European Contemporary Arts Practitioner

Returning to familiar symbols and a new fascination with painting ‘floating objects’ I produced some of my last paintings on panel before utilising plywood board to be able to manufacture more paintings with less time spent constructing their frames.

The pieces crafted at this time were TREATY (see image), CIVIL WAR (see image), THE SUPERMAN (see image), and EL SALVADOR I (see image) which were also among the last to use my ‘crown’ motif until the ‘Banana Republic series’ to be mentioned in a later post. With TREATY, I was compelled to explore the possibility that paintings needed to be viewed from more than one perspective and this lead me to try to produce the image of a devil (not sure why exactly) out of two artillery shells, two crowns, two bushy moustaches, and one thin moustache. Funnily enough most viewers seem to believe that the thin moustache is little more than an outline of a pair of breasts which, being painted in homage to a particularly famous Spanish Surrealist whose works commanded several interpretations, perhaps this makes TREATY one of the more successful and under-rated pieces I have produced.

CIVIL WAR takes it’s title from the Spanish conflict whilst using visual inspiration from Girgio Morandi (1890 – 1964) to make a floating sheet of metal, artillery shell and moustache into a still-life with an anti-war aura.

THE SUPERMAN on the other hand is probably one of the very few paintings to feature a bushy German moustache as well as scattered pastel dots, and red sheets of metal. Clownish, and brazen it is not quite a failure that in retrospect was crafted much too fast.

However, EL SALVADOR I was a breakthrough. Tributed to that aforementioned Spanish surrealist who died the year I was born, SALVADOR combines the artillery shells and moustaches of previous paintings with comical lobster claws to present an abstract image of the famous painter it is inspired by. Inventive, colourblasted and friendly, SALVADOR was exhibited in the ‘Hot-One-Hundred’ exhibition at Schwartz Gallery in summer 2013 to positive feedback.

It’s partner EL SALVADOR II (see image) chose a more child-friendly interpretation of the Spanish painter instead crafting a face portrait out of the floating objects depicted against a rarely used blue background. It was also the first of a new working method of painting directly onto plywood board rather than panel frames. This piece was also met with friendly association and exhibited in the ‘Sweet ‘Art’s Summer Show 2013’ at Espacio Gallery with the Sweet Arts Collective.

From this point onwards the moustache motif gradually began to leave my canvases to the point of disappearing all together

It has been some time since I posted about anything other than cinema reviews and that is all going to change by not neglecting this blog from painting anymore.

Since finishing the Graduate Residency with AirSpace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent in February this year, things have been progressing rather well. I have been featured in the following group exhibitions:

ARTWORKS OPEN 2013

30/08/ to 22/09/2013 Barbican Arts Group Trust

SWEET ‘ART’S SUMMER SHOW 2013

29/08/ to 03/08/2013 Espacio Gallery / Sweet Art Collective

HOT-ONE-HUNDRED

17/07/ to 03/08/2013 Schwartz Gallery

And have two group exhibitions / auctions coming up in December, with the promise of a solo show at Footfall Art in the beginning of 2014.

In this time, I have undergone some ‘drastic’ changes in my work as well as new developments and peaks of interest that I hope to continue.

Taking note of the cartoonish paintings I premiered in my debut solo show ‘Grandfather’ at AirSpace Gallery, I returned home making more pieces that reflected this ‘satirical’ depiction of issues specific to certain countries such as the Netherlands or Spain. I also started to become focused on discovering my own motifs or trademarks that I could continue to explore for as long as they would allow such as clouds or moustaches.

Whilst some of these proved successful due to their unconventional colour schemes and humourous effect, others proved to be distracting and disjointed from my theme of nationalism. For six paintings in particular, I arrived at a perfect combination of motifs, humour, and inventinveness in the form of THE WILL TO POWER (see image) and EXPRESSING INTEREST (see image) creating playful situations for these elements to frolic about.

Perhaps it was just my being ecclectic or tempermental but these six paintings have not generated any further ‘siblings’ but rather some ‘half-siblings’ in the form of the “Banana Republic series” which I will mention again in a later post.

Then, upon discovering four unused MDF boards I decided to take the motifs of the previous six paintings (mentioned above) and make these four more playful. The result was a remake of painting previously shown in the ‘Grandfather’ exhibition (EASEL II, see image) and three companions that though they boasted colour, they did not necessarily boast the same amount of character as pieces such as OCTOPUS LIFETIME (see image).

