The Age of Optimism (trans_late)

 

All Images: Cotteridge, Birmingham, November 2021

(Audio Transcript):

The Chancellor who is showing signs of breathing down his next-door neighbour's booster rhetoric promises us an academy for a new era of optimism it does not seem that if development is so anaemic it will feel non-existent for many countries after making many families feel pessimistic about their future living standards and issue that affects almost everyone that an issue that the Chancellor has said less and less UK in the installations charging for a mortgage in the hope that the Bank of England will soon start raising interest rates and heavy taxes rising inflation and borrowing costs are almost a recipe for combined income independent predictors expect that most people will experience little improvement to their living standards and some squeeze over the next five years.

Hope that these predictions will prove to be false because if they're right people will not experience The Age of Optimism when choosing the next like stagnant grinding age reuse this content.

Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke: 'Displaced' At T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, 3 July 2021

 

Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions 2', Acrylic on Canvas, 142 cm x 114 cm, 2020

As our various freedoms of movement have been partially restored in recent weeks, I've already attended a few small exhibition openings in the Midlands.  The most recent of these involved a dive over to Birmingham, with my friend, Dave - to catch the first day of the joint show 'Displaced', by my sometime co-conspirators, Shaun Morris and Andrew Smith.  It was also an opportunity to visit the previously unfamiliar (to me) T-Street Gallery, and also to meet its mastermind (and curator of this exhibition) Sevven Kucuk.  I've no real idea about the epidemiological wisdom of The Government's lockdown easing measures - beyond the distinct suspicion we're far from having heard the last of all this viral malarkey.  However, I'm no different from most folks in enjoying the chance to get out and about, and to enjoy just doing stuff again.  Visiting exhibitions, catching up with friends, meeting new art world participants, and sipping the drinks we enjoyed later in the day, are all part of that.  We even managed to catch a little weekend sunshine and avoid most of the jingoistic football nonsense, along the way.  All in all, the job was a good 'un.

Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith, 'Displaced', T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, July 2021. 
With Some Old Favourites by Shaun, and Curator, Sevven Kucuk (C.) 

Shaun Morris, 'The Green Door', Oil on Canvas, 120 cm X 80 cm, 2020

The work of both Shaun and Andrew has featured here on numerous previous occasions, and in various configurations, and the current show represents a relatively small selection of both old and new work - much of which I was at least partially familiar with already.  Nevertheless, there's no substitute for seeing actual work in a room, and it's always instructive to see even well-known work in new contexts.  In this case it was also interesting to view the work of both artists through the eyes of a third party.  I think it's fair to say that Sevven's thoughtful and collaborative curation have resulted in a hang that capitalises on the strengths of both the work, and the two spaces in which it hangs.

Shaun (2nd L) & Andrew (R), with Friends

Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions 5' (L) & 'Collected Redactions 6' (R),
Both Acrylic on Canvas, 121 cm X 91 cm, 2020

Whilst both artists continue to plough their own distinct furrows, there are still enough fruitful conversations between each selection to suggest some kind of loose thematic connection.  In this case, that would point towards a shared meditation on the interraction we've all experienced with both trepidatious outdoor spaces and our own constrained interiors, in the time of Covid.  In Sevven's words: 

"We've been forced to reflect upon our relationships with areas and places we've been isolated too and enclosed in and how our methods of communications connect or disconnect." [1.]

Shaun Morris, 'No Particular Place To Go', Oil on Canvas, 50 cm X 60 cm, 2021

Shaun Morris, 'Lock Up' (Top) & 'Lock Up II' (Bottom), Both Oil on Canvas, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2019 

