New studio draings: Gouache, Pen, Ink, Graphite

Zizzi Glasgow Royal Echange, January 2013

Of the themes suggested for the project the ones which appealled the most  were that of GoMA and the Telephone exchange - the second making me think of speech, dialect and the Glasgow Patter.  This resulted in some initial ideas for ' Your Patter's like Water'; The course of the River Clyde and tributaries are plotted by phrases and words peculiar to the City that might refer literally to eating and drinking or as a form of rhyming slang or patter.

The current building was previously Borders' bookshop. Having traded on the site for almost 20 years, the bookshop was synonymous with the building and much-loved by locals. Recognising the obvious relation to dialect, patter and writing I pursued this as a new theme.  I collected together some Glasgow-associated novelists, poets, playwrights and seminal books; particularly looking for those with interesting titles and book-jackets ( and would also tie in with the green, grey, maroon and yellow palette).

Round 1 ideas

final proposals

Wish List 2012

Pick up your copy of The List today with Wish List - seasonal gift, food and drink and event guide - featuring my recently commissioned festive patterns.

Wish List 2012

I was just recently commissioned to illustrate some festive designs for the pages of this year's Wish List. From the menu boards at the Traverse Theatre and the poster for the Neighbourhood exhibition the emphasis for this was on a mix of media and simple pattern. Keep your eyes peeled for the December publication.

Neighbourhood Urban Outfitters 124 Princes St - On til 12 November

Tonight 04/10/12

http://www.facebook.com/UOEdinburgh/photos_stream

NEIGHBOURHOOD is go

NEIGHBOURHOOD Watch

 Details from the painted works to be featured in NEIGHBOURHOOD. Basement level of Urban Outfitters, Edinburgh.

I am excited at the prospect of this show. For the first time I will be showing works two distinct approaches which I do not see as being mutually exclusive. The figurative works are almost collaborative in how they demand cooperation and interaction - before making the work- and require intense observation and concentration during. The new symbolic, graphic pieces tend to come from a process of introspection and trying to access a particular atmosphere.   I can see this as a starting point from which more new bodies of work will emerge.

Sneak - New Works on Paper

A little of what is to come in NEIGHBOURHOOD exhibition.

'

Solo Show: NEIGHBOURHOOD

Solo Exhibition NEIGHBOURHOOD opens Thursday October 4th at Urban Outfitters Edinburgh, 124 Princes Street. Private view 6pm - 8pm.

   

This exhibition will feature new figure paintings and recent drawings including those from the Homecomer's Series seen at Art's Complex Summer Show.  These two distinct approaches represent the different ways in which I explore my immediate physical and social environments; Interpreting the architecture around me I work from memory and imagination to produce short-hand landscapes while also valuing the rigorous observation required to make painted portraits of artists, friends and colleagues. This is my neighbourhood. 

Traverse Bar Cafe

A wee job I did for the Traverse Theatre  this week. Please go check out the Bar Cafe's new look: http://www.traverse.co.uk/bar-caf%C3%A9/

Other Folks

 Some artists I've been taking an interest in recently include Nana Shiomi whose japanese woodblock prints seem to play on ideas of perspective, space and the symbolic significance of  repeated motifs. Illistrator/artists Steven Harrington and Scott Barry's use of pattern and symbols create personal visual languages. Barry also has very fluid approach or multiple 'styles' that he works in.  I prefer Shiomi's work for it's subtlety but there's just something about symmetry and triangles....  

 Nana Shiomi

Steven Harrington

Scott Barry

Homecomer's Series

installation view

untitled

 top from left: placed I, Havn I, three sisters. 

middle: call them in, placed II, Placed III. 

bottom: havn II 

 from left: look east, dawn

 look west

 once a popular tourist destination, untitled

Current Exhibitions

A series of recent drawings and a painted work are featured in Art's Complex Summer Show.  Open from the  3rd to the 19th August, London Road. Gallery 2 will still be exhibiting until the 31st. Details and coverage below


http://www.artscomplex.org/events/exhibition-arts-complex-summer-exhibition


http://www.scotlandsartists.com/pages/exhibitions_detail.php?recordID=73


http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/blog/first-summer-show-at-arts-complex-edinburgh/


50 by 50 touring group exhibition is now installed at Central Library, George IV bridge, Edinburgh. Work can be viewed from Victoria Street.

Archetypal Landscape

I was reading about The Group of Seven and the influence of Scandinavian landscape painters on the formation of their ideas when I came across this passage:

all these painters led the viewer from a narrow platform area in the foreground, via a relatively undifferentiated middle ground to a mountain or other striking feature in the distance, creating 'unfathomable and emotional landscape spaces' that generated an effect of sublime monumentality.

Though not directly applicable to my work I like the idea that this proposes; that maybe there is an archetypal 'landscape' or spacial arrangement that humans are attracted to.  Maybe it is a personal one or maybe it belongs to a collective consciousness. Maybe it is related to the instinct that compels us to reach the trig point when we climb a mountain - to reach an point of safety in an otherwise 'undifferentiated' plane.  My Friendly Neighbourhood Architect tells me that humans naturally want to position themselves next to verticals.

All my drawing is at the moment is revolving around this:There is a plane (patterned or repetetively textured, on a slant) on which an object/subject is positioned. Or the plane and object are entirely symetrical with a repeat pattern in forground. The spaces and objects should be familiar yet unfamiliar, evoking a feeling of deja vu. 

Will have to look into surrealism.

15.7.12

 Some more work to be featured in Arts Complex Summer Exhibition 2012