Working Methods: 'This S(c)eptic Isle' - Abandoned Toy Sculptures 1

All Images: Abandoned Toy Sculptures (Work In Progress), Salvaged Trundle Toys & Spray Enamel,
May 2018

As I mentioned recently, my current focus has shifted to a form of sculpture, using found 'street' materials.  However, nothing I do ever seems to settle into any pure form, and so it is again.  The materials I’m currently utilising, such as the cardboard boxes mentioned a couple of posts back, are definitely recognisable as such – and there’s no doubt they’ve all be salvaged ‘pre-used’ from one source or another.  However, there’s also a fair bit of subtle ‘tidying up’ and finessing of nuanced surfaces, going on.  A deal of consideration is also being applied to what will become their ultimate formal arrangements, and to the structural issues involved in realising them in a (semi-) permanent form.  And so, as ever, I seem to be falling between two stools.  For better or worse, these are shaping up to become specific artefacts, rather than the raw materials of a transitory site-specific installation.  Perhaps I might need to think a bit more deeply about that, if I choose to continue working in this manner in the future.

A similar situation is developing with the discarded trundle toys shown here.  They constitute another of my current key recurring motifs, and I’ll leave it up to the viewer to decide whether each might signify youth abandoned, dysfunction as transportation (all are damaged or rendered unusable in some way), or a sense of a coherent way forward being lost.  Or, of course - they might just represent another picturesque component of the street trash accumulating in local streets.

Either way, they might have simply been carted into an exhibition situation in their raw state, I suppose - to glory in their authentic tawdriness.  But, as with the boxes, it seems my natural instinct is to pour hours of labour into transforming them into something a little closer to ‘sculpture’.  Various structural interventions have already been wrought, and considerable effort put into prepping their scarred surfaces prior to painting.  In fact, this decision to spray-paint each one a single uniform colour is one of the things which will distinguish them from ‘pure’ Readymades in the Duchampian sense.  And whilst Rauschenberg usually manipulated his free standing Combines in a some physical, sense, he generally left their surfaces in their street-raw state (or close to it).  That more self-consciously sculptural aspect may also be accentuated in the long run, by furnishing the finished toys with plinths – even if only in the form of yet more cardboard boxes.  We’ll see.

So, it’s apparent that, even when working with street detritus, my default disposition is towards rather more control than one might ideally aspire to.  So be it – we all revert to the kind of artist we really are, come what may - and the urge to deliberately shape is clearly pretty strong in me.  And, in all honesty, it’s actually quite therapeutic sitting in my sunny back yard - obsessively sanding the scarred wheels of a plastic kiddie-car (whatever the neighbours might think).

R.I.P. Robert Indiana, 1929 - 2018

Robert Indiana

I was saddened to read of the recent death, aged 89, of the American Artist, Robert Indiana.  Pop Art continues to hold a significant influential sway over my own creative thinking, and (setting the two monuments of Johns and Rauschenberg aside - who I think of more as ‘proto-Pop’) Indiana is one of my favourite of the genre’s exponents.  In reality, Indiana himself (real name – Robert Clark) was ambivalent about the label.  However, I think it’s impossible to disassociate his work, with it’s emblematic graphic qualities, and relentless exploration of the links between text and image, with many of the defining characteristics of Pop.

Robert Indiana, 'Beware-Danger American Dream No.4', Oil On Four Canvases,  1963

Perhaps where he differed from the high celebrants of consumer culture, or the deadpan hipsters, was in the strand of sincere social conscience running through his imagery – for all its stylistic verve.  He may have adopted the quasi-commercial aesthetic language of the American Dream, but his real impulse seems to have been to question it, rather than to simplistically promote it.

Robert Indiana, 'The Figure Five', Oil On Canvas, 1963

An adoptee, with an apparently disturbed early life, Indiana appears to have presented as a somewhat disillusioned figure throughout his life - indeed, becoming increasingly reclusive and withdrawn in later life.  Perhaps it was this that led him to explore the disjuncture between societal fantasy and the underlying realities - as in, for example, in the mid 60s ‘Confederacy’ series, with its clear critical stance towards the racism of America’s southern states.

