Couched 3 (Seasonally Adjusted)

West Leicester, December 2016

Who knew Seb was going to be trouble for the pre-pack, French fry and chipping markets!  It’s New Year’s Eve and he’s stirring up trouble for Dylan again, as he tells reliable gossip Louise that his mentor made a pass at him.  It’s a serious allegation, and Louise is reluctant to believe it at first, but it’s not long before she’s told most of the department culinary use is suited to boiling and steaming due to its slightly mealy texture.  While Max tries to warn Dylan, he’s oblivious, and doing his best to give Seb a second chance.  Little does he know the nightmare that awaits him when he steps into Elle’s office… this variety has low resistance to late blight on tubers and skin spot.  Meanwhile, Charlie takes an active interest in wedding planning, Connie is frustrated at Grace’s slow progress, long dormancy gives good long-term storability with stable fry colours, and Ethan can’t switch off his feelings for Alicia.  Dry matter 21%.

Happy New Year (and good riddance to bad rubbish, 2016!)

Couched 2

West Leicester, December 2016

Trials have found good resistance powdery scab.  It’s a chance for Lee to finally unburden himself: to reveal the truth about his job and the depths he has sunk to in order to provide for his wife.  It shows very good storage capability, but he doesn’t tell his wife the full story, and continues to carry around secrets.  Tubers have poor resistance to splitting and some resistance to bruising - and, later, he reaches breaking point when he finds himself in an impossible situation including French fries.  Running out of options suitable for pre-pack and export markets - will the ex-soldier decide there’s only one answer to his problems?  This variety has low resistance to dry rot (F. sulphurous).

Minor Events 1 (Seasonally Adjusted)

All Images:  West Leicester, December 2017

(Successive Glimpses: Saturday 17.12.16)

On screen: inescapable psychosis.  A serpent of green busses standing (agonised) amidst rubble (atomised) and the graves of citizenry (de-anatomised).  Stale democracies turning dexterous in despair as facts shed matter and the unsound bite.  The hacking and tweeting of psychopaths continuing on my lap, unabashed.

Through a different window, an African woman stalks the pavement - her perfect posture corrected by some ancestral gyroscope.  A carrier bag of supermarket groceries balances miraculously upon her head.

Out-back, a brace of seasonally-effective Robins drop onto greasy flags, during the darkest week of a dark year.  Territorial claims suspended - they stoop to gather abundant feeder-scatterings.

Merry Christmas, one and all.

Another Little Stroll

All Images:  Belgrave, Leicester, December 2016

Another academic term is put to bed and I've finally got time to catch my breath and sort through the miscellaneous shots left in my camera's memory.

Amongst them were these, taken while accompanying yet another cohort of Year 10 GCSE Photography students on their first full-blown photography walk along Leicester's 'Golden Mile'

There's no particular logic or unifying narrative here - just a selection of random glimpses from the street.  Not much else to say really - sometimes that's enough.

Couched 1

Belgrave, Leicester, December 2016

It looks like plants yield a good number of tubers.  Trials have found there’s going to be a gas explosion at Maria’s flat when little Liam switches on a gas ring while his hungover Mum is asleep on the sofa.  This variety is suitable for a range of uses including crisping, french fries as well as table use.  But the only thing going ‘boom’ is Maria’s heart, when Aidan calls round shortly afterwards and declares his love.  Tubers have some resistance to bruising and splitting.

Maria is rescued by Kirk, who tears a strip off Adam for plying his sister with drink – she and the Scot had spent the night together.  Plants have high vigour and suppress weeds efficiently.  Adam then makes a disparaging remark about the hairdresser, and Aidan clocks him.  Maria’s  touched that he defended her honour and takes him back to her place, where tubers show long dormancy in ambient store.  He admits skin spot, silver scurf, black dot and his true feelings.

Colour / Not Colour 7

Belgrave, Leicester, December 2016

Appropriately, it was on a chilly, grey afternoon in December that we first discovered the portal.  In retrospect, it's surprising that it never occurred to us such a thing would be secreted amongst the back streets of a medium-sized Midlands city.

For now, the site remains under surveillance.  As yet, we have observed no one either enter or exit the doorway.  One day, perhaps - when courage allows, we will knock on the door and request admittance to the parallel, cartoon dimension which undoubtedly lies beyond.

Certain important question remain - to which, so far, our researches have suggested no answers:

• What is the extent of this other world, and where do its further boundaries lie?
• Having crossed the threshold, - might the intrepid explorer ever return to this 'reality'?
• Were that possible, and having completed the transformation into polychromatic, 2D form - would we actually desire a return to our original state?

There may indeed, be only one way to discover the answers.

'King Lear' At The Old Vic, London: 3 December 2016

Lear:

"Get thee glass eyes, 

And like a scurvy politician seem 

To see the things thou dost not." [1.] 

Fool:

"This is a brave night to cool a courtezan.

I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:

When priests are more in word than matter;

When brewers mar their malt with water;

When nobles are their tailors' tutors;

No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;

When every case in law is right;

No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;

When slanders do not live in tongues;

Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;

When usurers tell their gold i' the field;

And bawds and whores do churches build;

Then shall the realm of Albion

Come to great confusion:

Then comes the time, who lives to see't,

That going shall be used with feet.

This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time." [2.]

Lear:

"When we are born, we cry that we are come 

To this great stage of fools." [3.]

