This is a small piece he has written about his work: 'My paintings hijack the visual language of modernist abstraction and the figurative tradition of portraiture by using the signifiers of abstraction itself to determine the features that form the resulting pseudo portraits. By creating a psychological domain that requires a cognitive, physiognomic and often darkly humorous unraveling on the part of the viewer, I propose a disruption through the destabilising of values and rationales that are brought to the work.'
These great paintings reminded me of Yuko Nasu who I blogged about a while back so I thought I would put them here too. You can see more of her work here www.re-title.com and here www.beerslambert.com Beers Lambert who represent Greg Eason and Alex Virji have a show coming up in Nottinghams Surface Gallery and you can see who is going to be in and when its on HERE.
I am afraid like a broken record I have again returned to the blog butdoesitfloat.com. The only reason being these great drawings of minerals and crystals by Marissa Textor.
I have only ever known Fiona Banner from her Hollywood film descriptions made up into a book called The Nam. However after reading a great new website called butdoesitfloat.com I discovered her new work which has just been installed in Tate Britain just this week. Anyone that knows me knows I like planes, tanks, boats etc. Anything that symbolizes great mechanical design so these obviously attracted me. She has installed two real fighter planes into Tate Britain. One is a Harrier hanging from the ceiling, stripped of all its paint and markings and replaced with an effect that makes it look like it is made of feathers. The Jaguar, used in the first Gulf War lies belly up again stripped of all its markings, instead being highly polished reflecting its surroundings.
I have been meaning to do this for a long time. Rob is a good friend of mine who I studied with during my foundation course. He reinforced my interests in photography especially film photography. He was never seen without a camera around his neck. He has been practising photography for a few years now photographing the likes of the late great Guru and the up and coming Ellie Goulding. He sees photography more of a craft creating images that fuel curiosity and intrigue.
Roger Hiorns is a contemporary artist who had been nominated for the turner prize in 2009. He creates sculptures mostly and a few images usually encased in triangular frames. His object and images contain within them the paradox of being both inert and alive. Due to the processes and materials used many of the sculptures operate without the viewer. The crystals for example grow without any outside intervention and the foam keeps erupting from his cylindrical totems. This unnecessary relationship between the onlooker and the work reasserts the viewers freedom. As well as the materials that continue to change Hiorns also uses scents in his work. This activates another sense rarely used when looking at art.
You can read more about the Seizure project here -
La Chute, 2006 Inspired by a report for the press, La Chute makes the link between photojournalism and contemporary art. It stages - without special effect - in perfectly mastered compositions, dancers seized in an instant with a jump. The series constitutes a political metaphor of the situation of current youth. from acidolatte.blogspot.com
This is the new video for the song 'What I Like' directed by Paul Bryan and filmed in the underground rail system of Paris. Made into one of the features on the vimeo website and in three days already has over 20 000 views.
A couple of friends of mine make a small publication every so often. It usually depends on how busy they are so there isn't a regular release date. Its called Zeene and its another example of the growing culture of small books about anything and everything. Its great. The two lads, Greg and Nick are off to London to be part of the great London Zine Symposium which is at The Rag Factory on Heneage Street, just off Brick Lane. It starts at 12 and ends at 6. Loads of Zine's will be on sale there including their one. Check out their blog http://www.vanillagalleries.com/zeene/ and also http://www.zineswap.com/ which is where you can watch short videos where zine's that have been sent it get flicked through.
Today marks the end of a Live streaming performance project curated by Robert Smith and Rebecca Birch. This is a place where artists who have proposed a performance of some kind get to do a live performance that you can stream and watch as it happens. Sorry that I have just posted this but hopefully the performances that have already occurred will be available to watch again. A few friends and I were involved in one such performance from Jonathan Ryall and Christopher Bassford where we had to play football in restricting outfits. If you read this in time there are some performances today and if you download a widget that indicates to you when a performance is going live you can take a look.
John Lurie who stars in Stranger than Paradise and also has a short cameo in David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" has a band called The Lounge Lizards. This video shows them playing one of their best songs "The Voice Of Chunk"
There's also an album recording but I think this is better.
Uneven Geographies is the latest exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary. It starts on Saturday 8th May and runs till 4th July. I went to the private view to check it out with a few friends. Its made up of 13 artists from 12 countries from 5 continents and its their reaction to globalisation. A great show all round with some particularly interesting pieces in the form of a water tank with african frogs in it, a live feed from cameras monitoring a border on the look out for illegal immigrants and drawings from Mark Lombardi. Other artists included Steve McQueen, Mladen Stilinovic and Bruno Serralongue.
My housemate and I have fell in love with Caribou's simplistic beats. Their recent album "Swim" has just been released and its great. Check out their myspace page at - http://www.myspace.com/cariboumanitoba
Odessa and Hannibal are my personal favourites. Listen to Hannibal HERE as its not on their myspace.
Made in 1984 and directed by Jim Jarmusch. He's a great film maker. Other films by him include Broken Flowers with Bill Murray and Dead Man with Jonny Depp. If you like films then check them out. Broken Flowers is one of my favourite films of all time along with Stranger than Paradise.
Here are some photographs of a small and extremely spontaneous exhibition put on by my friends in the gallery area at college. The work is made up mostly from sculptors and a couple of painters. One of the pieces put in was something I made to help me spray some wood gold without getting it on the floor. Other pieces are made up from older works and some utilise items that were lying around in the space before hand. This dramatic and quick installation is something that my friends and I are interested in developing. It stems from the Bang/Tidy exhibition we put on with Vanilla Galleries in Leicester which is now on by the way in Malcolm arcade from 11 till 6pm, tuesday to saturday.
Last night was amazing! A small group of us went to see yeasayer at the Birmingham academy and I was blown away! Others had been to see them support another band and said they were good and fuck me they were. It was their first date on their current and first European tour with their new album Odd Blood which is super good. If you haven't heard of them then you need to listen take a listen. A couple of lads called Javelin were in support and they were really good too.
Check out their website at www.yeasayer.net and you can a download of their song O.N.E. from their new album.