David Shrigley

Every book store I go into these days seems to stock little books and zines by David Shrigley. He's great. He's a situationist artist, he kind of reminds me of the Yes Men.. not directly, but they're pretty much on the same page. Shrigley intervenes with every day objects; stuff we take for granted i.e street signs.

Rock 'n Roll

I was having my annual Christmas clear out the other day, sorting through my book case and having a good look at all my favourite art books. I rediscovered my Art of Modern Rock book, which is pretty big, so it was at the very bottom of a large pile. It is beautiful, filled with thousands of concert flyers, posters, demonstrations and information on the artist's and their work. It got me thinking about my current project, which is focusing on war and propaganda posters. As much as I enjoy looking through all the war time posters and flyers, I think I would much prefer to start basing my own posters on music. I've got a pretty wide selection of concert posters saved onto my computer, mainly advertising hardcore punk shows and the occassional hip hop gig. Here are a few images that I've collected over the years and want to create myself:

DLA Piper: Sculpture Remixed, Tate, Liverpool

Curated by Wayne Hemingway & Son

Lighting Design: Kathrine Sandys

Red or Dead founder, Wayne Hemingway & Son present symbolic sculpture in a contemporary, interactive environment. The sculptures are displayed in a deep purple room filled with spot lights, disco balls and a light up dance floor. Outside the room, there are pairs of headphones that you can wear when inside the disco room, they play 70’s disco music to help you become engrossed into the atmosphere. As I walked around this room I felt that I became one of the sculptures, as though it was a party.

‘The life-size figurative works, created over a period spanning one hundred and twenty years, tell the story of the human body as represented through sculpture, from the neo-classical ideal of beauty of the late nineteenth century to the increased naturalism typical of the early twentieth century.’ - www.tate.org/liverpool

“Ghost”, 1998 by Ron Mueck. It is a sculpture of an adolescent girl, she leans against the wall looking vulnerable, sad and aloof. At closer examination, the girl has light hairs on her top lip. Mueck's early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, more famously the film Labyrinth, and the Jim Henson series The Storyteller. Mueck's sculptures reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but play with scale to produce distorted and almost frightening figures. This sculpture is also shown in Hemingway’s Sculpture Remixed collection.

"La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans" ("Little Dancer of Fourteen Years"), 1881, is a sculpture by Edgar Degas of a young dance student. The sculpture was originally made in wax before it was cast in 1922 in bronze. When it was shown in Paris at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition of 1881, it received mixed reviews. The majority of critics were shocked by the piece. They thought it was ugly, that it looked like a medical specimen, in part because Degas exhibited it inside a glass case. Some considered the head and face grotesque and primitive. Shown in Hemingway's Sculpture Remixed room

Bridget Riley - Flashback, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

“You cannot deal with thought directly outside practise as a painter, ‘doing’ is essential in order to find out what form your thoughts take ” - this a quote from Riley that you are presented with as you enter her exhibition. I was quite excited about seeing her work, as a lot of people have compared the work I do to hers. The exhibition contained works from the beginning of her career to her most recent pieces of Optical Art. Although excited to see the work up-close, I can’t help but find Bridget Riley’s work quite boring, as it has been completely sold out throughout the years. There’s no escaping replicas of the patterns she creates, they’re on notebooks, posters, wallpaper, furniture and so on. I do, however totally admire and appreciate the fact that Riley is the pioneer that has created such a popular style of art.

John Moores Prize Winners, the Walker Art Gallery

I revisited the Walker Art Gallery today and wandered off with my notebook having a really good look around. I particularly enjoyed the John Moores Prize Winners section, a lot of the paintings were very much to my taste. Peter Doig’s painting 'Blotter' won first prize in John Moores 18, 1993. This was a turning point in his career and he was short listed for the Turner Prize in 1994.

'Double-Tongued Knowability', David Leapman, 1995. The painting establishes a contrast between areas of pure, bright colour and a nervous, charged draughtsmanship, creating a collision of formal ‘opposites’

Michael Raedecker’s earthy paintings contain a various range of media, such as thread, painted thread, sequins and paint. The thread is mainly used to create horizontal shadows and until you fully examine the painting, it is quite hard to tell that he has used these other materials. I love the atmosphere he has created in this John Moores winner from 1999, it is called ‘Mirage’.

Martin Greenland, winner of the John Moores Prize of 2006, with his piece ‘Before Vermeer’s Clouds’ depicts his idea of what Heaven may look like. The sheer depth to this painting stunned me, the dark and rich colours work together so effectively and it was very easy to become engrossed in this artist’s idea of Heaven.

The Rebel, 1961

In this session we watched the film ‘The Rebel, 1961’ is a ironic comedy starring the British comedian Tony Hancock, and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

Hancock plays a downtrodden office clerk in London, who fancies himself as an artist. He becomes so fed up of his dull office job and moaning landlady, he decides to up and leave England for Paris. There he sets to work on his masterpiece Aphrodite at the Waterhole. Hancock believes that the artists and critics of Paris will appreciate his work and ideas more than anyone. While his "ideas" and persona do gain acceptance among the legitimate art critics, like Sir Charles Broward, (George Sanders), he manages to achieve success. However, the work that Sir Charles and the others are gawking over, isn‘t actually Hancock‘s, it is his ex flat-mate‘s, who left Paris because his work was not getting him any kind of success. The misunderstanding is eventually resolved after a series of art exhibitions, where Hancock finally confesses all. This doesn’t dampen his spirits and he decides to return to London and peruse his art career, with the help of his once pessimistic landlady.