Shaun Morris, 'Lockdown', Oil on Canvas, 75 cm X 50 cm, 2020

In Shaun's case, this knowledge serves to re-frame the palpable melancholy (or indeed, 'displacement'), that has always suffused his nocturnal visions of Birmingham's suburbs and edgelands.  His customary stationary vehicles, architectural corners and street furniture continue to resonate under sombre urban illumination - partially abstracting themselves amidst dramatic patterns of coloured light and deep shadow.  But now they also loom out of the darkness like ghostly presences encountered during our brief, officially-sanctioned exercise sessions.  The tension between restriction and those snatched moments of lonely 'freedom', are now palpable - even in works made long before the pandemic.  Whilst reassessing the past, I was also intrigued to see that Shaun has recently revisited the subject matter of his elevated motorway pieces of a few years ago.  The modestly-scaled motorway painting he now shows ('What Happened to All the Friends We Used to Know') may be less immediately dramatic than previous efforts, but it's a real slow-burner.  Complete with its incongruous ghostly horse, it gradually reveals itself from the prevailing gloom, like something from Sickert.  The painting emphasises just how accomplished Shaun has become at depicting the effects of restricted light and colour at night.

Shaun Morris, 'What Happened To All The Friends We Used To Know', 
Oil on Canvas, 50 cm X 60 cm, 2021

As usual, Andrew's recent output is a rather more oblique and open to multiple potential interpretations.  It's a feature of his work I've always relished - even if he has occasionally joked that he reads my blog posts to find out himself what his work is actually about!  As ever, he now presents work in multiple media, with notable diversions into experimental writing and video.  However, his main contribution to the show is split between painted-over photographs, and somewhat larger, nominally abstract paintings.  The former are, by his own account, grabbed (direct from the screen) from the popular T.V. property show, 'Homes Under The Hammer'.  Knowing Andrew, as I do, there'll be at least some satirical intent there, but in the context of this exhibition, the main effect evoked is one of unsettling enclosure within alienating domestic spaces.  How many people have found their familiar surroundings transformed into psychically overloaded terrain under lockdown conditions - I wonder?  How many were unable to relocate within their preferred time-frame?  How many more found themselves frittering their enforced imprisonment whilst staring blankly at facile T.V. shows?

Andrew Smith, 'Cubist On The Water (Homes Under The Hammer'. Acrylic on Digital Print,
58 cm X 43 cm, 2021

Andrew Smith, 'Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appalling
(Homes Under The Hammer)', Acrylic On Digital Print, 58 cm X 43 cm, 2020

Andrew Smith, 'Landscape With Empty Light Subject (Homes Under The Hammer)',
Acrylic on Digital Print, 58 cm X 43 cm, 2021

Andrew Smith, '...(The Caretaker Edited)', Video, 2020

If the paintings seem a little more straightforwardly formalist at first viewing - they soon prove to be no less layered and mediated in their unfolding.  Their interlocking, flattened shapes and compositional arrangements are assembled from multiple digitally filtered and superimposed photos of scarred and stained exterior walls.  If (like Shaun) Andrew has found himself  focussing on quotidian details in a time of reduced horizons, he's also wasted little time in distilling them into yet-more unfamiliar environments via the expedient of heavy digital intervention.  What really hold these pieces in slightly wonky balance are the occasional (very) vestigial clues to an original subject, and also the the push-pull of small painterly accidents, versus possibly arbitrary decisions made at the keyboard.  Should the colour schemes suggest some degree of more elegant respite in trying times - Andrew himself reminds us they are often the chance result of the mechanical translation from photograph, to digital file, to painted canvas.  Again, we're prompted to question how much of the everyday experience we once took for granted, has been driven yet deeper into the digital domain - or reflected back to us on mis-calibrated screens, in the last eighteen months.  Will that do, Andrew?

