Season's Greetings 2024

All Images: Centenary Square, Birmingham, November 2024

The City offered-up an unironic cascade of festive light and colour this year - or so I thought. Unfortunately, grim reality imposed itself between these shots being taken and their current moment of publication. One of these fairground rides, erected for the festive season, in Birmingham's Centenary Square, partially collapsed a few days ago - causing numerous injuries. Thankfully, there were no fatalities, and reports suggest none of the injuries were actually life-changing.

Immediately prior to these shots being taken, my friend Andrew Smith and I had been gazing at the scene over coffee and idly speculating whether we'd ever have summoned the courage to seek such thrills. Our joint conclusion was, not - preferring to participate in the spectacle as mere spectators. How little we really know...

Anyway, in the interests of pursuing innocent pleasures/lines of flight wherever they seem available, I'll offer condolences and wish a speedy recovery to anyone adversely affected in the process, and Season's Greetings to everyone else.

Merry Christmas

'"I'm Not In Love": Selected Collected Redactions, Paintings By Andrew Smith', At Malvern Library, September 2023 [trans_late/trans_scribe/con_verse/ex_tract]

 

All Images: Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions' Paintings, Malvern Library Gallery,
September 2023

[Reconfigured/Translated Audio Transcript of Exhibition Conversation Extract]:

[It’s The First Shot]: 

I'm starting to show now. It depends on where it is and how strong someone's accent is, yeah? - and if I have a base… or what I'm doing at home. Now, friends - I have a laptop because I don't have TV - so I'm at home watching YouTube on my laptop connected to my stereo. Timmy's little speakers on the laptop are dead, so I plug them into my amp, yeah? - and it runs and runs…

 

[I’m Halfway There]: 

However, because of the good results, I have less control over the bass and treble of the system. You know, it's an old-school hi-fi system… but I have the option to decide how to set it up near and far - this pathetic microphone here, or the speaker… then of course there are all these uncontrollable things - the dialect or accent of the person in the video - the quality of the YouTube video… and the sound and controls on the laptop itself. 

[I End Up With Some Kind Of Subtitle]:

'"I'm Not In Love": Selected Collected Redactions, Paintings By Andrew Smith', continues at: Malvern Library Gallery, Graham Road, Malvern, WR14 2HU, until 28 September 2023

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.

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 7'

'Untitled (From The New School) 7', Acrylics On Panel, 30 cm X 30 cm X 10.6 cm, 2018

I've seemingly entered a phase of creative 'bitting and bobbing' since the conclusion of the 'Visions Of A Free-Floating Island' exhibition, in Nottingham, at the end of September.  It's perhaps to be expected - given that the show represented the culmination of an extended and concerted period of concentration on one specific body of my work, under the banner of 'This S(c)eptic Isle'.  The processing of implications in the aftermath of that is ongoing - and as is concerned with how my practice might situate itself within the world, as it is with the specific work itself.  The former boils down to questions about what I actually want from all this (or even from the next few years of my life), but I'm disinclined to rehearse yet more self-indulgent internal debate just now.  Here's some new work, instead.

While I catch my breath - I'm also resting my eyes and brain from cardboard boxes, flags and fridges, for a short while at least.  It's nice to just freewheel for a spell, and to drop back onto one or two other pre-existing projects, free of deadlines and organisational admin.  One such project is my ongoing series of 'From The New School' paintings, to which I've added two new pieces in the last month.  This is the first.

Andrew Smith, 'The New School', Acrylic & Digital Print On Canvas, 2016

Regular visitors with long memories may remember that these small panels - each constructed around a common compositional motif, derive from a painting, 'The New School' - made by my friend and co-conspirator, Andrew Smith, in 2016.  We had actually been discussing a potential project in which each might reinterpret or actively disrupt the work of the other, prior to first encountering his small canvas at that year’s ‘A Minor Place’ exhibition (another three-hander, with Shaun Morris – as was ‘VOAFFI’).  I fell in love with it immediately, both for its spare Modernist geometry, and for the numerous associations it (and its delightfully allusive title) triggered with my own employment in the field of secondary education.

