Art Decades

All Images: Frog Island, Leicester, January 2016

Although our recent snowfall was pretty short-lived, it did create a few appealing photo-opportunities in the local urban landscape.  I pass by this burnt-out factory site,, near my Leicester home on a regular basis.  This time it seemed to take on a vaguely East European, Cold War kind of vibe.

It's the sort of bleak aesthetic we'd have surely fallen for during my Sixth Form and Foundation Art Course years - when such melancholy, dystopian stuff was very much in vogue.

Anyway, such nostalgic reflections led me to permit myself a little self-indulgence with Photoshop filters for once, - in search of something slightly more expressionistic in quality than normal.

Of course, I may have been especially receptive to all this, through having played Bowie's celebrated Berlin albums several times, since his recent demise.  At the risk of spending rather too long following his extended, media-driven, cortege, you could do worse than accompanying the images here with either of these...

Completed Painting: 'Vestige 1'

'Vestige 1', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Ink, Spray Enamel, French Polish & Misc. Solvents
On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2016

Well, we’re a couple of weeks in, and I’ve just completed the first painting of the 2016.  That's pleasing, given my intention to ramp up my creativity activity again after a relatively sedate second half of 2015.  Truth to tell, this painting was started just before Christmas, but the majority of the serious work took place over the last couple of weeks, in a few relatively intensive bursts.

Anyway, ‘Vestige 1’ is intended to be the first in an ongoing series of pieces all sharing the same basic, rather spare motif, and overall compositional format.  The idea is to repeatedly explore what might be described as a rectangular ‘zone of absence’, within a square field of varied but indeterminate visual texture.  If that all sounds both a bit grand and frustratingly abstract, I should perhaps explain that the original source lies in some of the recent photos I’ve collected of the ghostly clean patches, revealed undercoats, rectangles of tape residue and the like, which remain when posters or signage have been removed from public walls.  Squiggles of adhesive mastic and fragments of actual poster material also feature fairly regularly in some of this source material, and may well creep into subsequent paintings in the proposed series.

'Vestige 1', (Detail)

I’ve featured a variety of photographs of this kind of thing here, in recent weeks, as my camera has been drawn increasingly to subjects that suggest a sense of absence, removal, or loss of some artifact or channel of communication, in the urban environment.  In an attempt to boil down my current concerns into handy buzz-phrases, two that keep bobbing to the surface are: ‘Traces of that which no longer remains’; and ‘Lost voices’.

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Spray Enamel On Paper,
30 cm X 30 cm, 2015

An overriding description of the spirit in which I propose to approach this particular series of paintings might be: ‘The same, - but different’ [1.].  Of course, there’s nothing new about the idea of painting a series of relatively uniform variations on a theme, and it’s really just an even more distilled step on from at least some of last year’s ‘Map’ paintings.  Anyway, as a consciously adopted M.O., I’m going to regard it as being unashamedly in the tradition of Monet, Reinhardt, Newman, Ryman, Richter, and a host of others far more illustrious than I.

In terms of specifics, the essentials of this particular motif can be seen to derive from a couple of my recent paper-based studies.  Unlike others in that small body of work, - from the back end of last year, (and which were more generalised in nature), those two were triggered by a specific photograph of a section of grubby Birmingham masonry.

Central Birmingham, October 2015

As already mentioned, my lens has been full of this kind of thing of late, but it feels like this particular motif is the one that kept returning to my mind as the idea evolved.  It always interests me how such intuiting of resonance operates both forwards and backwards in time.  I’ve certainly noticed how a current and specific ‘favourite’ can not only call to mind a store of related imagery, (sometimes set aside in the archives for years), but also lead to the active seeking out and collection of even more, during subsequent expeditions, (as is already occurring).

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Ink, Adhesive Tape & Spray Enamel
On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2015

It’s fair to say that the processes by which 'Vestige 1' was produced represent far more of an evolution, rather than the revolution I might have originally hoped for.  One stated intention of late has been to allow more painterly freedom into some of my work.  In the event, whilst there is some greater reliance on the essential properties of fluid media, and a deliberate combining of often chemically incompatible materials, there remains a significant component of the paper collage approach I’ve been using for quite a while now.

Visually, I also found myself falling back on my customary device of a screen of repeated spots, (perhaps alluding to half-tone reproduction), as a means of getting across a given area of the picture plane.  What is different though, I think, is that both this, and the visual evidence of other collaged elements, is now subsumed into a more generalised field of ‘all-over’ visual texture.  We’re talking fairly fine margins, - I realise, but working on this piece definitely felt a bit different from previous ones.  Perhaps, I can push myself a little further into new territory, as far as technique is concerned, as the series develops.

