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/

City 0 -Tottenham -1

Typical City...........................

BP 2010 Thoughts....

Today spring has sprung and even though I dint get into this years BP I still feel optimistic. Competitions are a great way to get recognition and hopefully further your career, but it can also have an adverse effect on your work. If you are preparing an entry solely for competition then you are marketing your work, the idea is no longer yours it is for someone else, much like a commission. It is good to push yourself but not if it dilutes your message and definitely not if you are changing the way you work to fit their criteria. This year I put myself under enormous pressure by trying to complete a huge canvas in a tight deadline.

The portrait of My Dad is probably one of the best I have done to date, but I think I tried to say too much. If I enter next year it will be something much more modest and something that I painted for myself and not just for competition.

BP Portrait 2010

Apologies for lack of discipline and not posting!

I have just completed my 2010 BP portrait entry of My Dad, aptly titled My dad!

It is just over 2m long and 80cm high! and as I discovered quite large!

I started this in January and have been working on it pretty much every evening since.

The painting has made me realise a lot about my style and approach and hopefully I have learnt a great deal from it...

Tonight I am sipping Guiness and feeling rather exhausted!

The Big Freeze

After hard snow all night we woke up to this!! and still snowing, cant remember the last time it was like this. Probably in those nostalgia filled days when I was a kid living in Bacup when every winter it seemed to have at least 2 foot of snow!

I looked at the front of the house to see nothing moving and new it would be foolish to venture out in the car. So after getting Lisa up and the dogs ready we went out to see who was foolish enough!! Brilliant, we went down to Worsley road to witness people struggling in their cars probably on the way to the Trafford Centre. Kids emerged from every direction with sledges, god only knows where they had been storing those for the last 10 years.

We ploughed on to the field managing to ignore the smug smiles of every 4x4 driver, one week of the year their vehicle pays for itself and don't they know it!

The field was about 8 inches thick and virgin white until we embarked up on it and let the dogs unleash a torrent of yellow snow! Leaving this for the sledgers we rushed back to the co-op to witness the panic buying first hand! The shelves were empty with people fighting to stock up on bread, milk and most importantly alcohol.

After all this excitement it was time to return home and defrost the snowballs off the dogs legs, which were now so big that Oscar was rolling home and Eddie walking like he had an overfull colostomy bag !

No painting today as the studio is -5, will venture out to Pool arts this afternoon to make my stretcher for this years BP portrait competition and prime the boards for the Newcastle paintings that I have started. Might just pop into Tesco on the way and load a trolley full of bread and Milk just to get the ball rolling!

Crawshawbooth paintings

Earlier this year I was commissioned to paint some scenes of Crawshawbooth in Rossendale. It was nice to focus my attention on the area where I grew up. Rossendale is full of terraced houses built in fabulous sandstone. As soon as I started to paint I could feel memories start to flood back, just from the colour of a stone or the shape of a window. I painted 9 paintings in all, many of them catching the low lying mist of the valley in winter. I felt that as I progressed my palette improved and I really captured the colours and atmosphere of that small part of the valley.

I am know looking to paint some more of Rossendale, maybe starting in Stacksteads where I lived the first 10years of my life.

Of the 9 paintings 7 have now sold to private collectors and the remaining two will hopefully help me secure an exhibition at the Haworth Art Gallery in Accrington later next year. I may also make available some limited edition prints of the paintings.

The snow has just eased and I may venture out into the Xmas madness to continue my studio move.

NEW Studio Arrives!!

After a long wait and much deliberating the new studio arrives, I planned this 5 years ago when I first moved here! Any way it is in and up!! MBT installations from Halifax came to build it after i had been let down. They arrived at 8am and the cabin was up by 2.30pm amazing!

So now begins the process of moving from my old place..started today in full snow and ice, didn't realise how many paintings I have! I have been at the current studio 5 years and it shows! I will have to be super ruthless with my work only saving what I think is important. Tempting to do a Bacon and just destroy all of it and forge ahead with new work! something tells me this would be foolish but is so tempting.

Other news is that I have spoken with the SAU unit at Hope Hospital and they would like to exhibit my remaining six Salford as it is paintings. Just need to type up a proposal and get the ball rolling...

Concrete Delivery!

This is the concrete delivery system I built for the base of my new studio!, a chute from the top layer then barrow across next on and then over the wall and into the frame! It took me and two lads 1hr 30mins of constant barrowin to move 5m cubed or 10 tonne!! Absolutely knackered afterwards and then had the joy of going to the dentist afterwards!!

The base was then tampered buy my chief navvy and I (mum) and left to go off! typically it was the only frosty night we've had , but seems to be fine!!

Publish Post

Studio will be delivered next Thursday and built on Sat , Sun! cant wait to get in, have started some new Newcastle paintings as all of my Rossendale paintings have now sold!!