Robert Indiana, 'The Confederacy: Alabama', Oil On Canvas, 1965

Indiana’s most famous image is also one of the most over-familiar in 20^th Century Art – namely, the four-square ‘Love’ logo, which first came to prominence as a MOMA Christmas card in 1964.  It’s been co-opted and reproduced to the point of tired cliché over the years, (largely due to Indiana’s initial failure to copyright it) - and is often reduced to little more than a lazy shorthand for 60s Hippy culture.  And yet, when one wipes a way the cheese, it remains, I think – a properly resonant icon.

Robert Indiana, 'Love', Painted Aluminium, (New York City), 1966 - 1999

This is particularly true when rendered in its oft-replicated sculptural form.  There’s something just ‘right’ about the choice of Times-like font, and the formal stacking of the characters - whilst the jaunty angling of the ‘O’ was an inspired strategy, in terms of graphic communication.  Most of all, I enjoy its semiotic potential in making a simple, but incredibly resonant term solid, and thus exposing the tricky relationships between a word as object, as symbol, and as meaning.  I don’t know if Indiana was trying to make love solid in the world, after a start in life in which it may have seemed somewhat allusive – but he actually created one of the most popular (and, in my view - one of the few properly successful) examples of public art.

Robert Indiana, 'Four', Oil On Gesso, On Wood With Wire & Metal Wheels, 1962

Ultimately, there's far more to Indiana's work than just 'Love', and no shortage of more complex and sophisticated images in his oeuvre.  Indeed, my own current concerns remind me that I should really reinvestigate his totemic columnar sculptures with some urgency.  Nevertheless, if spreading 'Love' around the world were to be chiefly what he was remembered for - it's not such a bad legacy, I suppose.

Working Methods: 'This S(c)epic Isle' - Cardboard Box Sculptures & Reliefs

Currently Untitled, (Work In Progress), Salvaged Cardboard Box, MDF, Screen-Print, Paper Collage,
Acrylics, French Polish, P.V.A., Adhesive Packing Tape

My apologies for the paucity of posts, over recent weeks.  The reason is simply that I’ve chosen to spend every valuable spare hour getting stuck into my work – tending to neglect various other duties as a consequence.  However, there’s only so long I can expect the select few who actually take an interest in my creative efforts (for which - many thanks), to stay engaged without at least something new to look at.  Here then, are some current work in progress shots – to give a few clues, at the very least.

Currently Untitled, (Work In Progress), Salvaged Cardboard Box, MDF, Screen-Print, Paper Collage,
Acrylics, French Polish, P.V.A., Adhesive Packing Tape

I may have mentioned a little while back that I was entering the sculptural phase of my ongoing ‘This S(c)eptic Isle’ project, and it appears I’m now well and truly dug in.  Working sculpturally is something of a departure for me - even if (as ever) what I choose to call sculpture is really just another bastardised, hybrid form of expression.  Indeed, what you see in these images is probably closer to someone like Robert Rauschenberg’s reconfiguration of street detritus than anything remotely resembling traditional sculpture per se.

 Cardboard Boxes In Various States of Development (Work In Progress), Salvaged Cardboard Boxes, MDF,
Screen-Print, Paper Collage, Acrylics, French Polish, P.V.A., Adhesive Packing Tape

Cardboard Boxes In Various States of Development (Work In Progress), Salvaged Cardboard Boxes, MDF,
Screen-Print, Paper Collage, Acrylics, French Polish, P.V.A., Adhesive Packing Tape

Cardboard Boxes In Various States of Development (Work In Progress), Salvaged Cardboard Boxes, MDF,
Screen-Print, Paper Collage, Acrylics, French Polish, P.V.A., Adhesive Packing Tape

Rauschenberg also famously worked with found cardboard boxes, although, in my defense, they have been a key motif in my own project from the start.  Either way, I’m doing my best to avoid simply aping him, and hopefully, it’s already apparent that my formal intentions and deliberate attention to treated surfaces, are leading me in a slightly different direction.