'Vestige 1', (Detail)

One definitely significant development here is that the element of text, which has remained a feature of all my work in recent years, is here relegated to little more than mere visual texture.  This is deliberate, not least as another possible allusion to the 'lost voices' or obsolete meanings suggested by the rectangular absence.  It remains important to me that those textual allusions should remain, in however fleeting or fragmentary a form.  Indeed, I’m happy to set this as a definite parameter in which to keep working, - but am equally happy that this might now include texts that ‘no longer remain’, as well as those that still do.

'Vestige 1', (Detail)

Oh, and this piece definitely reflects my current preference for a (nearly) monochrome palette.  It’ll be interesting to see how long that holds, and whether the occasional colour accent opens the gate for more a more heightened chroma to eventually return.



[1.]:  It occurs to me, this isn't so different from John Peel's famous description of The Fall, although in their case, it related more to an overriding aesthetic spirit, rather than a propensity to work in series. Coincidentally, the specific 'ghost patch' photographed in Birmingham lay very close to a daubed graffito reading, "Hit The North", - one of that band's song titles.

The White Stuff

After weeks and weeks of rain, last night it snowed.

All Images: West Leicester, January 2016

And then...

It melted again.

(In the city, a fall of snow is just another blank canvas for innumerable tracks and traces).

R.I.P. David Bowie / Playlist 12

David Bowie, c.1977

You don’t need me to tell you about the cultural significance of David Bowie now, do you?  News of his death landed with a resounding, global thud, on Monday morning and, doubtless, there will have been numerous obituaries, tributes and career surveys in all areas of the media, by the time you read this.

I won’t pretend to have played too much of his music in recent years, but it occurs to me that his is a name I’ve referred to more than once on here.  I’m sure that’s mostly because his hey-day, and indeed - his most groundbreaking work, coincided with my own formative years in the early to mid 70s.  At a time when being ‘a bit weird’ loomed much larger in the popular zeitgeist than today, Bowie still managed to project an even more alien presence than most of his contemporaries.

David Bowie, c.1972

There always appeared to be a self-conscious element of ‘Art’ in Bowie’s practice, and a willingness to embrace synthesis and artifice that, I suppose, made him a variety of Post Modernist, before most of us had even heard the term.  Like most ‘great’ artists, he also had a keen eye for the best ideas to steal and the most able supporting talent to co-opt.  Being apparently unembarrassed by default, and possessing a physical presence that suggested he might have actually beamed down from another planet, didn’t exactly hurt either.  Behind all that, lest we forget, also lay an ability to write relatively simple but eminently memorable tunes.

Anyway, instead of reiterating a load of standard interpretations that you’ll have heard repeatedly elsewhere, the most fitting tribute would seem to be to compile a playlist of Bowie pieces that made the greatest impression on me over the years.  I’ve chosen to overlook the various embarrassing mis-steps and dodgy collaborations with which his career was also littered, although I do harbor a secret affection for ‘The Laughing Gnome’.  It seems more respectful to simply remember that when he was good, - he was really very good.

‘Memory Of A Free Festival’:

After several attempts to forge a Pop career throughout the 60s, (originally, as Davey Jones), Bowie finally made his breakthrough with the single ‘Space Oddity’ in 1969.  The album of the same name is a charming, slightly naive hotch-potch that feels rather like a wistful farewell to the already receding 60s love-in.  This is particularly true of the album’s final track, - capturing, as it does, a memory of the Beckenham Free Music Festival that Bowie had helped to organise earlier that year.

It’s pretty dated, idealistic stuff, but I like the wavering harmonium-like keyboards that bathe the first half of the song with a sense of sun-dappled, psychedelic melancholia, and the closing, sing-along chant that evokes the attempted communality of the age.  Most memorably, Bowie signals his ability to combine the knowing and the emotional, in the lines,

“We claimed the very source of joy ran through, - it didn’t, but it seemed that way.

I kissed a lot of people that day.”

‘Hunky Dory’:

My first thought was ‘Life On Mars’.  My second thought was that just seemed far too obvious, despite the memorable impression that single made on me at the age of 10.  My third thought was that, actually, the whole album that includes it is pretty indispensable.  Released in 1971, it is, I suppose, Bowie’s first fully mature album, and one without a single bum track.  It may also be Bowie’s most emotionally honest and personally direct offering.

There’s nothing especially sophisticated about these tunes, and not a little whimsy, but everything feels properly resolved, and is rendered with disarming sincerity.  Pleasingly, there’s still room for a couple of strange bits, - just to keep things still moving forwards.  I’ve heard ‘Hunky Dory’ a million times, but have never worn it out.

