Photorealism #4: Mr Cave Again

Continuing with the recent series of photorealist portraits, and having another source image featuring Nick Cave amongst the available model stock, this one with a few more years on the subject’s visage, thus the painting process proceeded to a point of resolution, again soundtracked by the many wonders of the Bad Seeds’ back catalogue.

The source image seemed to offer the possibilities of a more expansive mark-making approach than the previous example, thereby resulting in what I’d consider to be a more satisfying painting experience and result, although, regarding the latter, that underlying dread doubt always nibbles away, of course.

‘Nick Cave After a Photograph #2’

oil on canvas/20″ x 16″/December 2017

Pictured below is the painting adjacent to the source from which it was produced, the actual working environment…

And also, in an amusing juxtaposition, one of those serendipitous moments, with the first Nick Cave portrait in the background, at its shoulder (it’s just something about the pose and expression of the latter)…

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.

Badge of the Day #86 (Hansa Rostock)

 

Featuring the very latest addition to the European football clubs collection, with an object representing the fabulous Hansa Rostock, who would have emerged out of the former East Germany as a name to admire & subsequently follow, certainly from earlier days & quite possibly from the time of the 1974 World Cup finals, as a result of the club being home to one of the DDR’s evocatively memorable names in the form of Joachim Streich, scorer of two goals during the tournament, & who I would later, in September 1979, have witnessed playing, & scoring, for 1FC Magdeburg, to whom he’d been transferred in 1975 (Streich scored the ‘Burg’s equalizing goal – at 1 - 1 – their 2 – 3 defeat at Wrexham in the First Round, first leg tie of the 1979-80 European Cup-Winners’ Cup. He subsequently put the final nail in the coffin of Wrexham’s elimination by scoring very late in Magdeburg’s 5 – 2 extra-time victory in the return match).

The badge, a contemporary object thus lacking any particular hauntological quality other than memories of the name, features Hansa (as they were renamed, from the regally-sounding ‘Empor’, in 1965) Rostock’s crest with its jaunty ship that refers to the city’s maritime history as a Hanseatic seaport which continues to the present day.

The name also reminds one of Berlin’s famous Hansa Tonstudio, where various post-punk bands, not least Wire, & Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, have recorded, thus allowing a pleasant link between football & music, two of those totems of TOoT’s cultural landscape.

Four's (part of) a Crowd...(4)

Today the opposite of tomato is getting the Abattoir Blues...

graphite, putty eraser & watercolour/30x20cm
original source: 'The Guardian' 16/06/08

Continuing 'the project within The Project'...

Soundtrack:


Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 'Abattoir Blues' & 'The Lyre of Orpheus'
Bjork homemade compilation with selections from 'Debut', 'Post' & various remixes & 'Homogenic'

Time, also, to mention some music recently viewed.
Firstly, courtesy of BBC4's 'Nick Cave Night' (now there's cult programming & special interest broadcasting, for which we should be truly thankful), & thereafter again, at one's convenience through the wonders of the BBC's iplayer resources, an all-out entertaining, rocking live concert filmed, as part of the channel's 'Sessions' series, at LSO St Luke's chapel, which looks a lovely venue, on this occasion strung out & across with a myriad bare lightbulbs, featuring songs from the artist & bands' latest album 'Dig, Lazarus Dig' in addition to a variety from their extensive back catalogue, switching from full-on, foot-down performances of songs such as 'Get Ready For Love' to the hushed piano balladry of a sublime rendering of 'God is in the House', an elegiac, spare reading of 'The Mercy Seat', ending with a blistering, brooding, ever-amusing 'Stagger Lee': absolutely stonking stuff.
And then a truly wonderful compilation of TV appearances taken from 'Later with Jools Holland', spanning the better part of 20 years, from 1990 onwards, featuring a representative selection of great songs, 'greatest hits' & performances & also affording the opportunity to appreciate the ageing process in action (at least in terms of appearances, for there's no noticable diminishing of energy, they all still rock magnificently, disgracefully, in the best tradition, when required), as the Bad Seeds themselves have remained pretty much constant with occasional changes & additions in personnel. Interesting to note, particularly, with a keen eye, as always, on art history, that the multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis seems to be transforming into Cézanne...


