John Jones. Projection Space and the future

I have returned and think Well Hall road painting is going to work out. I have some ideas…..

The building on the left hand side has been altered- the perspective was a bit off so it is looking much better. Perspective is not my strongest point. I have mild dispraxia and sometimes cannot read angles well. So it is something of an oxymoron that I paint buildings and need a grasp of said topic. It is painful and frustrating for me at times this difficulty . I am learning.

I identified with so many aspects of another blog by Emily Speed on how artists can actually get paid to make art. Whether it is feasible to be able to exhibit or take part in shows when there is considerable cost in time and money to yourself.

I believe in exhibiting even if it is unpaid- it is ,99% of the time it is unpaid- the and the preparation is meaningful. You can contemplate the work, its effect on others, complete a body of work.

It would also seem there is a lot of truth in that you can only get paid for ‘projects’. The end result though may not be something you really wanted to do, perhaps a dilution, even with its own rewards. Its a tough balance

I recently went to a workshop on socially engaged practise to see if I could get some tips on this broad subject. I had not realised what ‘ Socially engaged’ practise means until speaking to Artquest who were very helpful and shed light on this subject for me and that my own work carried elements of this; focussing on buildings within communities and the psychology of the society around it.

However, it is a very very complicated area………! So, as I say , I have gone to a few conferences/workshops to figure this out a bit…..

At many my heart sinks very low , a room of professional funder finders. A whole other genre of artists who understand forms and how to get funding and all sorts of things. Amazing! But I also remember examples of dismal ‘public or socially engaged’ artworks being chuntered out under this title and funding going to this. In many aspects these ‘ public’ works do not fit under the category of art- and many artists, ( even the ones at these conferences,) argue that there needs to be a new definition of such things

As a painter, it is not seen that your work can be socially engaged on its own, but I know that painting can be. It is interactive, conceptual, it touches people, it makes them wonder, it transports people. Much more so than some ‘ socially engaged work’ which amounts to yet another mosaic for example or work that is actually excluding rather than inclusive because it is over conceptual and hard for non-artists to understand or engage with on any level.

Often these works can be an aesthetic disappointment to boot.

I have begun to try and expand my practise so I can be viable for projects, to interact with participants in an interesting way, getting narratives that actually end up informing my pieces as well. it has helped a bit with proposals as curators also seem to want interactive video /sound.

maybe one day in the far future if I have a hundred years to fill out a grant with the arts council I may even get funding to further my research…..?!But, it has been an interesting journey so far and I have only just begun.

I am having doubts about the Well Hall Road painting I dont know if the size has defeated me- for me smaller, finer works better perhaps….or whether the building is too undetailed. Sometimes a painting just does not work and it is pretty hard to take, devastating in fact, you want it all to work. In ervything there is a lesson and I am not giving up on this one yet.

I can understand how people get furious and rip up their work but I just could not do that…..

I cant see where to fix it or if I am just too close to it to see whether it is any good. I shall leave it for a week and then have another look. And get opinions…….maybe I am being overly critical.

These oils are amazing! I have gone back and started painting over an older painting. it looks miles better already It is somehow easier to go back and be experimental after a few months not looking at something.

You learn so much in each painting. The difficult thing is not going back and re-painting everything! better to move forward….

I am sometimes asked how I can bear to sell my paintings. people have such romantic notions of artists, I guess with good reason. However being an artist is a job like others.

You have to progress, make a living, move up the ladder and part of that is selling. It is also something that makes me proud. I want other people to own my paintings to be moved by them..To be engaged with them. Professional painters do not paint for themselves alone, art is greater than that.

I recently found out the dates of my show at John Jones, 6thJuly-21st August.

This news is met by a mild stress attack which leads me into clumsy mode. I break a glass, try and put a t-shirt in the bin rather than washing machine and locked myself out of my flat. Wonderful! Luckily for me there is scaffolding outside my flat so I climb up onto it and scramble through a window in our living room, luckily I happened to have my driving license to prove I actually lived there to the bemused scaffolders! To boot I am getting a cold or flu and it makes productivity minus 50% Damn!