The film pokes fun at the way art lovers and critics etc, dream up ideas of what artists should actually be like. Hancock is made out to be some kind of tortured soul, expressing his dark and deep emotions, when really he is this light hearted character that wants to make it in the art world with his “child-like” paintings and sculptures.

In September 2002 the London Institute of ‘Pataphysics organized an exhibition at The Foundry, Old Street, London based around the recreation of all the artworks seen in the film and presented the exhibition as if it were an exhibition belonging to this unknown artists Tony Hancock.

Some of my favourite quotes from the film:

Hancock: “I‘m an impressionist!”

Landlady: “Well it don‘t impress me!”

Landlady: “What the hell is that?”

Hancock: “It‘s a self portrait!”

Landlady: “Of who?!”

Flat-mate: “It (Hancock‘s work) has a childlike quality”

Hancock: “Of course it does! I paint like a child, children see the truth”

The first painting we looked at was 'Dante's Dream', by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1871, this was his very last painting before he died. The painting was based on a poem by Italian poet, Dante Alighieri in 1295. The poem was called ‘La Vita Nuova‘, which in English means ‘The New Life‘. In it Dante dreams that he is led by love to the death-bed of Beatrice Portinari, the object of his unrequited passion. The model for Beatrice was Jane Morris (the wife of William Morris), with whom Rossetti had a long-term affair. Every woman Rossetti painted seemed to bare resemblance to Jane Morris. He painted her so much, that he could paint her portrait without her even being there in front of him.

In the painting Rossetti’s use of colour and connotations is very symbolic to the narrative of the poem. For example, he uses rich red colours that represent love, also there are two red doves entering and exiting the chamber which symbolise the transition from life to death. The attendants stood either side of Beatrice are wearing green which denotes mourning. On the floor there are poppies scattered around Beatrice, these poppies indicate the sleep of dreams and death. Apple blossoms are shown to signify a love that is unfulfilled, which refers to Dante and Beatrice’s unrequited love. And lastly, there is a flock of angels carrying a white cloud above Beatrice, symbolising Beatrice’s soul being carried up to Heaven.

The second painting we looked at was ‘Triumph of the Innocents’, by William Holman Hunt, 1876. This painting depicts the Holy Family attempting to escape Bethlehem, where there was a massacre of baby boys. The landscape is set on the road to Gaza, where there is a flock of baby boy’s ghosts guiding Jesus out of harm’s way. One of the infants has a rip across his chest where he was stabbed to death. There is no blood because the baby has now been healed through the life to death transition. From one end of the canvas to the other, these baby boys seem to become more aware of the transition from life to death as they appear to be more determined to pull the Holy Family away from harm.

In the distance of the landscape Hunt paints pin pricks of light, which are beacons, signifying urgency, warning and danger. Also in the distance, amongst the dark trees there is a ladder, this symbolizes Jacob’s Ladder. Jacob's Ladder is a ladder to heaven, described in the Book of Genesis, which the biblical patriarch Jacob envisions during his flight from his brother Esau. The piece is painted on Egyptian cotton as Hunt didn’t receive the usual canvas that he usually used for his work. When he tried to stretch the cotton, it ripped across the Virgins face, many people saw this as a superstition and thought it was the work of the Devil.

The third and final painting we looked at was 'Lorenzo and Isabella', by John Everett Millais, 1849. Millais created this painting when he was just 19 years old. In this painting there is an entire story told through one scene. Lorenzo is in love with Isabella and she is also in love Lorenzo. This is made obvious by a white rose growing behind and above Lorenzo’s head and also a passion flower growing behind Isabella’s head, the two flowers are intertwined, symbolizing love. Lorenzo is an apprentice to Isabella’s rich and greedy family and her brothers did not like this, as Lorenzo couldn’t bring any money to the family. They lured Lorenzo into a wood and there, they murdered him. That night, Isabella saw the spot where he had been killed in a dream. She fled to the woods with her nurse and dug up his body. She cut off Lorenzo's head as his body was too heavy to carry, took it back to her home and planted it in a pot of basil.

In this painting, there are various uses of symbols and connotations. Behind Isabella’s brothers, there is a Falcon chewing on a white feather, this indicates murder. One of Isabella’s brother is glaring at Lorenzo through a glass of red wine, this suggests that this brother is imagining seeing Lorenzo covered in blood. On the dining table, there is a pot of spilt salt, symbolising a spilt and wasted life, which is obviously referring to Lorenzo. There are two dogs amongst the crowd, one of them is resting it’s head on Isabella’s lap, which signifies devotion. The other dog is lying underneath one of the brother’s chairs, the brother is leaning on his chair and it looks as though he is about to crush the dog, which shows the brothers are about to crush the devotion between Lorenzo and Isabella. On one side of the table there are only 4 people, yet on the other side there are eight. The wall behind the group of people is flat, although there should technically be a 90 degree corner between the wallpaper and the windows. A lot of the painting is not in proportion, though it isn’t obvious at first glance. Finally, every person on the table is in profile, except for Lorenzo. Lorenzo is the only person who has been displayed with both eyes. Maybe this is so the viewer can connect with Lorenzo and feel empathy for him.

Now then...

I’m in my second year of Fine Art in John Moores, but I started the course by spending my first year in Southport College. It’s a decision I live to regret, so I am soaking up everything I possibly can this year until the next. Along with the core work that I’m creating, which is predominantly based around propaganda, political and socio-political posters, I am part of a module named Learning by Context with Emma Roberts. In this module I will be ‘talking and documenting about what I have learnt from my experiences, in my learning contexts of collaboration, by context and through discourse’.