More Photorealism

Following on from the recent photorealist ‘portrait’ of Samuel Beckett, the latest painting on and now, resolved, off the easel has been along similar lines, employing similar means, albeit on a reduced scale (having exhausted the existing stock of larger canvases: had one been available, it would have been utilised).  This latter aspect proved itself to be less satisfying than the preceding endeavour – more cramped, less painterly, offering less scope for the brush strokes to just ‘be’, to be representative of the process of the ‘work’ of art, with, rather, virtually every mark having to be more descriptive in nature.

The portrait subject is Nick Cave, with the pose offering the bonus of describing the hands in addition to the head/face, the immediate object of reference being an A3 monochrome print of a colour photograph.

‘Nick Cave After a Photograph’

oil on canvas/20″ x 16″/October – November 2017

Ever since hearing The Birthday Party on the John Peel show, and catching the band live in 1981 (bottom of a bill supporting headliners Bauhaus with Vic Godard and Subway Sect between, at the Liverpool Royal Court), Nick Cave has loomed large on the personal cultural landscape, being a firm musical favourite as his career and repertoire has evolved, and it’s been a profoundly rewarding pleasure to listen, chronologically, to a good deal of Nick and the Bad Seeds’ back catalogue as an accompaniment to the painting process (providing the perfect excuse to indulge), if a bit strange to be looking so intently at an image of the artist as he performs.

Remembering John Peel

Today marks the 13th anniversary of the passing of the mighty cultural ‘uncle’ that was (and remains) John Peel, whose influence lives on undimmed, indeed probably burning ever brighter in such times. In celebration, of the life, we’re listening to Captain Beefheart‘s ‘Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), just one of the many artistes and fine records to whom and which Peel provided an introduction – walking in to the day job this morning accompanied by the groove of ‘Tropical Hot Dog Night’ certainly helped make me feel more kindly disposed than is habitually the case.

Another The Fall ‘Imaginary Compilation Album’ (#3) been also posted on the essential The (new) Vinyl Villain – get on over and get listening, you know it makes sense and it’s what Peel would have wanted.

A Birthday and a Coincidence

Yesterday, 5th March, marked the 60th birthday of the living legend that is Mark E Smith, mainstay of The Fall, whose music constitutes one of TOoT‘s cultural touchstones, and noticing this milestone mentioned via the BBC Radio 6 feed on Instagram inspired me to root out an old sketchbook of 2008 vintage containing a couple of drawings made during the course of that year’s project working from found newspaper photographs, featuring MES as their subject, one a portrait from the time and the other an image captured from a concert performance from earlier days. Both of the drawings are A4 in size, made using graphite and putty eraser.

Then today, during the course of stock-taking some of the art and design books that form part of the library collection at work, I encountered a slim-volume catalogue, published by the Lowry in 2001 to mark the occasion of an exhibition the artist’s work at the gallery, featuring the paintings of Paul Housley, amongst which were a couple representing Mr Smith, circa 2000, one a portrait, albeit three-quarter, the other in performance, all a rather pleasing coincidence, or at least something that made the day progress that little bit more interestingly.

Paul Housley: paintings featuring Mark E Smith

 

Back at the Easel…

Presenting today the early stages of the current work-in-progress, another 4′ x 2′ ‘widescreen’ canvas upon which has been sketched the early stages of a second woodscape composition closely related to its predecessor and of which there is as yet not a great deal else to say.

The work was carried out over the course of Saturday afternoon, this activity to the accompaniment of a selection of the new release from the Moon Wiring Club, celebrating in generously expansive style the 10th anniversary of and comprising, musically, an LP (entitled ‘Exit Pantomime Control’) and triple CD set (‘When a New Trick Comes Out, I Do an Old One’), some of the artwork of which is pictured below (there’s also an A2-sized double-sided poster folded within the CD package, detailing its contents and featuring more of the inimitable illustrations of the sort on show), and a book too (also ‘When a New Trick…’) – a veritable cornucopia of sound and visuals as, indeed, each of the issues from the Blank Workshop and fictional town of Clinkskell are, what have come to be a much-anticipated annual treat after the clocks have gone back and the seasonal gloaming descends and envelops.

As ever, the music is both familiar and strange (more so than usual this time, with remixes and re-imaginings from the substantial archives), accents recur but are subjected to tweaks and new treatments, ghosts rematerialising in fresh guises, moods benign, contemplative and unsettling shift within the continuum – it’s rich fare upon initial encounter that frequent revisiting will inevitably reward as we move inexorably from this year into next.

Now – given the seasonal crimp on available painting opportunity (fundamentally, an insistence upon natural light conditions) – when’s the next chance to paint and listen?

White Pears #21

‘White Pears #21’ oil on canvas/20″ x 16″/February 2016

Completed over the course of pre- and post-lunch painting sessions on Saturday afternoon (nobly foregoing the not inconsiderable temptation to attend the competing attraction of the local Gresford Athletic v Holywell Town football match – congrats to the mighty Colliers on their late winning goal – in order to devote the time to artistic pursuits, as one must, of course), (re)presented here is the latest production off the easel, as previewed last Thursday in its in-progress state. The subject-object pears have been worked up to a loose, textured finish (somewhere between the pre- and post-New Year painting technique) in order to preserve an attempt at a certain ‘freshness’ of facture, although they’re no less considered and actively observed, with minor adjustments made to the horizontal (particularly) and vertical planes upon/against and ‘tactile space’within which they reside.

All this activity was performed to the aural accompaniment of The Caretaker’s albums ‘An Empty Bliss Beyond the World’ and then ‘Patience (After Sebald)’, the former with its genesis in samples from old pre-war dance hall 78rpm records and the latter, which serves as the soundtrack to Grant Gee’s documentary film of the same title, from Shubert’s ‘Winterreiss’, each source then subjected to a process of sonic manipulation and degradation (in part utilizing the surface crackles from original vinyl discs) that allows disembodied fragments of the originals to emerge from and then become consumed again by a dusty haze of electronic white-noise, an ever-fascinating listen, both haunting and bleak and yet warm and human, a wonderful mix of the digital and analogue, and an excellent soundtrack to the old painting practice.

(detail)

(detail)

Later, to celebrate the completion of another painting, our favourites Atletico emerged triumphant from the Madrid derby, a fine end to the day indeed.