Re-Emerging

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Soundtrack:


The Birthday Party homemade compilation
Rachel Unthank & the Winterset 'The Bairns'
Hanne Hukkelberg 'Rykestrasse 68'

Hot on the heels of The Fall come The Birthday Party, sounding better, more vital, than, perhaps, ever, nipped in the bud that the Bad Seeds might flourish: magnificently disgraceful/disgracefully magnificent beaten & bloody tumbledown majesty, possibly the most fitting soundtrack of all to the 'roadkill' drawings.

Drinking to Art History Again...

Today the opposite of tomato is 'this new Kurt Weill razor unit, made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail'


graphite & putty eraser with watercolour/30x20cm

...Even if only with a shandy on this particular occasion!

As a perfect example of found 'roadkill' subject/object matter for the continuing diptych series of drawings, this can displaying the branded legend 'Bass' (& aestheticized most pleasingly with patches of rust) certainly got the old art historical juices flowing, recalling instances where it had occurred previously, at least a couple of times in Cubist table top still life compositions by Picasso,



(both images from Harrison, Frascina & Perry 'Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction', Yale/OU)

and the iconic red triangle also featured earlier (1881-2), amongst the array of bottles upon either side of the 'Bar at the Folies-Bergere' by Manet.


(image from Bernard 'The Impressionist Revolution', Macdonald Orbis)

Soundtrack:


Chris Whitley 'Living With the Law'
Duke Special 'Songs From the Deep Forest'
The Fall '50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong'

Remembering John Peel again, at the time of the fifth anniversary of his passing (26th October), & a fitting tribute provided by the sonic juggernaut of The ('Mighty') Fall, appropriately magnificent after all these years, 'Classical-ly' so, indeed.

And More Readymade Cubism #2

graphite & putty eraser with watercolour/30x20cm

This drawing processed from the reverse side of the sheared, sharded 'roadkill' can as featured immediately previously, with a touch of colour to bring out aspects of its branded livery.

And More Readymade Cubism...

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

The latest drawing in the 'roadkill diptych' series, with the found object here represented providing a fine example of 'Readymade Cubism' in its compressed & sheared-open state, which gives it a particularly 'fragmented' appearance, in turn presenting suitably synechdochal 'clues' of text.

Soundtrack:


Laura Veirs 'Year of Meteors'
Tara Jane O'Neil 'A Ways Away'
Hanne Hukkelberg 'Rykestrasse 68'
Portishead 'Third' & 'Portishead'

AntiPop?

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

The latest in the series of drawings processed from the subject/object matter of found 'roadkill' drinks cans features the recurrence of a familiar & iconic brand identity, surviving tenaciously in synechdochal form amongst & within the series of folds into which the original object has been compressed & thus transformed.

'AntiPop' is the latest possible description to have suggested itself that might be applied to this particular body of work & its contextual relationship to the history of art, not from any 'oppositional' stance but perhaps as the apparent, aesthetic antithesis of, given the distressed state of the found & represented objects, & the almost exclusively monochrome nature of the drawings themselves, drained of the colour that typifies Pop & its typical subject matter.

Soundtrack:


Tara Jane O'Neil 'A Ways Away'
Boards of Canada 'Geogaddi'
Radiohead 'Kid A'

An Exploded View

The latest of the diptych drawings processed from found 'roadkill' cans, burst upon impact with whatever compressing force, thus offers another aspect of its transformed state, with a glimpse of its aluminium insides...


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Soundtrack:


Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man 'Out of Season'
Belle & Sebastian 'Push Barman to Open Old Wounds'
Sparklehorse 'It's a Wonderful Life'
Spiritualized 'Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space'
Tara Jane O'Neil 'A Ways Away'

Spiritualized received a long-overdue airing as an accompaniment to the drawing process after being inspired by the evocative review in today's Telegraph of the 'trendy' performance in its entirety of the 'masterpiece' 'Ladies and Gentlemen...' album: it remains one of those works of art there's nothing else quite like, as it sonically ebbs & flows, swells to everything-including-the-kitchen-sink crescendoes & subsides to soothing calm through its multi-layered musical journey & autobiographical narrative arc, all quite an 'immersive' experience.

