties alone going past the three hundred mark, i feel compelled to create a piece of work tackling the immense waste of life that is taking place at present. For more information please visit the Killing Jar Hub on Wordpress: http://thekillingjar.wordpress.com/