My role, as a member of school Support Staff, affords me the partial luxury of being an observer of the educational scene - at least more than were I an actual teacher.  Nevertheless, it's still impossible not to be aware of, or affected by, the continual upheavals, both structural and ideological, impacting on education, in recent years.  The reality is probably that it's always been the case, and that the interminable wrangle over what is actually taught - as well as how, and why, may be one of the only true constants within education.  That's before getting to grips with how it might be organised, overseen, and funded.

Whatever the truth, my response to Andrew's image quickly coalesced in my mind as an indefinite series of re-imaginings of the same standardised motif, with each change in mood, style or handling reflecting a different interpretation of at least some of the above.  That fits neatly into my customary practice of working in series, whilst also being perhaps my most overt example of painting in a quasi-conceptual kind of mode.  This notion of painting as a somewhat meta activity - in which different approaches or methods of handling are applied in a deliberate and knowing manner, continues to intrigue me - even if recent fashions may have tended away from the ironic, to some degree.  However, whilst it may privilege concept over expression,  this approach doesn't preclude the delicious paradox of applying a degree of Expressionism, as a conscious tool.  'Untitled (From The New School) 7', is starting off in that direction, I feel. 

For the reality is, this one's as much about the stress-related emotional crisis experienced of late, by a close work colleague, and friend - as it is about the institutional factors which may have contributed to it.  Witnessing his struggle to preserve a professional front, whilst seemingly assailed by inner conflicts, has been tough at times, and this painting feels like my attempt to communicate a degree of empathy regarding his travails.  That also explains the dedication applied to the painting's edge.

Shaun Morris, 'The Street (The Garage)', Oil On Canvas, 2017-18

 

My idea this time was that the ‘New School’ architecture should, suggest a pressurised edifice, in which something possibly infernal is being suppressed.  It’s worth mentioning two specific visual memories that directly shaped this iteration of the motif.  One is a fairly recent painting by Shaun Morris, entitled ‘The Street (The Garage)’, from which, I now realise - I’ve pretty blatantly nicked the idea of fiery illumination emerging through gaps in a darkened building.  For that, I should acknowledge Shaun’s original authorship, whilst perhaps reflecting wryly on how one strategic act of appropriation has now triggered yet another.  The second visual influence is the amazing desert-cabin-exploding-in-reverse sequence from David Lynch’s film, ‘Lost Highway’ [1.].  That movie is often overlooked in favour of his subsequent ‘Mullholland Drive’, but is a stunning piece of work in its own right.  Either way, its themes of psychological turmoil, and deployment of specific architectural locations as analogues for the disrupted mind, seem pretty apposite.  I actually find the particular sequence under discussion to be one of the most memorable in all of cinema, so I guess it was bound to come out in something, sooner or later.

[1.]:  David Lynch (Dir.), 'Lost Highway', US/France, Ciby 2000/Asymmetrical Productions, 1997

'Visions Of A Free-Floating Island': Settling Dust

'Childish Things 3 (Misdirected)': 'Visions Of A Free-Floating Island', Surface Gallery, Nottingham
(Upstairs), September 2018

It’s well over a week since Andrew Smith, Shaun Morris and I removed our joint, ‘Visions Of A Free-Floating Island’ exhibition, from Nottingham’s Surface Gallery.  Months of hard graft and necessary admin, resulted in two weeks of public exposure – which, predictably, seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.  It brings in its aftermath, an equally inevitable sensation of mild anti-climax, and perhaps a few questions about what might (or might not) have been achieved.  There is even the temptation - in moments of enhanced self-doubt, to question why we put ourselves through the process at all, or whether anyone else even notices much.  Were you of a mind to, you  might regard our attempts to reach out into the public arena as a bit of a labour intensive vanity project, whose material benefits are often few and far between.

