paints-after-work

Pustulence

2011-12-18T11:14:00.006+13:00

Red wine drawing*, unfinished and finished:

Felt-tip pen on legal notepad, 152 x 101 mm

* As in drawn over several hours while consuming two bottles of red wine and doing other things too.

Magnet

2010-07-27T09:37:00.012+12:00

Magnet is "my" "collaboration" with artist / filmmaker / musician Kim Pieters. It's currently showing at Blue Oyster Gallery in Dunedin.

What actually happened is that Kim has set one of her stunning films to my 2006 album for Digitalis, The Green Morning.

Read more...

I ALWAYS WANTED MY NAME ON A PLANE, 2002

2010-07-01T21:24:00.004+12:00

Part of the Spaceships of the Mind series, from 2002:

-- you want for this and you want for that...
well, what did ya think? --

I always wanted my name on a plane, 2002
oil on canvas
54 x 82 cm
private collection

Lizzie's Progress in the newtown

2010-05-12T12:05:00.004+12:00

Experiments with a black ground.. hoping to produce effects similar to block-print slash mezzotint. Probably unfinished (i.e. expect another version). One further question at this point.. who's Lizzie?

(click image to see a larger version..)

Rocket cat

2010-05-10T13:32:00.003+12:00

Source: the internet

Wire-frame

2010-05-10T10:24:00.004+12:00

From Adyar Claire..

bananas 3 plays 2

2010-05-06T14:06:00.002+12:00

Looking for the meaning in configuration.. 3 plays 2, bunches.

(click image to see a larger version..)

bananas 2skinszz

2010-05-05T14:05:00.001+12:00

(click image to see a larger version..)

Ithoughtbuys like you were into death and vermin a

2010-05-04T13:58:00.003+12:00

(click image to see a larger version..)

Mon May O3

2010-05-03T14:00:00.003+12:00

(click image to see a larger version..)

elektronische schlagzeug

2010-05-02T13:55:00.003+12:00

The return of the PDA:

It's not really working out very well, is it

2010-01-07T14:35:00.003+13:00

In fact, its coming out like the OPPOSITE of what it was meant to come out like.

Imagery

2010-01-06T10:42:00.005+13:00

Galapagos Turtles at Auckland Zoo by @Karen Price:

Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, chapter III page 28:

Modern cat revisited

2009-12-04T11:51:00.005+13:00

I didn't realise that when I used the LOLbuilder on ICANHAZCHEESEBURGER that the image would become available to other users to caption. Sure enough, someone did...

moar funny pictures

Who's BOB? Not this one, surely...

These are our stories; they must constantly be retold

2009-12-03T20:28:00.003+13:00

Look, I don't know what to say, ok? I've been really busy. Not only that, but I've hardly been DOING anything; I've rather been LOOKING at a lot of things. And getting really drunk, a lot.

(this is a picture of the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island, from a Fox news-story.)

I did have time to enter a couple of pieces (Blurt, 2009; Bait and Switch, 2009)in the Thistle Hall $100 Art Sale. The opening thingummy is tomorrow night, Friday Dec 4th at 6pm.

Some good flowers

2009-11-16T16:15:00.001+13:00

More good flowers.

BAIT AND SWITCH, 2009

2009-11-16T15:55:00.001+13:00

Bait and switch, 2009
oil on canvas
20 x 24.5 cm

CONVOY, 2009

2009-10-27T12:58:00.008+13:00

Got it done...

Convoy, 2009
oil on canvas
35 x 44.5 cm

A Tribute to the Merchant Seamen of World War Two

2009-10-27T12:55:00.003+13:00

This well-known photo shows a convoy of merchant ships getting ready to sail to Britain from Bedford Basin, the splendid harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The photo is from A Nation Forged in Fire by J.L. Granatstein and Desmond Morton:

Long weekend staging

2009-10-25T12:25:00.000+13:00

Publicly-funded discourse

2009-10-21T12:39:00.005+13:00

eyeCONTACT is a forum "built to encourage art reviews and critical discussion about the visual culture of Aotearoa New Zealand". It's run/edited by John Hurrell, a New Zealand writer, artist and curator.

