Wednesday 26 August 2009

Exciting Times

So I have packaged up all of my paintings that I am taking to Sydney in October for the show, all ready to go!!! I am taking 12 paintings with me in total and I consider these to be my first full body off work entitled Chicken Dinner. I am starting a new set of drawings which will hopefully lead to a few new paintings maybe even a whole set?! I will upload some scans of drawings and photos of any paintings completed over the next few weeks. Check me soon...

Tuesday 11 August 2009

I won my first competition!!!

In July I entered a competition called Off The Wall Art Sydney 2009. Out of 229 artists who entered I am among the winning 12 artists who have been selected to exhibit. This year’s show is at the Royal Hall of Industries, Fox Studios, Moore Park, Sydney, Australia from 22 to 25 October. I have won the chance to exhibit in their art fair, when I get more information I will post it up. You can check out their website here.

sex is disgusting

I have been featured on a blog by James Hines, a bit of writing and a few pictures up on it. The blog is called sex is disgusting, check it out. Its a little piece about my work from my recent degree show! Thanks James.

I'll be honest right now, and say the last few years worth of painting graduates from Brighton Uni have been pretty disappointing. Walking around the recent graduate shows i've noticed what can only be described as the proliferation of a house style that i can sum up rather simply, but accurately as semi-finished abstract expressionism or maybe ADD-stract expressionism. Room after room i was confronted with poorly executed, half finished canvases that look like they could have been done by one artist, not the forty or so that were actually exhibiting, and more often than not on large canvases that i suspect were a tactic employed to fool the viewer into thinking they were any good. They all looked like wall sections of a room in the middle of a indecisive diy makeover. Last year there were only two things that caught my eye (wanted to take home), one was a large glossy pink phallus-ish painting called 'Marge' by Katherine Mckenzie (i have a postcard of it on my wall), the other work i liked was Paul Griffiths' eerie portraits. This year it was the same, but there was only one name i bothered to jot down on the back of my hand - Sam Barrett. His work was a breath of fresh air, some humor and fun amongst the dreary slop of his classmates. I thought he must be a total outsider, and i wondered if his classmates thought he was mad or a simpleton even? Well obviously he's neither, he's obviously a totally rad dude. What other kind of person would paint dinosaurs skating on ramps made of slime, or flying, stoned bananas with boobs? Can i get a Dude Culture high five. Using varnishes, felt tip pens, lush coloured resins and oils the paintings become saturated to the point where you think you could almost dive in to mess around in the gloop. I confess, i did poke at a particularly rubbery looking bit of resin, i couldn't resist. Here's a few pics for you to enjoy, and you can check out more of his stuff HERE, but what you really need is to see the work in the flesh, so i hope he'll be exhibiting sometime soon. Written by James Hines.

Monday 10 August 2009

Bristol Calling...

Having finished my degree and graduating from the University of Brighton, I have moved back home to Bristol!!! I have a studio in the basement of an amazing gallery on St. Michael's Hill called Weapon of Choice, check it out online using the link. New paintings coming soon once I am set up down there. Check me later, peas.