'Childish Things 4 (Mistaken)', With 'Sentinels 2 & 5': 'VOAFFI' (Upstairs)

At such times, I find it important to refer back to the creative impulse that lies at the core of our activities, and which, long ago - I personally decided is self-justifying enough to require little further explanation (to myself, at least).  I tried not producing my own work for years, and categorically proved that not doing feels worse than at least trying.  If the production of artwork (and its potential therapeutic spin-offs) are a given, that just leaves the bald choice between maintaining a purely onanistic stance - in which work accumulates, unseen, behind one’s own walls; and periodically punting it out into the world – in the hope it might, on a good day, constitute some form of communication or expression.  For all the expense and graft involved in organising and mounting exhibitions (and the subsequent quandaries outlined above) - the second option still feels like the more grown-up one.  It even occurs to me that the first course is more likely to lead to a knock on the door from Environmental Health, or to headlines such as “Lonely Recluse Dies Under Avalanche Of Own Paintings”.  Ultimately, it’s about confidence, and about how seriously you take your own practice, I think.  It seems impossible to ask others to take it seriously if you’re not prepared to stand beside it yourself.

Shaun Morris, 'Salute', Oil On Canvas, 2018, 'VOAFFI' (Downstairs)

Shaun Morris, (L.): 'The Street (Empty Boxes)', (R.): 'The Street (Empty Boxes) 2',
Both Oil On Canvas, 2017-18: 'VOAFFI' (Upstairs)

Shaun Morris, 'The Street (The Digger)', Oil On Canvas, 2018: 'VOAFFI' (Upstairs)

As Andrew, Shaun and I shared a post-exhibition pint, we also agreed that, regardless of how much or how little public attention one’s work might garner, (and how elitist the admission may sound), the opinion, and possibly respect, of other practitioners is actually pretty important to all of us.  That’s despite the fact that it’s all too easy to luxuriate in the ivory Art palace – or perhaps exactly because, contemporary art is really little more than just a weird hobby carried out by deluded eccentrics, in the view of many.  Even worse is the oft-heard view that it’s merely a cynical ruse to hoodwink or patronise the ‘hoi-poloi’.  Exhibiting should, ideally, aspire to break down those barriers, of course - but no one’s really pretending we’ll be able to transcend generations of educational shortcomings, societal expectations and cultural ghettoisation, over two weeks in another Midland town - are they?

Andrew Smith, 'Untitled (Hard)', Acrylics & Digital Print On Canvas, 2012: 'VOAFFI'
 (Downstairs)

Andrew Smith, 'Lead Balloons', Pencil & Fibre Pen/Digital Print On Paper, 2018:
'VOAFFI' (Upstairs)

What those who claim to be excluded by an elitist art world overlook, is that many artists themselves feel pretty marginalised by mainstream society, most of the time.  It may be a pretty blunt measure – but you really only need calculate the total audiences for, and broadcast hours devoted to, football, dating, gambling, or other ‘mainstream’ interests - compared with those pertaining to any form of serious arts programming.  It’s not actually so difficult to work out who’s really being culturally excluded these days, in the mainstream media, at least.  Ironically, as more or less good old-fashioned ‘lefties’, the three of us probably must accept ‘the democratic will of the people’ to choose, in such matters (honestly – don’t get me started…).  In which case, one is inevitably pushed back onto the hope there might at least be some connection to be made with the minority of folk who still actually value or ‘get it’.

Works By Andrew Smith & Shaun Morris, 'VOAFFI' (Downstairs)

That may also explain why, as we’ve also remarked amongst ourselves, so many younger contemporary artists often appear happy to self-curate distinctly inward-looking art events nowadays - seemingly tailored just for ‘us and our friends’.  Perhaps artists of our generation would actually do well to remember that we live in an online world where, perhaps, mass outreach is no longer even really the point.  Getting one’s work seen is probably now more about the nurtured audience, the targeted response, and the savvy marketing strategy, as it is about just putting it on the walls and opening the doors.