I and a lot of other people I know who are interested in the arts are pretty much fed up with the poor standard of art-writing in this country. It seems that it's always one or more of the following: sycophantic, in-crowd in-joke, behind-the-hand sniggering, exceedingly academic, stand-offish, art-writing about art-writing, exceedingly dry, incomprehensible, and pays far to much attention to the (doomed) (and implausible) pursuit of objectivity. And no one seems willing and/or able to express a proper opinion about ANY OF IT. In a word, it's bollocks. Disappointingly (and especially so since it is now being funded by Creative New Zealand), eyeCONTACT seems to be following this trend*.

I don't generally have enough time to read and engage with the site in its entirety, but I have managed to find the time to leave comment/criticism about a couple of reviews: John Hurrell reviewing Wall Works at the Adam, and David Cross on the big Yayoi Kusama show at the City Gallery. Somewhat hilariously**, my opinions have been thus far not particularly welcome.

Note:
* Judging by the emails of support and encouragement I have been getting, I'm not the only one who feels this way.
** I have to find it hilarious, don't I. Mustn't let the personal attacks get to me..

The royal estate

2009-10-19T17:22:00.002+13:00

Listening to Bruckner "Mass nr 2 in E minor" and Signer's new album

2009-10-19T17:10:00.005+13:00

o o o

Lying in bed and really enjoying looking at assorted works on the wall. The one in the middle is a oil-pastel work on paper by Daniel Phillips.

Wire-frame 20c dolly mixture and steak-cut fries

2009-10-18T16:24:00.001+13:00

A girl sitting in front of me on the bus was wearing a hoody made from a fabric printed with this beautiful design.

GAP-TOOTHED HONEY, 2008

2009-10-17T20:59:00.004+13:00

Gap-toothed honey, 2008
oil on canvas
24.5 x 20 cm
PS. oops I think that shadow over the lower-left corner is a tequila-related mistake.

Listening to Morton Feldman

2009-10-15T16:41:00.003+13:00

I thinkI also may have been staring at Kim Pieters' latest works for too long:

Philip Guston Morton Feldman hair

2009-10-12T16:28:00.001+13:00

I saw a statue/bust in a shop window which reminded me of Morton Feldman's hair via Philip Guston:

That's Guston on the left and Feldman on the right:

This is Morton Feldman by Philip Guston:

Philip Guston Friend - to M.F.
(painted in 1978, after their estrangement in 1970.)

THE PROPHET, 2002

2009-10-08T14:54:00.005+13:00

The prophet, 2002
oil on canvas
50 x 52 cm
private collection

Scott Walker

2009-10-06T10:10:00.002+13:00

PAY AS YOU GO, 2002

2009-10-05T19:32:00.000+13:00

Pay as you go, 2002
oil on canvas
36 x 25 cm

NEVER HAD A NAME, 2008

2009-10-04T14:09:00.005+13:00

Started in 2003 as an experiment in mixing oil and enamel house paints,

and put aside for some time. Resurrected last year,

and well and truly finished:

Never had a name, 2008
oil and enamel on canvas
96 x 46 cm
private collection

ARE YOU DIGITAL?, 2003

2009-10-03T16:22:00.002+13:00

Are you digital?, 2003
oil on canvas
75 x 78 cm
private collection

BLOCKADE SCENARIO, 2009

2009-10-03T16:07:00.004+13:00

Blockade scenario, 2009
oil on canvas
34.5 x 45 cm

This is a lost painting, with no real name

2009-10-03T15:27:00.007+13:00

I started it in early 2005, but in a studio move later that same year it somehow fell by the wayside. It just disappeared!!

As you can see, it was huge. I intend at some point to recreate it at a somewhat smaller scale. Notwithstanding that, I hope you are happy, unnamed painting, wherever you are.