T-Street Gallery Windows, Birmingham, July 2021

To conclude, mention should be made of T-Street Gallery itself.  It occupies a modest, but perfectly serviceable space as the adjunct to a long-standing shared studio complex, at the interface between the leisure/cultural hotspots around Broad Street, and the more down-at-heel environs of Ladywood.  In recent decades, many striving artists in search of studio or exhibition space will have become connoisseurs of run-down, post-industrial premises.  Nevertheless, T-Street occupies what must be one of the more dilapidated examples of the breed.  Luckily, I myself find it hard to trust anyone who can't appreciate a proper bit of urban grunge.  The fabric of the building includes numerous fascinating infrastructural clues to its previous incarnations, amongst crumbling masonry  and cracked panes.  Nevertheless, I couldn't help noticing that the somewhat questionable integrity of the roof has been carefully shored-up, immediately above the gallery space, and it's testament to the energy and determination of Sevven Kucuk, that she's been able to carve out such a venture, almost single-handed.  She's also achieved it in the face of pretty limited resources, it would seem.  If our relatively brief conversation is a reliable indication - her motivations seem spot-on, and if any form of grass-roots Art scene is to survive in this country, it will doubtless be through the efforts of such folk.

Vertiginous Post-Industrial Ambience, T-Street Gallery, July 2021

'Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke: 'Displaced', continues at T-Street Gallery, Top Floor, 55 Great Tyndal Street, Birmingham B16 8DR, Until 18 July 2021.

 

[1.]:  Sevven Kucuk, Exhibition Guide Notes, 'Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke, 'Displaced', T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, July 2021.

'All I See Is Little Dot, Dot, Dot, Dot, Dots...)'*

Main Images: Digbeth, Birmingham, August 2019

Still loving them...

And This...

* Talking Heads, 'Drugs' (D. Byrne/B. Eno), Sire, 1979

Benign Surveillance 1

All Images: Central Birmingham, January 2018

I suppose it's only realistic to accept that some might find something questionable in my current habit of pointing of my lens through urban windows - to photograph the occupants within, without their knowledge or consent.  Certainly, such activities could raise a variety of potentially problematic issues regarding personal privacy, in our current surveillance-obsessed society - if viewed with cynicism.
   

In so far as I've analysed my own ethical standpoint on the matter, my current view is that it's largely a matter of intention (like most things really).  I hope that anyone viewing these latest glimpses of corporate life can appreciate that my motives are pretty benign.  The people depicted are, I think, suitably anonymous, and their activities - sufficiently mundane and non-incriminating, to negate any sense of genuinely sinister intrusion.  In addition, these are hardly the most technically adept photos ever captured - their murky, almost sub-aquatic flavour, making them pretty hard to interpret in any event.  Anyway, I'll happily leave the specific location of these shots unannounced, and assert that there is no deliberate intention to demean, deride or embarrass anyone here, on my part.

In reality, the stimulus for this little suite of images, was mostly to do with capturing that sense of melancholy, Hopperesque alienation, so characteristic of modern urban life - and an innocent curiosity about 'what those people actually do in there', that I often experience when passing nominally unremarkable workplaces.  I'll be honest - the specific details  of contemporary employment practices remain a considerable mystery to me, in many respects.  Above all, it's just that old flanneurist or quasi-Situationist fascination with 'the everyday' - I suppose.  That - and the visual appeal of deflected reflections and framing architectural geometry, of course.  

I suppose there's also the question of why the unaccustomed inclusion of the human element in many of my recent photographs should occur in such a distanced and detached manner.  I'll leave in-depth consideration of the potential psychological implications of that for another time...

Birmingham Canal Ride: Broad Street To Dudley Port (Retrospective)

Birmingham Canal, Central Birmingham, August 2017

Introduction:

Writing my preceding post, about David Byrne's cycle-based approach to exploring cities, reminded me that I'd been sitting on this post for far too long.  It was actually written last August, in the immediate aftermath of one of my own occasional Birmingham canal rides - but delayed under the pretence I was going to edit and include some of the video I shot on the day.  That never happened, and is unlikely to do so right now - so let's just dust off the post anyway.  It does feel like it's in the spirit of Byrne's 'Bicycle Diaries' [1.], if nothing else.  Better late than never, I guess...

  

August 2017:

It’s been quite a while, but I recently got back on the bike to cycle another stretch of Birmingham’s extensive canal system.  This time, my companion was my friend and work colleague (Boss, actually), Tim.  Our route was one I’d been intending to take for some time - taking us from Broad Street, in the city centre, along the Birmingham Canal - through Smethwick to Dudley Port.