Andrew Smith, 'Untitled (Therapy)', Coloured Pencil/Digital Print On Paper, 2018,
'VOAFFI' (Downstairs)

Andrew Smith, 'Portrait Of The Artist As Two Dogs (Big And Small)', 2018,
Fibre Pen/Digital Print On Paper, 2018: 'VOAFFI' (Downstairs)

If this all sounds like a bit of a counsel of despair, it’s really not supposed to.  Perhaps it’s just a kind of wake-up call to do with properly clarifying one’s true motives, and aspirations.  Perhaps it's actually about being a little more ‘strategic’ about it things (however much I might dislike the general implications of that word).  In fact, we, and Surface did manage to cover several of those bases outlined above, and I think we all felt positive about most of the work itself in ‘VOAFFI’, and maybe even more so about the show as a whole.  The proviso is that it was also our most ambitious joint venture to date – and thus, with magnified implications to match, perhaps.  As I intimated in my last post, the sheer effort of realising it was pretty full-on - taking us all close to the limits of our physical capabilities and collective  ability to manage time and competing commitments.  Perhaps it’s that which really provokes all this questioning about exactly what we might hope to get back in return.  Could it just be that, after so much graft, the ego petulantly feels like it's due even more payback?

(Top L.): Shaun Morris, 'Trousers', 2018, (Bottom L.): Shaun Morris, 'A Home In England', 2017,
(R.): Andrew Smith, 'Wall Poem (Redacted)', Digital Print (Two Parts), 2018: 'VOAFFI' (Downstairs)

Clearly, that’s not quantifiable in terms of sales (although they weren’t totally absent, in the end).  But, in fairness, none of us could exactly be accused of chasing the easy sales or of deliberately tailoring our work to that end.  And I’m conscious there’s always a tendency for independently minded artists like us to want our cake, and to eat it (again – don’t get me started).   So perhaps it really is more about a craving for recognition, in that case.  And, encouragingly, the general response from attendees of our Opening Event and Artist Talk was encouragingly positive.  That’s worth a lot - particularly when in-depth conversations about the subtleties of the work replace mere polite chit-chat - as they did in many cases, on both occasions.  Even more tangible, in terms of positive opinion, is a subsequent review, in Nottingham’s estimable ‘Left Lion’ listings magazine - penned by Adrian Shaw.  Adrian was one of the small gathering who attended our Artist Talk, and who took the trouble to talk to us at some length about our work.  I won’t pretend I’m not more than a little gratified by the results, which you can read here.

'Sentinels 1 & 3': 'VOAFFI' (Upstairs)

That was one of three in-depth conversations I had with completely unfamiliar faces over the two events (the other two being with fellow practicing artists).  Each, in its own way, seemed to prove my earlier point about the value of connecting with one’s peers, or those with at least an already partially open mind.  In fact, my own experience of exhibiting is still relatively slight, and this was the first time I’d either conducted a public discussion of my work, or indeed, been reviewed.  The genuine connections made or communication achieved, which they seem to represent - are probably the most significant take-home ‘achievements’ of the whole project, for me.  And, if we must remember to think more calculatingly about all this stuff –the profile-raising value of a favourable review probably shouldn’t be ignored (obviously – you can ask me again, should I ever receive a bad one).

'Sentinel 1': 'VOAFFI' (Upstairs)

I had originally intended this post to be more of an in-depth reflection on the actual content of the show – rather than a self-indulgent meditation on ‘the point of it all’, but to do that here would clearly create a piece of ludicrous proportions.  In fact, the necessity may be negated by both Adrian’s review, and also by referring you to another blog piece – this time posted by Shaun Morris himself.  This goes back again to that point about connecting with fellow practitioners – and in his case - that is actually what instigated all this recurring joint exhibiting in the first place.  As we’ve repeatedly recognised, it’s the common threads and implied conversations (both conscious and unpredicted) – between three quite distinct bodies of work, which has provided much of the impetus behind these periodic comings together.  I know Shaun doesn’t always have an excess of confidence in his literary abilities, but whatever he does write always feels refreshingly from-the-heart, to me.  Either way, his extended post - penned shortly before our show came down, feels like an apt enough reflection of the whole venture.  If it also seems to reflect the odd doubt, of his own – well, we’re clearly all as bad as each other - aren’t we?  Shaun’s piece does cover many of the points I might have made myself, so I’ll resist the temptation to bore on interminably myself - and instead, refer you to him…

I think you’ve saved me a job there, Shaun.