MODERNIST PAINTER, 2008

2009-10-03T15:21:00.001+13:00

Modernist painter, 2008
oil on canvas
45 x 45 cm

Archaengle Thunderbird Cerberus

2009-10-03T15:17:00.001+13:00

Something I am starting out on:

"is painting bones, pink ones, like great big dogs cocks"

2009-10-01T09:46:00.003+13:00

Some good flowers

2009-09-29T12:47:00.001+13:00

I might try and get a better shot of the first one, cos that doesn't really do it justice.

I took the day off work

2009-09-29T11:31:00.006+13:00

I couldn't be fucked going to the office. It was pouring with rain outside and all I could bring myself to do was loll around on the carpet with the Layla, paint, and sleep. So I had a word to my boss...

Nice to have a stack of annual leave up ones sleeve, what.

Chipping away

2009-09-28T10:32:00.001+13:00

Parsnips, bone-in

2009-09-27T11:16:00.006+13:00

Once upon a time, there was a drawing:

... which became an album cover:

It seems almost predetermined that it should come to this:

LET ME MAKE THIS REALLY SIMPLE FOR YOU, 2009

2009-09-26T10:28:00.003+12:00

Let me make this really simple for you, 2009
oil on canvas
24.5 x 20 cm

ARE ''FRIENDS'' ELECTRIC?, 2002

2009-09-22T13:10:00.008+12:00

I found an old snapshot of a painting I made for the Spaceships Of The Mind series and exhibition in 2002. For a while there, it had a gantry tower in it:

This is the completed work. Sorry that the colours are so mismatched; for some reason the early shot was taken with a flash:

Are "friends" electric?, 2002
oil on canvas
64 x 99 cm
private collection

Smoke, tombstone

2009-09-20T10:14:00.009+12:00

Often when I finish a work, I have some paint left over.

PARTIALLY RETICULATE, 2009

2009-09-19T12:54:00.004+12:00

Doing, doing, ...

... done!

Partially reticulate, 2009
oil on canvas
60 x 50 cm

YALANCHI DOLMA, 2008

2009-09-15T20:59:00.003+12:00

Yalanchi dolma, 2008
oil on canvas
60 x 50 cm

Spin upheaval

2009-09-14T17:16:00.007+12:00

Some work was performed on "Partially Reticulate" during the the small hours of the night:

I am exceedingly pleased at how one of the faux-collectivo is beginning to resemble a major human life-enabling body-organ. And a moon-hopper. And a dog-toy.

BLURT, 2009

2009-09-14T11:00:00.007+12:00

So first there was this:

.. then it became this:

.. and now signed, dated and we are done.

Blurt, 2009
oil on canvas
24.5 x 20 cm

God, my slideshow is shit, and I really need to do something about it

2009-09-13T18:28:00.005+12:00

Another lovely weekend. Finished "Blurt" this afternoon. Pics soon (tmrrw?) Spent time with David, Rose, Kim Pieters, and S. Watched some of Kim's new films, one of which, Magnet, is set to my album The Green Morning from a couple of years ago. It's stunningly beautiful and I'm ecstatic at how it turned out.

David and Kim have been working on their pieces for the Wall Works show at the Adam, which is open to the public to experience the creation of the works IN REAL TIME WHILE IT HAPPENS. (what a great way to make socially awkward artists incredibly uncomfortable. Make 'em work it.. go 'on.. make 'em work for their peanuts.) Anyway, all of the work is looking really good. The "opening" / piss-up is later this week sometime.

BLURT

2009-09-08T17:27:00.008+12:00

Oops, I completely forgot in my last post to upload the picture of the drawing upon which the painting is based. Here it is:

As you can see, it's very important for a serious artist to buy and use very expensive Visual Diaries made from high quality bleached paper and bound together in a hard-wearing cover of some description, as purveyed by your local purveyor of Expensive Art Products for Serious Artists... wait, no, that's not right at all. As you can see, you can make do with the back of a fucking phone bill. Sorry that you can't hardly see anything, though.

On the left is another little work I have been chipping away at in the background. It's named "Blurt".