Cardboard Box Monolith, Experimental Mock-Up, (Work In Progress)

Proposed Cardboard Box Monolith, Experimental Mock-Up (Work In Progress)

What you see are very much tentative beginnings, being essentially just mock-ups (or even just literal piles) – and the main concern at present is that the overall stockpile should simply grow as large as possible, as quickly as possible.  It does look certain however, that the emerging monolithic column format will play a significant role as the work evolves, and that other boxes will be wall-mounted as reliefs - probably in clusters.  It’s also my intention that those at least (and possibly all) will act as carriers for screen-printed imagery, as suggested in the first examples here.

Proposed Cardboard Box Monolith, Experimental Mock-Up (work In Progress)

Proposed Cardboard Box Monolith, Experimental Mock-Up (Work In Progress)

Of course, the other point about working sculpturally is that there tends to be far more hard manual graft (and hours) involved, than with painting.  In case you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, each cardboard box is being given an internal MDF armature (essentially a box within the box).  I’m also getting through numerous rolls of brown gum strip, and many litres of PVA adhesive in an attempt to subtly modify the outer surfaces beyond their purely raw state.

 Cardboard Boxes In Various States of Development (Work In Progress), Salvaged Cardboard Boxes, MDF, 
 Paper Collage, Acrylics, French Polish, P.V.A., Adhesive Packing Tape

Cardboard Box Monolith, Experimental Mock-Up, (Work In Progress)

And the other reason for all this accelerating activity?  It’s now confirmed that I will be exhibiting again in mid September, in another joint show with my erstwhile partners in crime, Shaun Morris and Andrew Smith.  The show will be at Nottingham’s Surface Gallery, but more about all that when the time actually comes.  For now - those boxes won’t stack themselves… 

Treated Cardboard Box Surfaces (Detail), (Work In Progress), Salvaged Cardboard Boxes,
MDF, Paper Collage, Acrylics, French Polish, P.V.A., Adhesive Packing Tape

Shaun Morris, 'Just A Little Bit Back From The Main Road' At Evesham Arts Centre

I haven't been to too many exhibitions so far, this year, but here's one I'll definitely be attending at some stage over the coming weeks.

My friend Shaun Morris has just opened his latest solo exhibition at Evesham Arts Centre, Worcestershire, under the title 'Just A Little Bit Back From The Main Road'.  It's essentially a showcase for his most recent paintings - and thus, something I'm definitely looking forward to seeing.  Shaun's work has featured on here repeatedly over recent years, but he's a pretty tireless and prolific producer of painted images, as his website testifies.  It will be interesting to witness that progression 'for real', as it were.  He remains staunchly committed to the honest pursuit of painting and, as we should never forget - there really is nothing else that can adequately replicate the presence of oil paint on canvas, when viewed directly.

Shaun Morris, 'The Street (Empty Boxes)', Oil on Canvas, 50 cm X 100 cm, 2017-18

Shaun Morris, 'The Street (The Cooker)', Oil on Canvas, 80 cm X 60 cm, 2018

I'll admit to another vested interest, in that it looks like I'll be exhibiting my own work alongside Shaun's (and with another regular collaborator, Andrew Smith), later in the year.  It's early days in the planning of that venture, but at least this show should give me some insight into exactly where Shaun's work is right now, and hopefully trigger, in advance, a few of those conversations between individual bodies of work which have inevitably emerged from our previous joint ventures.

Anyway, this new show of Shaun's will be open for quite a while - although, as the publicity material below indicates, times when the gallery can actually be accessed are a bit limited.  I'd definitely encourage anyone interested in Shaun's work (or just good contemporary painting in general), to take a look - but be aware that a little forward planning is possibly required.

Shaun Morris, 'Just A Little Bit Back From The Main Road', can be seen at Evesham Arts Centre, Prince Henry's School Site, Victoria Avenue, Evesham, Worcestershire, WR11 4QH, until 30 June 2018.