‘Drive-In Saturday’:

‘

The Aladdin Sane’ album probably felt like a slightly less significant, second Glam missive from Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’ persona, in 1973.  It does contain a couple of genuinely weirder moments than it’s more famous precursor however, and a truly memorable, iconic cover image that captivated me, long before I actually heard the record, some years later.

This is my favourite track on the album, combining as it does, a brand of faux 50s nostalgia, typical of the age, with an anthemic chorus, (that gets me every time), filtered through a slightly eerie SF sensibility. 

‘Young Americans’:

The ‘Young Americans’ album may not be Bowie’s most consistent, but it did unleash a couple of stunning singles, (of which this is one), and ushered in Bowie’s ‘Plastic Soul’ era.  The track exhibits an insouciant, loose-limbed funk, punctuated by well-judged stop-start junctures, and an appealingly breathless vocal delivery.

‘Golden Years’:

I can’t really split this and ‘Young Americans’.  If forced to choose therefore, I would actually have to plump for another of his great Plastic Soul moments, ‘Fame’, - but I’ve already mentioned that in a recent post.  I find it frustratingly difficult to dance to anything much these days, but, in the past, - when I genuinely enjoyed doing so,‘Golden Years’ would always pull me onto a dance floor.

‘Stay’:

By 1976, Bowie was reputedly lost in heavy-duty cocaine addiction and a paranoid psychic prison of his own making.  It’s therefore surprising that he could still put out an album as satisfying and committed as ‘Station To Station’, - the piece most closely associated with his vampiric, ‘Thin White Duke’ identity.  His situation may have left him a little short of original material, but he was surrounded by top-notch session musicians and was clever enough to let them stretch out over some involving, extended cuts.  Indeed, in terms of pure musicianship, the album may actually be Bowie’s most satisfying.  I love the title track, but rate this even higher, not least for the twin guitar threat of Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick, and Bowie’s simultaneously mannered and soulful vocal.

‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’:

Still From: 'The Man Who Fell To Earth', (Dir. Nicholas Roeg), British Lion Films, 1976

The lead rôle, of extra-terrestrial, Thomas Newton, in Nicholas Roeg’s properly strange 1976 SF movie, was ideally suited to Bowie’s stilted, emotionally disengaged acting ‘style’.  He may not have been a natural, - but sometimes a lack of conventional skill is exactly what’s needed.  Anyway, we were already used to thinking of Bowie as an etiolated, otherworldly figure.

Perhaps what really makes the project so enduringly resonant is the correspondence between Bowie’s own personal circumstances (as mentioned above), and the plight of his character, - trapped in an increasingly degrading alien context, as his family die on their drought-ravaged home planet.  Either way, - and despite its flaws, ‘TMWFTE’ is a memorable piece, not least because of Bowie’s presence on screen.  Like all the best SF, it is ultimately about the human condition.

‘Low’:

Bowie Makes The Most Of A Great Profile

Another case where only the whole album will really do.  In fact, ‘Low’ is probably my favourite piece of Bowie’s, - taken as a complete statement.  In reality, it should probably be co-credited to Brian Eno, who was at least as responsible for its overall aesthetic.  Bowie may have been painfully short of original lyrical content, but again, he made a fantastic choice when it came to the supporting cast.

Having relocated to Berlin, it is famously the first of three albums that Bowie shaped with Eno (and producer, Tony Visconti), - and is often regarded amongst the pinnacles of his achievements.  It exhibits a distinct Mittel-European flavour, and is suffused with Krautrock-inflected electronics and metronomic percussion.  The first side of the original LP features a series of strange, emotionally distanced songs, whilst the second half is an instrumental suite, shot through with Eno’s trademark ambiences, to brilliant, cinematic effect.

‘"Heroes"’ (Album: Side 2):

(L - R): Guitarist Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, Bowie, Hansa Studio By The Wall, West Berlin, 1977

The second Berlin album is an even darker, slightly more abrasive, - but almost equally powerful statement.  Unfortunately, its memorable title track turns out to have been too thinly-veiled a theft of an existing Neu! song to ever really hear the same way again, and slightly unbalances the rest of the album as an obvious stand-out single.

The second half follows a similar, largely instrumental pattern to ‘Low’s’, - evoking, if anything, an even more sombre mood.  It’s easy to forget that the Berlin Wall still stood, (in sight of the recording studio), when these albums were recorded, and Eno’s instrumental suite here is shot through with Cold War gloom.  As a teenager, I repeatedly drew bleak, semi-abstracted scenes of post-industrial dereliction to this soundtrack.  Nothing really changes.