Fiddling about on a Monday night

2009-09-08T16:54:00.009+12:00

So I was fiddling about with the new painting last night, and added a few little touches here and there:

I know, I know, you can hardly tell at this resolution. You'll have to believe me.

o o o

While I was drawing the images which served as the basis for this painting, I was thinking about Swine Flu and weird undiscovered microbes and fungal spores and so on. When I was painting it the other night, though, I started remembering how when I was a kid I read some WWII war story or something which involved the torrid, insidious dangers of floating mines. I could clearly remember what I had imagined at the time that they looked like -- and that was something remarkably similar to my 'cluster' of 'microbes'. Of course, the real thing is more functional and less fantastic, but there you go.

What happened then was that S. and I, performing a Google image search for floating mines, came across (as the #1 result) a perfectly wonderful and bizarre webpage which had very little actually to do with naval armaments, a lot to do with the possible origins, dating and content of the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, and was also far too heavy to process at the time (we were quite drunk).

Here's the opening paragraph, just to get you started:

This page describes my theory about the possible origins, dating and content of the mysterious Voynich Manuscript. This theory proposes that the Voynich Manuscript may be a faux book, which was created between 1610 and 1620, and made to look as though it came from Francis Bacon's fictional island of New Atlantis. And as such, that it was made to look much older than it was, and that it includes a map of the fictional Bensalem, along with both real and fanciful representations of optics and other devices, flora and fauna, the Arts and sciences, astronomy and astrology. And, that much of this was reflected from past, real works, but distorted into an imaginative reflection of how the author thought they would have been perceived and practiced by the advanced, fictional culture of New Atlantis. The theory further supposes that it may have been created under the influence of, and possibly created by someone from, the circle of Francis Bacon's near contemporaries and their world. These include Cornelis Drebbel, Michael Maier, Solomon De Caus, Johann Valentin Andreae, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Simon Forman, Robert Fludd, among others.

New strategies for old problems

2009-09-07T16:36:00.001+12:00

What a bloody brilliant weekend! Managed to get out yesterday for several hours of boozing in the sun with S. but aside from that, I worked on the new painting quite a bit. Really enjoying how it's coming along:

No title yet.

ps. The new strategy for the old problem? I've discovered that (fingers crossed knock on wood) Isopropyl Alcohol, in addition to its many uses from cleaning tape recorder mechanisms and LPs, to manufacturing cannabis oil (*cough* or so I've heard), it's marvelous at getting oil paint out of clothes and carpet. Seems to just break the stuff right down and destroy it. I gotta try cleaning a brush with it to see what happens.

PARTIALLY RETICULATE

2009-09-05T16:25:00.002+12:00

One of the (two) canvases I didn't include in the pic in the previous post was something I started last year and then had to suddenly stop again in order to move house:

I decided that this was going to be the canvas that I worked on first, so as to gently ease myself back into painting again. After a day or so and some thinking and plotting, it turned into something like this:

And so it goes...

2009-09-02T16:15:00.000+12:00

I had spent a few days stretching canvases on a number of stretchers that I had scattered around the place. This included ripping the canvas off a couple of shit paintings from last year, and also stretching over and gluing canvas to some wooden boards that also used to be (shit) paintings, from a looooong time ago.

I hate painting on board for some reason.

Anyhow, I just spent all weekend gessoing and prepping the canvases:

One, two, three layers of gesso on the face, two on the sides, and two sealing the back. On top of that, two layers of thin(nish) yellow (Cadmium Yellow Light) acrylic.

I now have 15 supports of various sizes. The largest must be a good 800mm square. Some of them already have random underpainting on them.

In the beginning

2009-08-18T12:49:00.000+12:00

In the beginning was the Modern Cat. And so it was that the Modern Cat made her countenance shine upon me, and she said:

So it came to pass that I unpacked my box of paints, my brushes, my palette knives, my gesso, my gun stapler, my drop sheets, and other my other accouterments, and cast from mine mind all psychological remnants of the vile behemoth whom had taken away all mine confidence last year... and I got busy.