Edition #13, colour proof finalised...
As we head into the summer proper, I thought you'd like to see a photo of my recently completed initial colour proof of edition #13, which should be in the post to you shortly. It's a 90cm square textile version of my interStella drawing, printed by Citrus Rain in Manchester. I have to say I think they've done a pretty good job, although it does perhaps need an iron! It makes for a very different thing from my more usual works on paper. I hope you like it when you receive it…
Paean / One day in May / Print Club ed #14 in progress
I wanted to make a piece for the Print Club that would speak about the lockdown, but also of joy, the beauty of nature, and the inspiration that manifests, whilst also continuing with the idea of the moment in time, and the specificity of a place, that I hope has been one of the major threads of the print club project to date
Print Club Ed #13, an interStella headscarf, progress report...
I thought I'd send over a progress report! Ed #13, which will be a 90cm SQ headscarf, digitally printed by Citrus Rain in Manchester, is my first foray into the world of short run digital textile printing. I'm quite excited by the prospect. Back in my Soho studio days, I worked for Prada, Yohji Yamamoto and Nike, to name just 3 of the fashion and textile brands I made images for, but these were promo images, not the raw fabric designs.
Notes from a locked down studio
Where to start!? It seems like a long time ago that we were locked down in response to the Coronavirus, and I have to say that at the beginning of the process I rather assumed that it would be the end of the studio as I’ve known it over the past 25 years. The strong sense of an impending recession, coming hot on the heels of austerity and Brexit, seemed to me to sound a death knell for artists working with high street galleries as their primary source of income. Inevitably I retreated to my garden to think, and to labour. The simple task of tending the garden in Spring is a fantastic tonic, and of course, allows one to think and reflect at some length.
Bath Life magazine, March 2020
I’m posting some images of an article in this month’s Bath Life magazine, just published. Lovely to be featured on the cover, and delighted that the editorial team also chose to feature an image of the latest Print Club edition. Nice to see it in print, if that isn’t too meta
Modular Locus / In conversation with Freeny Yianni
FY Tell us a bit about your approach to your work. How would you describe it? What are you looking for in a subject? How has your style developed, and what matters to you?
CE Sometime back in 1984 I saw, and used, the first Apple Mac computer to be imported to the UK. It was an important moment and one that resonates to this day. In that moment I decided I wanted to use digital systems tools to draw my work, as opposed to the more traditional media I was being trained to use. In some senses, you could characterise this as the difference between rock music and electronica. Rock music remains super relevant of course, esp the post-rock movement, but there seems to be space in the discourse for a more contemporary means of production too.
The digital offers a host of revolutionary options, many of which revolve around the idea of the edit, and the remix. Effectively you can draw, colour and model, and then refine, edit and remix, to arrive at images that simply weren’t possible to create before the digital revolution.
In conversation with Freeny Yianni at the Brewhouse Gallery, March 2020.
Modular Locus
A solo show of digital drawings at the Brewhouse Arts Centre in Taunton, curated by Freeny Yianni and Close Ltd.
Critique and action / Plastic pastoral / Tao
These two latest prints are entitled Tao. One is earth, one is sand. Back in the eighties when my main concern would’ve simply been about how to create and sustain a creative studio practice, I was hugely influenced and impressed by the work of April Greiman. I’m not sure if her works have stood the test of time, but in many ways that is not the point, I love the idea that a work in some way defines or represents the moment that it is made in.
Modular Locus / Brewhouse Gallery
A solo show of digital drawings at the Brewhouse Arts Centre in Taunton, curated by Freeny Yianni and Close Ltd.
Print Club, edition 13 in progress
I’m working on some initial colour proofs for my first Experimental Print Club edition of 2020. If you’d like to know more about my Print Club. It’s an ongoing experiment in contemporary print, and an opportunity to collect exclusive limited edition works from the studio, posted out directly to club members, alongside invitations to events, and studio news. All powered by Patreon.
Pride 2020
Starting the week with a post to highlight my recent work in support of the the LGBT Foundation. The Pride print is available as an open edition for 12 months only, ending on 31st October 2020. You can read more about the work on Blackwater’s website
10 Artworks From Artnet’s Gallery Network
interStella / Quad by Chuck Elliott. Inspired by the work of Frank Stella, this geometric pattern print riffs on ideas of the changing seasons and plant life through bold and bright colours. The colour saturated work is sure to enliven a winter day. Sara Carson
12 / in production at Ripe Digital
12 in production at Ripe Digital. Rik was kind enough to film the book in production for my blog, fascinating to see a modern digital press working. It’s a long way from the letter press and optical type setting we studied at college…
Chuck Elliott / 12
Sometime towards the end of 2019, I started working on a new book, broadly designed to catalogue some of my favourite images from the past 12 years. Beautifully printed by Ripe Digital in Corsham, the book features 100 large format pages, with accompanying short texts that I hope illuminate the project succinctly, and with a little humour.
Chuck Elliott / 12
Sometime towards the end of last year I started working on a new book, broadly designed to catalogue some of my favourite images from the past 12 years. Beautifully printed by Ripe Digital in Corsham, the book features 100 large format pages, with accompanying short texts that I hope illuminate the project succinctly, and with a little humour.
Coombe Gallery, Winter Show
Thought I’d post this shot from Mark Riley’s always fabulous Coombe Gallery in Dartmouth. They’re featuring my Cal R piece in the window as part of their Winter group show…
Saatchi Art / New Year 2020
Delighted to be included in Saatchi Art’s latest curated selection, by chief curator and VP Rebecca Wilson. If you’d like to view the work, it’s online here…
Moniker Art Fair / Opening night
Thrilled to be included at this year's Moniker Art Fair once again, courtesy of Cardiff's leading edge Blackwater Gallery, owned and curated by Jamie Aherne. Amongst a large selection of works on show is this newly framed Motorik / TWO / chromatic shift piece, available from the gallery, or online.
interStella / QUAD
intersStella is a new series of sixteen drawings, arranged into four quads, with four works in each quad. These new works on paper comprise Venn like geometries based on circadian rhythms, bought to life with a series of sixteen colour variants, which I hope speak to the idea of the four seasons, plant life, and perhaps tulips in particular. They clearly also riff on the work of Frank Stella, a true hero of colour abstraction
Hive #1 / EPC / duality : singularity
I’ve been working on a new series of drawings called Hive. It’s currently unclear exactly how these studies are going to ultimately manifest themselves, but I suspect it’ll be as a series of large format panels, possibly in sequence. For the moment however, I thought I’d print a single, smaller component of the series as a new piece for my Experimental Print Club. I’ve been thinking about the nature and problem of working in a rapidly climate changing world, and how best to integrate that thinking with my daily studio practice, both as a series of reflections, which is a large part of what the studio is about I think, and as physical works that can create some kind of response to the concepts we’re being asked to consider, and act on.