Birmingham Canal, Old Line (Soho Loop), August 2017

The Black Country, to the west and north west of Birmingham is famously a cradle of the Industrial Revolution.  Indeed, as the name implies, coal mining, metalworking, engineering and manufacturing of various kinds once combined to create the region’s reputation as a reeking, poisoned hive of industry.  As Tim pointed out, it’s even credited with inspiring Tolkein’s vision of Mordor – that nexus of sulphurous evil from ‘The Lord Of The Rings’.  The nature of commerce and industry in Britain has, of course, shifted focus from those core activities since the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and these days, the remaining factories and occasional once-grand Victorian edifices rise largely from a lower-level landscape of lorry parks, transport hubs and trading estates.

Birmingham Canal, Smethwick, August 2017

In fact, I was mildly surprised to discover just how verdant was much of our route.  The reality is obviously that, what would have once constituted a major commercial artery between central Brum and the towns of the Black Country, long since gave way to the preeminence of rail and road transport.  It has become instead, both a green corridor and a thread of industrial architecture punctuated by overgrown colliery workings, disused quays and the occasional canal museum.  As our own presence proved, and as I’ve noted before - the real appeal of canals nowadays is as places in which to dawdle and reflect, or even as conduits for our dreams.

Birmingham Canal, Smethwick, August 2017

Whilst some industrial facilities do still rear up on either bank, two of the most memorable examples from our ride remain the partially demolished and burned-out buildings along the Soho Loop (at the Birmingham end), and the large, partially cleared site, were the canal separates into two parallel branches, at Smethwick.  Elsewhere, we noted how much new housing and recently landscaped parkland is now lies along our route.  The reality, I think, is that one needs to come back up to street level to fully experience the current industrial/commercial flavour of the region – something I certainly intend to do in future visits.

Birmingham Canal (South Branch), Smethwick, August 2017

The depth to which we were actually sunk beneath the contemporary surface of the world was emphasized by the sheer height of the cut’s embankments, particularly along the Smethwick section, and especially by the parallel tunnels and soaring bridges through which we passed just there.  This is, of course, largely a consequence of topography (and testament to the fortitude of the Navvies, who dug it all out originally).  Nevertheless, I’m always also struck by that sense of passing vertically through time, as well as laterally in space wherever such manmade landscapes stack up multiple layers of infrastructure (and by implication, technological advance).

Birmingham Canal, Central Birmingham, August 2017

The most dramatic and resonant example of this, and one of the major draws of the excursion for me, is the elevated section of the M5 between West Bromwich and Oldbury.  Just as at Spaghetti Junction (to the north of the city), this provides both vertiginous concrete drama - with huge columns and supporting piers actually sunk into the canal bed itself; and a multi-layered environment of road, rail and water (including a splendid aqueduct, to carry one canal branch over another).  Long time readers of this blog will know I’m a complete sucker for this kind of thing.

Beneath M5 Motorway, Oldbury, August 2017

They will also recall that this is the same location from which many of my fellow artist Shaun Morris’ paintings emerged in recent years.  This is indeed, the ‘Edgeland’ landscape of Shaun’s childhood, and the one to which he turned for his memorable ‘Stolen Car', ‘Black Highway’, and ‘The Lie Of The Land’' cycles of painted nocturnes.  Having waxed lyrical about that work on so many occasions, it was a delight to find myself finally sampling, at first hand, the resonance of the place from which they sprang.  I also amused myself by trying to spot one or two specific locations from the paintings as we passed.  There can’t be too many piles of wooden palettes quite that big - can there, Shaun?  I think I spotted the big green transport depot from ‘A Minor Place’ too.

