Work in progress / EPC edition #22
Seems like a little while since I last updated you on my studio work here, so I thought I’d stop and take a moment to get in touch. I have to say that the winter months have been quite challenging with all the awful news about the war in Ukraine. I think the combination of Covid, Brexit and the looming cost of living crisis have also created some real headwinds for the art world, or at least the part that I inhabit.
There’s an interesting issue surrounding the confidence required to keep at something each day, as studio practice demands. Essentially you need to feel that the challenge of spending time working on the drawings has some value in the big scheme of things, if only at a fairly ephemeral level…
Radial ONE / a commission for a new house in Wiltshire
I’ve been working on a new commission for a contemporary home in Wiltshire recently, organised by the ever fabulous Jess Lloyd Smith at Modern Art Buyer in Bath.
She recommended the work to her clients who commissioned this laser cut edition at 100cm diameter, to hang in their beautifully designed open plan dining space, located centrally above the table.
Stellify 4 / two new images of work in situ
I wanted to share these first two images from my recent Stellify 4 series of larger landscapes. I'm still in the process of resolving the works more fully, so I'll look forward to posting some further images from the series, and some backstory, later in the Spring…
XGen 2 / six new works on paper
I’ve spent the first few weeks of 2022 working on a new set of drawings, exploring and riffing on the energy contained within a simple X form.
XGen 2 / chromatic variations reference the underlying geometry used to generate the drawings, whilst simultaneously experimenting with colour and mark making, to work up the images into something a little more painterly than many of my previous editions have been.
XGen / TWO / initial colour studies
I’ve started work on a new series, the second of my XGen studies, that are exploring, and riffing on, the energy contained within a simple X form.
These latest drawings have taken on a few lessons from the Stellify 4 folded works that I made in December. In particular the idea of using colour blocks, or more specifically multiple coloured areas within a single study, as opposed to toning the whole image as a single more sculptural piece.
It’s an idea that gives a far more geometric feel to the final images, and maybe more punch?
Catto Gallery / Christmas Exhibition 2021
Catto Gallery’s latest group show is on until the end of January, after a brief break for Christmas, featuring mostly smaller works by most, if not all, of the artists on the gallery roster.
I’m lucky enough to have four pieces in the show, alongside some really beautiful paintings by Derek Balmer, PPRWA, who has become a friend since our first two person outing at Catto some ten years ago now. Recommended.
Stellify 4 / EPC Edition #19 / dispatched
Pleased to say that I've dispatched the latest Print Club edition, #19, today. I've yet to complete and pack the 2nd piece, edition #20, as it needs a little more tweaking, but I thought I'd get this first one of the two out today so that it'll arrive before Christmas.
Stellify 4 / EPC edition #20 dispatched
I wanted to post an update on the double Xmas edition that I’ve been working on recently. It’s been a little delayed by some group shows running into Christmas, and as ever nothing is quite as simple as you might initially think it would be. But it’s all coming together beautifully now, so I’m hoping to have work in the post early next week, all being well.
I completed the 112cm wide Stellify 4 prints last week and took them for cold lamination, a process that will give the final pieces a beautiful flat, matt finish, which should keep them looking good in situ for quite a while.
Clifton Contemporary / December 2021
Clifton Contemporary is curated by Sarah Brown who has been promoting and supporting my work for several years now. For this latest group exhibition, she’s hung eight of my pieces throughout both of the gallery's main spaces, alongside some great works by Sir Terry Frost, RA and Albert Irvin OBE RA, to name just two. There are some beautiful smaller paintings by Ellie Preston and some sublime bronzes by Julian Cox to enjoy too.
Stellify 4 / EPC Edition #20 / in progress
I’ve been somewhat waylaid in recent weeks, with five invitations to exhibit works in group shows around the UK in the run up to Christmas. It’s great to be included, so no complaints of course, but it has meant that I’ve been running around to the framers, laser cutters, and so on, prepping the works to exhibit, instead of getting on with the latest projects!
That said, I have now carved out some time to refocus on the latest Print Club editions, and have spent some very enjoyable days moving the drawings from my system onto paper.
