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'

What's the Worst That Could Happen..?

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

The last of the pears having been consumed, TOoT returns to the ongoing 'recycling project' of drawings processed from found aluminium drinks can 'roadkill', the depicted subject/object once more having been accidentally reconfigured into a state of 'readymade Cubism' whereby various aspects of its original three-dimensional form are now (re)present(ed) within a single compressed plane.

Soundtrack:


PJ Harvey 'Songs From the City, Songs From the Sea' & 'Is This Desire?'
Hanne Hukkelberg 'Rykestrasse 68'
Charlotte Gainsbourg '5:55'
Cat Power 'You Are Free'

Last Pears Standing

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

And so to the last surviving pair of pears, the drawing processed against the process of natural decay & very much so against the fading of the evening light as it dwindled quickly towards darkness, hence the darker forms of the objects as they became less defined as solids, gradually transforming more into silhouettes of a diffuse-edged nature as the remaining light hugged & illuminated the pears' outlines.
Again, the attempt is towards some form of positively-charged tension in the spatial arrangement & overall composition.

Soundtrack:


Portishead 'Third'

Pears #9 & 10

As the number of pears dwindles further, so the endeavour continues to establish some form of 'charge' in the narrow space between the objects thus positioned: not necessarily Bachelard's poetics of space, perhaps, but some form of positive, sensual energy.


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

A very slight shift to the left in the viewing position complicates the spatial relationship a little, in that, visually, the pears both appear to touch & yet remain slightly apart, in an attempt to 'dramatize' & 'sensualize' the space & its tension yet more...


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Soundtrack:


Jesus & Mary Chain 'Psychocandy' & 'Darklands'
The Triffids 'In the Pines'
Elliott Smith 'XO'

Pears #8

Today the opposite of tomato is Accrington Stanley v Crewe Alexandra*

Three again being the magic number, &, in keeping with the sequence of pear drawings thus far, endeavouring with the composition of the objects to achieve some form of positive charge in the spatial intervals between.


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

* How fitting that the Friday professional football fixture list should be devoted to none other & nothing but Accrington Stanley versus Crewe Alexandra, one for the old romantics, names with an alternative glamour all their own, redolent of the game's history & local, grassroots appeal: the very antithesis of, & welcome antidote to, the over-hyped excesses of the so-called 'Champions'' League (excepting the wonderful Barcelona, of course) & the self-aggrandizing, money-corrupted fatuousness of the English Premiership, characterized by, for instance, & to name but a random example (ahem), 'Newton Heath' & their branded ilk. Proper football, indeed, & a veritable goal-fest to boot, resulting in a 5-3 victory for the hosts: cockles duly warmed.
On something of a related matter, what a pleasure to read Martin Kelner's fulsome praise for - following the delight of viewing - the third & alas final instalment of Jonathan Meades' aptly titled (far too short) series 'Off-Kilter', that great man's offbeat, opinionated tour of Scotland, featuring on this particular occasion those small towns &/or (merely) names (Cowdenbeath, East Fife, Raith, Albion Rovers, St Mirren, Queen of the South, as evocative as Accrington Stanley & Crewe Alex to an impressionable youth) scattered across the central belt that exist to the world at large, outside of their own communities, for only those few hours on Saturday afternoons when they occur amongst the football results lists & on the pools' coupons: as ever, informing, entertaining & thought-provoking, & taking well-aimed potshots at more than a few sacred cows (contemporary top level footballers not excepted) - essential stuff.

Soundtrack:


Bjork 'Homogenic'

Pears #7

Today the opposite of tomato is the fine line between Mary-Louise Parker & Merrilees Parker

Suddenly, there's only half the pears there used to be...


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Soundtrack:

homemade Nancy Sinatra compilation

Pears #6

A slight shuffle in the position of the 6 pears as featured immediately previously, again (indeed, as habitually) observed 'contre jour', but not on this occasion also drawing against the light as it faded into dusk, instead enjoying the luxury & freshness of a morning session which brought intermittent sunlight, with the drawing process (as record of time spent looking & representing) thus attempting to capture something of this aspect of the development of the light conditions into the progression of its own temporality.


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Note how the developing marks upon the surface of one of the pears form an approximation of facial features, thus lending something of a 'portrait' aspect to proceedings within the context of representing the particular forms & features of the individual objects within the general group.

Note also how something similarly 'facial' occurs within the subtle colour & tonal transitions of the keenly observed & wittily captured representation of the form & surface of the pear in Euan Uglow's monumental 'Fruit Pyramid'...


(image from 'Euan Uglow: the Complete Paintings', Yale, 2007)

Taking the theme further, & into the realm of anthropomorphism, one recalls Magritte's 'Lyricism', painted in 1947 during the period of the artist's 'Renoiresque', 'Impressionist' stylistic departure,


(image taken from Suzi Gablik, 'Magritte', T&H 'World of Art' series, 1985)

& an earlier visual memory yet, of Daumier's caricature of King Louis Philippe, satirically representing the monarch's decline in public popularity, his head gradually transforming into a pear!


Honoré Daumier 'Les Poires', pencil, 1831

Soundtrack:


Portishead 'Dummy' & 'Portishead'

Pears #5

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Returning to 'the joy of six', in numerical terms of pears...

Soundtrack:


Cocteau Twins 'Lullabies to Violaine' vol.1 (disc 2)
Low 'Things We Lost in the Fire'
The Smiths 'The Queen is Dead' & 'Strangeways, Here We Come'

Pears #4

Today the opposite of tomato is 'a secondhand emotion on a battered 45'

Coincidental to the double black lines/roadkill drawings conflating the genres of landscape & still life, it occurred that the horizontal format of this current series of drawings of pears (a device common also to the summer sequence of drawings of found fruit), a result of the vantage point adopted from which to observe the objects as arranged (a little more eye-level than perhaps the more elevated position traditional to the exploration of still life), might be said to do something similar, especially with a lateral expansion in numbers such as represented here.

Also coincidentally, at the time of re-reading the Phaidon monograph on the subject of Vija Celmins, I happened to spot, attached to, spun upon, the outside of the window beyond the arrangement of pears, a spider’s web, which suggested it might also be included within the composition of the drawing...


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Soundtrack:


My Bloody Valentine 'Loveless'
Cocteau Twins 'Lullabies to Violaine' vol.1 (disc 1)