‘Modern Love’:

Bowie Dips A Toe Into The Mainstream, 1983, (Blondes Have More Funds). 

This is pretty much where I started to lose my real enthusiasm for Bowie’s music, - as he moved into the 1980s with the mainsteam commercial success of his ‘Let’s Dance’ album.  The album’s title said it all really, as the uncannily prescient Bowie recognised that the future lay in bright, shiny production values and less nuanced lyrical themes.  The weird alien and louche aristocratic personas that had served him so well, seemed suddenly less appropriate, and it was time to put on a big, pastel-coloured suit and make uncomplicated, good-time music.

For all that, I'm always happy to hear this.  It may be far less knowing than his mid-70s synthetic Funk and Soul excursions, but it's well put together, (with co-production from Nile Rogers), and positively swings.  It's on its toes from moment one, never lets up, and is hard not to love, - just for being what it is.

Postscript:

Since I began writing this post, reports have emerged that David Bowie underwent an 18-month struggle with the liver cancer that killed him.  It also appears that his final album, 'Black Star', released just days ago, may have even been part of a strategy to manage his own death as a kind of final art statement.  Never one to miss a trick, if so, - Mr. Jones.

Mail Shots 4

Being the latest instalment in an ongoing series and the first examples of 2016.  I particularly love the set of mostly blanked off slots.  I now realise how they seem to fit with my current concern with silenced voices, closed avenues of communication, etc.

Central Leicester, January 2016

Central Leicester, January 2016

I'm loving the crappy, ad-hoc labelling on this one too...

Hockley, Nottingham, August 2015

(Slight Return) Completed Photographic Project: 'Concrete Cycle'

'Cement Cycle: Element 1 (Path)', Digital Print On Foamex On Concrete, 29cm X 29 cm, 2015

Whilst doing a little turn-of-the-year housekeeping, I came across this post in a partially written state, and realised that it was a significant loose end in need of tying.  The first post of 2016 seems a good enough time to fill in the gap, - if only in the interests of moving on.  Better six months late than never, - even if there is a suggestion of OCD on my part.

'Cement Cycle: Element 2 (Path)', Digital Print On foamed On Concrete, 29 cm X 29 cm, 2015

I alluded to my ‘Cement Cycle’ photographic project several times last year, both whilst it was in progress, and as it hung in June’s ‘Mental Mapping’ exhibition in Rugby [1.].  However, I never actually dealt with its ten separate ‘Elements’, as they appeared in their final state,  complete with final printed images, text captions, and concrete supports, (something that seemed to attract a fair bit of attention in the actual exhibition).

'Cement Cycle: Element 3 (Edge)', Digital Print On Foamex On Concrete, 29 cm X 29 cm, 2015

Creating those concrete blocks was, in theory, the biggest technical challenge of ‘Cement Cycle’, (although, if you’d witnessed the pig's ear my ‘professional’ printer made of outputting and cutting the images to the specified dimensions, you might think otherwise).  I toyed with the idea of purpose-casting them, which might have given me complete control over the dimensions, but would have also have necessitating building at least one mold, then dealing with setting times, shrinkage and a lot of stuff I have relatively little experience with.  I knew weight would be an issue too, as they were always intended to be wall-mounted, necessitating the casting of a more complicated frame-shaped form, rather than a simple block.

'Cement Cycle: Element 4 (Edge)', Digital Print On Foamex On Concrete, 29 cm X 29 cm, 2015

Instead, I opted to buy ten pierced, ornamental garden wall blocks, (of the sort that were so popular in my 70s childhood), and to chisel out the centres to leave a reasonably chunky concrete frame.  Repeatedly drilling the backs of these further reduced the weight, and their slightly rough texture provided an ideal key over which to build a patinated surface from thin skims of vari-coloured cement and filler.  It wasn’t a bad plan, even though it proved impossible to chisel a single one without also cracking the framing edge, often in several places.  It was easy enough to rejoin them, particularly as the open backs were blanked off with thin MDF, but harder to ensure they remained perfectly square, or absolutely uniform in size.