Warren Ellis, right, with Nick Cave


Paul Cézanne 'Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat'
1875-76/oil on canvas

Further to the theme, I recently invested in the DVD of Portishead's legendary first live appearance, at the Roseland Theatre in New York, a fabulous filmed record of what appears to have been one of those events where 'you had to be there'. The venue itself, featuring a stage 'in the round', whereby the performers are thus surrounded by the audience, creates a suitable ambience & also affords the opportunity for some excellent direction, with the cameras roaming the stage & its perimeters in order to feature some terrific local, intimate footage, of the various members of the band & the orchestra accompanying them. The performance, too, is stunning: featuring the band's second, eponymous album in its entirety, supplemented by selections, 'greatest hits' from their debut 'Dummy' such as 'Sour Times', 'Glory Box' & the exquisite 'Roads', what one might imagine to be very much 'studio creations' as heard in their original incarnations are brought to life in the most thrilling, magical manner - having been fortunate enough to see singer Beth Gibbons live in concert, promoting her 'Out of Season' album, I know what a fine vocalist she is & her performance, her voice, here is wonderful, intense & emotional & technically just right. The orchestra, too, play a sympathetic part, augmenting the songs subtly but significantly, & the film has a nice 'intermission' at its mid point, featuring a couple of the songs performed in rehearsal & a selection of 'environmental' footage of NYC. All things considered, the film of the concert is an exemplary piece of work, not merely a 'live DVD' but a great film in itself.

Also a mention for PJ Harvey's 'Please Leave Quietly' DVD, featuring concert footage from the band's 'Uh Huh Her'-era UK tour, collaged together in a most original manner (observe, for instance, the numerous costume changes in the space of just one song!) & interspersed with back stage clips that really help give a nice sketchbook-diary-snapshot feel to the whole, sympathetic perhaps to the touring experience from the viewpoint of the musicians. Fantastic songs & performances too, of course, from another artist I've been privileged to see live, although not for far too long a time now. There's an excellent, fascinating interview with Polly as an extra, too, allowing intimate access to the creative process & thinking. And, neatly bringing things together, try & see Polly & that man Nick Cave again duetting in the video of the latter's lovely ballad 'Henry Lee' on the Bad Seeds' 'Videos' collection.

Storytelling

Today the opposite of tomato is ‘Sideways’

Perhaps it’s because of currently reading ‘Vermeer’s Camera’, as previously mentioned, and consequently considering a number of the artist’s paintings, but the narrative appeal of this sequence of original newspaper images, illustrating a fashion feature on the new season‘s ‘statement shoes’, suggested it/they might make a suitable subject for transcription. This composite drawing - and indeed its individual parts as processed - therefore remains faithful to the sequence of images as printed in the hardcopy of the newspaper, which served as my model, and also the online version.


graphite/52x30cm
original source: 'The Daily Telegraph' 12/03/08

The accompanying feature as written-edited, however, presents the narrative of the shoes as worn, tested, in another sequence, as, indeed, does a short film of the same.


Furthermore, to add to the fluidity, the ‘shufflability’ of the narrative, & thus the story they might tell, they are sequentially arranged in my sketchbook - inadvertently skipping a page between the first & second drawings, which blank space subsequently became filled with the third - in the following order, different again, as dated: 01/04/08, 03/04/08, 02/04/08. How we read a sequence of images, especially in the print or visual broadcast media, subject to editing and presentation, is perhaps often taken for granted, even when the story they tell might not be that as it happened, in real time. What stories may be told, using the same basic raw materials: the possibilities are open to numerous interpretations, agendas, etc…

I must admit that, if the sequence of photographs was originally composed & published thus - not strictly depicting the story as written-told, but illustrating it all the same - for aesthetic reasons, then this is the only ‘truth’ in which I’m really interested & with which I’m concerned. Didn’t someone once release an album of music entitled ‘This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours’..?

Soundtrack:


Spiritualized ‘Ladies & Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space’
Tricky ‘Maxinquaye’
Charlotte Gainsbourg ‘5:55’
Belle & Sebastian ‘Push Barman to Open Old Wounds’
Lambchop ‘Aw, C’mon’ & ‘No, You C’mon’
Sigur Ros ‘Takk’
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds ‘Best of’

Been enjoying more of a musical catch-up, this time including the brooding, unsettling magnificence of Tricky’s masterpiece ‘Maxinquaye’ & the grand guinol of much of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ earlier work, the oft-murky depths of the breadth of which are a pleasure to submerge oneself in, surrender to: many an intriguing narrative too. The power of both of these albums (& some of the originals from which the Cave selection is culled) remains undiminished through or by time.


Watched ‘Sideways’ last night, for the third time, & enjoyed it more than ever: a quietly wonderful & beautiful film, with a perfectly-realised narrative, fuelled by wine & the pleasures of its drinking but encompassing much human nature within its journey. All that Californian space & sunshine appeared most attractive too…