To explain my motifs, the moustache that I commonly use is that belonging to Lord Kitchener (1850 – 1916) from the famous ‘Britons Wants You’ posters (see image) whilst the crown symbol is that of royalty (belonging to any country that has had or still institutes the monarchy).

Perhaps the cartoonish aesthetic for me inspired in-part by painters like Philip Guston (1913 – 1980) and Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) is trying less to be childish and more satirical but who knows.

Judging my by work ethic of sometimes using news papers as a source material for my paintings, I would say that I am replicating a process used by many artists and creative minds alike.

FILM REVIEW

GRAVITY, 2013, co-written, co-produced, directed, and co-edited by Alfonso Cuaron.

★★★★ out of ★★★★

An absolute masterpiece if there ever was one, Cuaron demonstrates why he is one of the most important directors alive today.

A science-fiction film with only two leading actors, minimal action, and almost none of the sci-fi cliches? “Impossible” is the word that springs to mind but the Mexican filmmaker’s blockbuster might just very well be the most significant film in the genre you see.

The film stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as two astronauts who survive a mid-orbit destruction of their space shuttle and they must attempt to return to Earth.

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SPOILER ALERT: SIGNIFICANT PLOT POINTS
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With numerous long shots, scarily realistic point-of-view shots, and enough pulsating, heart pounding moments to give you a heart attack, ‘Gravity’ delivers as an unexpected and thoroughly thrilling science-fiction-survival film that reminds us of the power of adversity, the best word to describe Cuaron’s ouerve.

Although interpretations of the film focus on it’s use of religious themes I personally saw the picture as representing the in-vetro cycle. This is not just because Ryan Stone (Bullock) forms a few fetal positions but also because when she crash lands on Earth she is drenched in a metaphorical amniotic fluid (i.e. the salt water of Lake Powell, Arizona) as well as my interpretation of Matt Kowalski’s (Clooney) role in the film as Ryan Stone’s stillborn sibling. After the initial disaster, Stone and Kowalski fasten themselves to each other (as though they are joined together by an umbilical chord) and following a second disaster Kowalski releases and sacrifices himself to allow the emotionally damaged Stone to literally “live”.

I can also show evidence of this interpretation by mentioning the use of radio contact with Houston Control and a very happy Greenlandic Inuit as representing the voices outside the symbolic womb that is space, where weightlessness and moments of claustrophobia are superbly captured with POV shots. Not only this but the Inuit just so happens to be playing with his infant child whilst Stone attempts to communicate to Earth after the first two disasters. And finally, the fact that Stone reveals her masculine name to be the result of a father who desired a son suggests that the character is strong willed which can be demonstrated by the moments of action where (in homage to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi masterpiece ‘Alien’, 1979) Stone takes control of her situation and environments to become a role-model woman.

One of the most oustanding and conceptual moments in the film that also showcases Bullock’s emotional range comes from her journeys to and from the American, Russian, and Chinese space shuttles/stations and finally to the capsule that she guides to Earth, with each docking port reflecting cultural differences between each other but ultimately showing that although we speak different languages, all our guiding systems have the same heart.

Certainly another acute scene in the film is when Stone contemplates resigning herself to float through space and begins to shutdown the oxygen all the while listening to the Inuit radio communication. The unexpected miraculous re-appearance of Kowalski is enough to melt any heart into thinking he survived the drift into space before realising it to be an illusion and a motivational tool for Stone to perform a tribute to the Disney Pixar Animation Studios masterpiece ‘Wall-E’ (2008) by using a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to the Chinese space station and ultimately to guide it to Earth.

Cuaron, famous for directing ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ (2004) and ‘Children of Men’ (2006) with conceptual and visual awe has presented us with an incredible spectacle of-a-film that raises existential questions with explosive National Geographic imagery that I just might see for a second time.

With just Sandra Bullock and George Clooney carrying the film’s weight they (especially Bullock) prove their abilities to help leap the picture off the screen just like Neil Armstrong’s first step on the Moon. With oustanding production values that include a memorable original score from Steven Price and terrific direction, writing, and cinematography, the film needs very little else to show why it is a predicted frontrunner for the 86th Academy Awards.