A LITTLE WORK IN PROGRESS..

TAXIDERMY BIRDS & BEASTS

On Essex Road, one evening I was caught by the bright lights of a shop called ‘Get Stuffed’, a peculiar Aladdin’s Cave of Taxidermy (and gilt human skulls). Looking in the window of the closed shop I saw an entire kingdom of animals, sitting paradoxically together- big and small, exotic and commonplace, still and motionless. Comatosel, harmonising in colour and composition, together only in death as their primal instinct wouldn't allow the binary natures of cat and mouse to happily sit together in life.

These objects exist as a residue, mysterious skins that give a suggestion of life, like the snake that sheds its skin, life has gone, but its existence is preserved. Demi-resurrected by the hands of man, they have been re-created and will sit on shelves and behind glass vetrines staring through glassy eyes. In the meantime, their intricate insides, heart and brain, muscle and bone, will all follow the inherent parade of nature’s decaying path.

KRIMSKRAMS

Krimskrams is an exhibition at the Cartel Gallery, a new project space in South East London presenting curatorial experiments in contemporary art. Housed in a black shipping container, Cartel's programme is decided by a flexible consortium of international members, proposing 6 projects a year starting June 2010. The show is curated by Sam Venables and Richard Proffitt of the Liverpool based artist-led gallery The Royal Standard, who have recently exhibited at No Soul For Sale at Tate Modern and Global Studio at the Bluecoat gallery.

‘Krimskrams’ translates from German as ‘odds and ends’...The countless little worthless things that fade into the background of life. I will be exhibiting the three drawings above; they gently sit alongside an assortment of objects, existing together as an accumulation of bits and pieces which hold an indefinite feeling of remembrance of a watery past. A procession of plastic pigs, found overlooked objects, shimmering light boxes, meaty collages, last night’s curried chips...together they make a room of curiosities from a strange and abstract memory.

Artists exhibiting include Sam Venables, Richard Proffitt, Harry Lawson, myself and others.

Krimskrams will be showing from 24 Sept -24 Oct.

www.cartelgallery.com

GOMEISA

She's a strange and faintly haunting little girl with a skull crowning her head. She's named after the star Gomeisa which is part of the Orion constellation, the word is Arabic for 'the little bleary-eyed one'.　I was fortunate enough to have her printed in issue #1 of Drawing Paper..an engaging, not for profit newspaper based publication which focuses solely on drawing. Drawing Paper is conceived and designed by Mike Carney and Jon Barraclough.
http://www.drawing-paper.tumblr.com/

HELLO BEGINNING

Time for a change I think. A couple of years have hastily passed since the day I graduated in Fine Art and in that wide space of time, much to my regret, I haven’t managed to generate a great deal art or creativity. Instead I’ve dallied around in a post-graduate reverie, travelling to different places including China where I taught a little English, and upon my homecoming have been working to dig myself out of the murky pits of student debt. But now I feel is the moment to return to what I’ve treasured doing since I was a child: to draw. Consequently, a week ago, I hired a little space within an artists’ studio in Leeds and took up a part-time job to generate a morsel of pocket money to get me by. These changes and this blog will be my first steps into a future I optimistically dedicate to drawing and artistic endeavours.