'Cement Cycle: Element 5 (Island)', Digital Print On Foamex On Concrete, 29 cm X 29 cm, 2015

It was important that, within an essentially standard format, each block should have an individual identity through subtle variations in colour, patina and

Implied history, and that they loosely reflect some of the material qualities of the photographic subjects themselves.  I enjoyed drilling, chipping and repeatedly skimming them to achieve this, although power and hand sanding them back to a relatively uniform finish, wasn’t without its element of hard labour, (and a temporary breakdown in neighbourly relations).  The printed photographic images were laminated onto thin plastic board and, once eventually returned at the correct dimensions, these were attached to the front edge of the frames with strong carpet tape.  A mastic adhesive fill, and final sand, flushed them in as seamlessly as possible, and the raw cement was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

'Cement Cycle: Element 6 (Island)', Digital Print On Foamex On Concrete, 29 cm X 29 cm, 2015

I won’t pretend the finished results are 100% slick, (deft use of an engineering square would reveal a multitude of minor sins), but as low-tech, relatively affordable methods go, the results are pretty pleasing.  I avoided undue deadline stress by sticking to methods I could mostly control, allowing plenty of lead-time, and just getting stuck in until the job was complete.  They do give the illusion of being possibly solid, I think, and the surfaces are full of pleasing visual nuance.  I’m also pleased with the final proportions; both of each block, and of the overall set of the five pairs as they appeared on the wall in a grid formation.   Even more importantly, - nothing fell off!  I was determined to get some actual concrete or cement into the exhibition somehow, and ultimately this felt like a simple, but effective way to have realised that.

'Cement Cycle: Element 7 (Node)', Digital Print On Foamex On Concrete, 29 cm X 29 cm, 2015

I’ve already discussed the rationale behind the images, and the different reasons why cement and concrete also recurred as a significant theme.  If they represent a desire to operate in a medium beyond painting, they also mark an involvement with something a little more consciously conceptual than usual.  It was thus, important to me to maintain a clear link with the source text of Kevin Lynch’s ‘The Image Of The City’ [2.].  I liked the idea of the project resembling a kind of bogus academic or official report, despite its underlying subjectivity, and for a while, I considered applying a direct quote from Lynch’s text to each of the ten ‘Elements’.

'Cement Cycle: Element 8 (Node)', Digital Print On Foamex On Concrete, 29 cm X 29 cm, 2015

In the end though, I chose to write my own original captions, - utilising some of Lynch’s terminology to my own less academically rigorous ends.  My hope is that anyone familiar with his (admittedly, somewhat specialist) text would know what I’m getting at, but that each phrase could just as easily represent a pure fiction.  In passing, it’s worth mentioning that this was much the same quality that my co-exhibitor Andrew Smith captured in his script for our ‘Orfeo’ video collaboration, although to somewhat more sumptuous poetic effect.  Lynch also supplied something of an oblique stimulus there, and it was indeed, Andrew who had first referred me to ‘The Image Of The City’, some months previously.

'Cement Cycle: Element 9 (Landmark)', Digital Print On Concrete, 29cm X 29 cm, 2015

One final piece in the puzzle, possibly worth noting, would be the overlap between several of the locations in ‘Cement Cycle’ and in ‘Orfeo’.  I managed to avoid direct repetition, with one notable exception, but in many cases, an image from the former might reveal a still from the latter if the camera was moved a few metres to right or left, or simply panned a few degrees.

'Cement Cycle: Element 10 (Landmark)', Digital Print On Foamex On Concrete, 29 cm X 29 cm, 2015

That’s ‘Cement Cycle’ then.  I think it achieved much of what I set out to do, and certainly pushed the envelope a little in terms of my overall practice.  That is perhaps my main reason for revisiting it here.  It represents the first time I’d considered presenting photography as a definitive, exhibitable statement within my body of work, and that’s definitely something I want to pursue further in 2016. 

'Cement Cycle', 'Mental Mapping: New Work By Andrew Smith & Hugh Marwood', Floor One Gallery,
Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, June 2015

The recognition that a mild conceptual strand runs sporadically through my work remains equally important, and part of that is an implied willingness to work in whatever medium seems most appropriate to a given idea.  In fact, one of my pressing current ambitions is to explore the ways that pieces in different media might evolve out of, or recycle, each other in a less compartmentalised manner.  If a self-contained project like ‘Cement Cycle’ occasionally bobs to the surface, I hope it might also be seen as evidence of a wider process of hybridisation within my overall practice.

That may all sound a bit grand or willfully oblique, I realise.  On a more superficial level, If the conceptual subtleties of ‘CC’ were a little lost on some viewers, - I can at least take some satisfaction in having turned a few heads with my concrete fettling abilities.

Right, - move on…



[1.]:  ‘Mental Mapping: New Work By Andrew Smith & Hugh Marwood’.  8 June – 17 June 2015, Floor One Gallery, Rugby Art Gallery & Museum, Little Elborow St, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV21 3BZ.

[2.]:  Kevin Lynch, ‘The Image Of The City’, Cambridge Massachusetts, The M.I.T. Press, 1960.