Slightly unfortunately I am away in Florence ( yes I know poor me!) , next week with my father and LSP, booked before I knew my dates! thankfully the opening at John Jones isnt going to be until the end of July where there will be a big summer party. So, I have plenty of time to organise myself and sort my invites out. phew!

A note about my father, he is an artist himself and rather eccentric. He has been married 6 times and could have been a Lord. His maternal grandfather was Sir Norman Stewart who was ready to bestow his title on my father. My father’s father , ( through envy we believe,) told him ‘ A man does not inherit a title he earns it.’ A saying he himself could not live up to. So, there, up in smoke was a parallel life when I could have been a rich artist living somewhere marvellous rather than growing up on a council estate in Brockley! Perhaps I would never have found how social housing and community buildings are so compelling and full of pathos.

I have finished 8,000 Souls Part II and feel rather elated. Well Hall road and a new piece of the Kidbrooke Estate are going well. Oils are getting everywhere, seeping through my apron. I am constantly wiping off incriminating splodges on the computer before my partner returns. I even have it on my foot…????

I may never go back to acrylics. I love the tones you build up in oils, the subtlety of the colour, its softness and shine. I cant understand people who get technicians to paint their paintings.

The idea is not enough. Being part of the making is so important. To put yourself in it – it is part of a physical expression. For us it is total peace.’Dominique Gonzalez

Also I have given up on the idea that I won’t use embroidery. I feel bereft without it. Paint on its own is not enough, but again there I can be more experimental and random. I will challenge myself with it.

Speaking of which do go and see the excellent and exciting Michael Raedecker at The Camden Art Centre- on until 28^th June.

So, I am in the middle of about 3 or 4 paintings. I like to work on them in Tandem. I have, as mentioned moved into oils. I realise they are my obsessions, I drift off to them when I am not with them, staring and scrutinising. worrying.Like love I guess with hopefully a fair amount of joy thrown in!

Ayeslbury estate part II ( pictured) is the second in a survival series examining the Ayelsbury estate, one of the more notorious in South east london, described as Hell's Waiting room and soon to be demolished. I recently went to the Courbusier exhibition, he, who was a pioneer of the type of social housing that inspired the Ayeslbury and subsequent housing estates. A dream of utopia and making buildings that reach up to heaven fell into dsytopia with neglect, crime and segregation of social classes, creating a ghetto where crime occurs every four hours.

I am trying to be freer with paint, not so literal, loosening my technique. My work can balance in style between realism and naivety, overperfection….lets muck it up a bit was a suggestion from MA. so I am trying. Using oils helps as it means I am already unbalanced from my normal practise.

Also, I generally use embroidery in parts of my work, its fragility and seductive nature enhances the juxtaposition between manmade and organic, the neglected or desolate buildings and the meticulous nature of the stitching.But, I am trying without it, to see what that shall mean to mywork, what I could do differently. In contrast I am working on a small piece that is almost entirely stitched.

Odeon, Well hall Road is large, very large for me- twice the size that I usually paint. It is in Eltham, a dilapidated art deco cinema opposite where Stephen Lawrence was murdered ( I have painted the Stephen Lawrence centre in the past- see Inheritance Part I) Two good reasons to paint it as a place of social commentary and history.

Another reason came by surprise; a facebook page set up petitioning against a proposal for the cinema being turned into an Islamic centre, a xenophobic, rascist rant of a page ……a very dismal page and evidence of a section of society that seems unchanged by the tragic case of Stephen Lawrence.

I uploaded work in progress photos and used photoshop to try out a few ideas. Using the heavily patterned background I cannot always try out ideas directly onto the fabric and was surprised at how effectively I could use photoshop to play with composition. Of course I use a sketchpad too, but this was pretty interesting