Lino / venetian, commission for a house in Bristol
I wanted to post a few images of my Lino studies, as I’ve recently delivered a 100cm diameter ‘venetian’ edition to a collector here in Bristol, and was really pleased to receive some images of the newly installed work, a week or two back.
I drew the study after an inspirational trip to Venice, and Murano, to see some of the amazing glassworks that the Veneto is so famous for and perhaps, in particular, the work of Lino Tagliapietra, to my mind one of the most inspirational makers of the C20th.
Stellify 4 / deconstructed / WIP
I've been working on a new set of drawings for the past six weeks or so, and to date, I have maybe six works to show, derived from my original Stellify model, based around the fourteenth stellation of an icosahedron, with a dodecahedron at its core.
It was originally built from sixty components to form a complex modular origami model. But for this study, I've exploded the form and reimagined it as some kind of quasi architectural landscape.
Stellify 4 / EPC Edition #19 / WIP
I've been working on a new set of sculptural drawings, which I think are going to generate something of value, hoping so anyway. It’s a series of works that encompass a more angular feel, with crisp folds and coloured panels, that are redolent of origami, and folded paper structures. I've been progressing this strand over the past 4 weeks or so, and feel as though there's something of interest here.
Commission for a house in Bristol
There's often a serendipitous aspect to the work I make, that can manifest in really unexpected ways. So it was with this lovely opportunity to produce three bespoke works for a spectacular home here in Bristol.
I was invited round to view the project, maybe halfway into what was clearly a major refurbishment, involving a significant new build extension that was being grafted onto the body of a substantial Edwardian home.
The client wanted to discuss ideas for three new artworks that would be specifically tailored to fit particular rooms really well.
The minute I walked into the double height atrium at the front of the house, I knew that there would be a fabulous opportunity to create an ultra tall piece that would span both levels, creating views from both the glazed upper walkway, and the entrance hall on the ground floor.
Psyche D / EvH, commission for a house in Bristol
I drew Psyche D / EvH (event horizon) in 2017, as part of my Current at Catto show. It’s a wildly complex drawing, that freewheeled out of control as it went on.
In its initial incarnation, it was conceived as a kind of giant psychedelic Krispy Kreme doughnut, with a petal like structure containing a wholly fluid series of line drawings, that bubble and move like a 60’s oil light show, in a kind of camomile pink colour.
Looking back from this distance it was either insane or brilliantly exuberant. I’m not sure which.
XGen / maquette / EPC #18 / a new Print Club edition
XGen is about the potential energy created in a pair of crossed lines, an X, and I hope, explores that embedded or kinetic energy as it expands from the centre of the frame. As I worked on with the piece, it also seemed to me that there is, perhaps, some suggestion of the XY chromosome issues that are sparking a huge amount of fascinating debate in our society recently. I hope there’s a little poetry in the work too.
Sun : Moon : Cosmos {67} installed at a collector’s home in Swindon
Delighted to have been sent this great new photo of my Sun : Moon : Cosmos {67} work, recently installed in a collector’s home in Swindon.
Flow / silver base, commissioned by a collector in Ireland
Lovely to be commissioned to produce a Flow / silver base edition for a collector in Ireland. It’s an early work, and a really directional one too. Just a couple left in the edition of 8 now.
Vox Linea / platinum print / EPC #17
For a little while now, I’ve been interested in the idea of creating an edition that would somehow speak about the history of photography, and its ongoing relevance to the digital, so it seemed beautifully serendipitous when I stumbled across Max Caffell and 31 Studio, who inhabit some part of the intersection between those two things.
Max, and his father Paul before him, have been creating platinum prints from their studio in Stroud for some of the most interesting names in modern and contemporary photography, including David Bailey, Don McCullin, Simon Starling, and Sebastião Salgado, amongst many others. I don’t know when I first became aware of platinum printmaking, many years ago now I think, perhaps during a formative visit to the Fox Talbot Museum in Laycock in the eighties. It’s been a medium that has always interested me, largely for the softened beauty and delicate tonal range of the finished prints, as well as the extraordinarily glamourous history of the medium.
Edition #17 dispatched today
Max Caffell completed my first Platinum print last weekend, and I've just finished editioning it, packing it, and dispatching it today. So all being well, if you’re a club member, you should receive it in the next few days.