Shaun Morris, 'A Minor Place', Oil On Canvas, 2016

However, nothing stays the same for long.  Since Shaun depicted them, many of the motorway’s monumental supports have sprouted an undecipherably complex tangle of scaffolding in a major process of renovation of the weathering concrete.  This cocoon of metallic struts and precarious zig-zag ladders has completely transformed the sensory experience of the place.  It converts an environment of cavernous monumentality and quasi-geology (albeit man-made), into something closer to a shimmering, silvery forest.

Remedial Maintenance Work, M5 Motorway, Oldbury, August 2017

As we pedalled back into Brum, Tim and I considered the relative merits of natural and man-made environments (not that all British environments aren't essentially man-made), and our subjective responses to them. Certainly, I'm more than happy to recline in a meadow, or stroll along a beach - when rest and relaxation are in order.  But I'm forced to conclude once again (as if there were any doubt), that it's in a hard-edged world of stained concrete, coiled barbed wire, or scribbled graffiti, that my creative sensibilities find greater nourishment.

Birmingham Canal, Old Line (Soho Loop), August 2017

[1.]:  David Byrne, 'Bicycle Diaries', London, Faber & Faber, 2010 (Paperback)

'Highway Anxiety: Recent Paintings By Shaun Morris' At The Moseley Exchange, Birmingham

I’m a little late with this, but luckily, there are still a few weeks to act on it.  I’ve featured the work of my friend, and periodic co-conspirator, Shaun Morris here before, and note with interest that he’s currently giving his splendid nocturnal HGV paintings another outing.

 'Highway Anxiety: Recent Paintings By Shaun Morris' The Moseley Exchange,
Birmingham, December 2017

Regular visitors here will recognise some of the images currently showcased on Shaun’s blog from my posts about his 2016 ‘The Lie Of The Land’ exhibition at Artrix, Bromsgrove, and our own shared ‘A Minor Place’ show (with Andrew Smith), in Studely, Warwickshire, later the same year.  This time round, Shaun is exhibiting seven of them under the title ‘Highway Anxiety’ at The Moseley Exchange, creative co-working space, in Birmingham.

Shaun Morris, 'Cargo', Oil On Canvas, 2015

I’ve written my reflections on this work at some length already, so will simply refer the curious to my previous posts (see links above).  What does impress me this time round is Shaun’s diligence and persistence in continuing to get his work out there into the world.  Whilst my own occasional forays into exhibiting have been largely positive experiences, I can’t claim that there is any concerted rhythm or routine to them.  Shaun’s dynamism in this regard just demonstrates that, whilst one’s greatest enthusiasm will generally be reserved for one’s most recent work, or for that currently in hand - it’s also perfectly valid to regard one’s older work as an exhibit-able resource too.  If one believes in the work from past years, and is happy to stand by it – then of course, it makes sense to keep exposing it to view in different contexts.

Shaun Morris, 'Night Trucking', Oil On Canvas, 2015

This is perhaps another one of those hurdles one needs to get over in the attempt to becoming a ‘serious artist’, or perhaps rather – to taking oneself more serious as such.  It’s definitely the sort of lesson I’d do well to start learning more, I feel – not least after the relatively inward-looking trudge of the last year.

'Highway Anxiety: Recent Paintings By Shaun Morris', The Moseley Exchange,
Birmingham, December 2107

Anyway, I’d encourage anyone interested in Shaun’s work (or potentially so), to give these pieces a look - should you find yourself in the Moseley area.  Birmingham’s a dynamic place at the best of times, and Mosley is one of its more happening suburbs.  It offers plenty of other attractions, and enjoyable places to hang out, so you’ve no real excuse not to - have you?  If nothing else, Shaun is an expert manipulator of oil paint.  For all their resonances regarding motif and imagery, there’s no real substitute for seeing his paintings for real - if for no other reason than to remind oneself of the genuine pleasures of fluid media combining with proper brushwork.


'Highway Anxiety: Recent Paintings By Shaun Morris', can be viewed until 5 February 2018, at: The Moseley Exchange, 149-153 Ancestor Road, Moseley, Birmingham B13 8JP.