A getting-to-know-you nod, too, to the newly-invested-in, cool, autumnal-to-wintery charms of Tara Jane O'Neil, also an intriguing visual artist (visit the 'Seen' & 'Galleries' pages).

Line & Colour

Today the opposite of tomato is 'clear and great'

So the morning, with the promise of a couple of hours' drawing time before the day job, dawned delightfully bright & clear, the air cool, the sky traced with vapour trails, wonderful geometric drawings to be seen &, indeed, taking place before one's enthralled gaze...


Those wonderful moments, of such great mathematical beauty, when one line bisects another: (visual) poetry in motion...(& why don't they teach the subject to youngsters in school in this manner, with magic unfurling?)





Also, took the time to gather a few of the japonica's fallen quinces on Saturday, which, although they've yet to be processed & represented in the form of drawing, as intended, have scented the room most headily, & the skins of the fruit glowed golden, magnificently, in this morning's risen sunlight...





Soundtrack:

Throwing Muses 'In a Doghouse' (CD2)

Tangoed

Today the opposite of tomato 'sings to me with glassy eyes and quotes from Kafka'


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

The latest drawing in the 'roadkill diptych' series processed from the subject matter of a found object in the (proposed) category of 'Readymade Cubism', once again reformed & represented through a process of crumpling & compression, transformed from its once-fully-rounded state into something more compact & planar.

Soundtrack:


Tuung 'Good Arrows'
Throwing Muses 'In a Doghouse' (CD1)
Hanne Hukkelberg 'Rykestrasse 68'
Cat Power 'Moon Pix'

Andmoreagain (the 'B' Side)...

graphite & putty eraser on paper collage/30x20cm

This drawing was processed in the manner of the previous example, upon a ground of collaged paper fragments, & represents the reverse plane of the same flattened found 'roadkill' object.

Soundtrack:


Lambchop 'How I Quit Smoking'
Moon Wiring Club 'An Audience of Art Deco Eyes' & 'Shoes Off and Chairs Away'

More Scrap Metal...

graphite & putty eraser on paper collage/30x20cm

Continuing with the 'roadkill' diptych drawings, returning on this particular occasion to the use of a collaged ground of torn paper fragments that are intended to allude in some formal manner to both the series of folds & (tri)angular forms into which the original subject-object (here transformed into a particularly compact(ed) & slimline version of its former, fully-rounded self) has been forcibly compressed, & the distressed nature of its scuffed, worn surface appearance.
As with numerous previous examples, the visible 'synechdochal' fragment of brand identity should be sufficient to imaginatively suggest the whole, such is its global ubiquity...

Soundtrack:


Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 'Best of' & 'The Boatman's Call'

Dead Bull...

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Being the latest example of drawings processed from found, 'roadkill' aluminium cans, such an ubiquitous feature of the urban landscape, cast aside in such generous quantities as to be unremarkable but for the individual beauties of the compressed forms to which vehicular contact has subjected them: as oft is the case, such resulting 'Readymade Cubism' displays considerable formal interest in the transformed, represented sequence of folds, overlapping planes & multiple views thus afforded. As is habitual, the subject/object is situated within an 'all-over' ground of marks made & removed as appropriate.

Soundtrack:


Tori Amos 'Under the Pink' & 'Boys For Pele'
Manitoba 'Up in Flames' & 'Start Breaking My Heart'

Clipped Wings...

Today the opposite of tomato is Stenhousemuir v Cowdenbeath*

Presenting the latest drawing in the series of diptychs processed from the subject/object matter of found roadkill 'Readymade Cubism'...


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

* Hot on the heels of Jonathan Meades' televised tour of such Scottish 'football coupons' towns & the recent associated blog post, today saw the occurrence of the most romantic & glamorous fixture in that country's Irn Bru League Division Two programme &, quite possibly, all of British soccer, at least to those of us of the particular disposition that intrinsically favours the obscure, small town & small time over the bloated, branded, absurd monstrosities of the game's higher echelons (essentially football that knows its proper 'back page' place, as mere distraction, in the order of things cultural): Stenhousemuir versus Cowdenbeath, names of such fabulous, alternative grandeur (almost as an afterthought, the result was a 2-0 victory for the visitors, the mighty 'Blue Brazil').

Soundtrack:


The Triffids 'Calenture' & 'Born Sandy Devotional'
The Delgados 'The Great Eastern'