All Images:  Glenda Jackson as King Lear & Rhys Ifans as The Fool in Shakespeare's 'King Lear': The Old Vic Theatre, London, 25 October - 3 December 2016.




[1.]:  William Shakespeare, 'The Tragedy Of King Lear', 1623.  Act 4: Scene 5 

[2.]:  William Shakespeare, 'The Tragedy Of King Lear', 1623.  Act 3: Scene 2

[3.]:  William Shakespeare, 'The Tragedy Of King Lear', 1623.  Act 4: Scene 5

'Stephen Snoddy: Recent Work' At Artists Workhouse, Studley

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 81', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2015

I found myself back at Artists Workhouse, in Studley, Warwickshire, recently, having driven over on a whim to see Stephen Snoddy’s ‘Recent Work’ exhibition.  It was well worth the trip.

'Stephen Snoddy: Recent Work', Artists Workhouse, Studley, Warwickshire, November 2016

Snoddy is a Northern Irish painter in his 50s, who seemingly abandoned his practice, after a promising start in the 1980s - but has resumed work with considerable vigour in recent years.  I’ll admit that strikes a certain chord with me, although I can’t claim to have started so confidently, or to have operated at anything like the same altitudes as Snoddy - during my own productive hiatus.  In fact, he has been employed as the director of the Milton Keynes Gallery, Gateshead's Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art, and latterly - The New Art Gallery, Walsall - all demanding roles, I'm sure.  I won’t pretend to understand how he’s amassed such a substantial body of mature paintings in parallel.

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 63', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 62', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

As it turns out, the paintings shown in Studley are very much the kind of thing I might have once aspired to producing during my fumbling student years.  Although my concerns have since moved into somewhat different areas, I can’t imagine a time when I wouldn’t enjoy periodically bathing my eyes in such formal, colour-saturated painting.  Unashamed visual stimulus is king here.

'Stephen Snoddy: Recent Work', Artist Workhouse, Studley, Warwickshire,
November 2016

Enthusiasts of Richard Diebenkorn’s work (as I most definitely am) and of his ‘Ocean Park’ paintings in particular - will recognise distinct stylistic correspondences in Snoddy’s work.  However, I sense It’s much a case of him arriving at many of the same solutions to that old Modernist conundrum of reconciling a post-Cubist understanding of space with the physical picture plane, as it is of him simply crashing an earlier artist’s act.  There’s a sense that he’s arrived at this mode of largely frontal abstract imagery through his own concerted study of architectural volumes, and of the relationship between interior and exterior spaces - just as many others have done before. It all goes to show how there's still an immense thrill to be found in those ambiguous spaces where, as Matisse demonstrated years ago - physical volume and chromatic light become adjuncts of each other.

 

Stephen Snoddy, 'Window 10 (72)', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2015

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 49', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 4', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2013

In passing, it’s worth noting that Snoddy’s paintings often emerge in closely- related pairs, and this diptych form was reflected in the intelligent hang, - with pairs often talking to each other across the room.  His more general procedure of allowing motifs and compositional solutions to develop as a relay between successive pieces, is evident - and this definitely feels like a concerted and coherent body of work.

Stephen Snoddy, (L): 'Untitled 35'  & (R): 'Untitled 34', Mixed Media on Paper on
Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 48', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 1', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2013

'Stephen Snoddy: Recent Work', Artists Workhouse, Studley, Warwickshire, November 2016

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 103 (After Matisse)', Mixed Media on Paper on
Blockboard, 2015

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 104 (After Matisse)', Mixed Media on Paper on
Blockboard, 2014

In fact, study of the impressive catalogue on sale in the show, suggests that, beyond the obvious Diebenkorn connections, Snoddy is steeped in many of the ‘right’ painters of the twentieth century, (of a certain kind).  Amongst those might also be Hans Hoffman, Robert Motherwell, or possibly, Brice Marden.  The use of the implied window as a compositional device, the suffusion of an interior space with colour, and the dialogue between inside and outside, repeatedly remind us just how important Matisse really was to all this.

Stephen Snoddy, (From Top): 'Untitled 57', 'Untitled 56', 'Untitled 55', Mixed Media on Paper
on Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Window 1', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 52', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 50', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Whatever the proximity and degree of Snoddy’s influences, there’s no doubt he’s adept at more than just the construction of ambiguously architectural geometries and carefully resolved compositions.  He’s also no slouch with the limpid atmospherics and nebulous brushwork which transform what might be a geometric workout, into something sumptuously nuanced.  His use overlaying of semi-transparent veils of close-toned colour and open brushwork, create the kind of perceptual shimmer and implied illumination, and repeatedly create a palpable visual ‘hum’.

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 21', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 22', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

All in all, it was enjoyable to immerse myself in the visual pleasure of these paintings - and to remind myself that, sometimes, when all the ideas and potential narratives are set aside - that can be enough.  It was also pleasure to catch up with the ever-welcoming Artists Workhouse proprietor, Dawn Harris.  I can only hope our extended conversation didn't interrupt her own creative activities too much.

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 24', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Stephen Snoddy, 'Untitled 26', Mixed Media on Paper on Blockboard, 2014

Sadly, this post comes too late to act as advance notice of the exhibition, which is now finished. However, I'd definitely advise you to take advantage of any future opportunities to view Stephen Snoddy's work 'in the flesh'.  Likewise, by staging shows of this calibre, Artist's Workhouse appears to be establishing itself as a must-visit, regional art hot-spot -  just a stone's-throw from Birmingham.