car auto blaas

'It's a curse, Well thy forsooth, Who is that interesting hack over there?, By Gad, verily, Cracked curse, disliked, burdened, It's a curse, and am not unguilty of using it' - Lyrics by Mark E. Smith of The Fall.
Here are nine pieces that were constructed in January of this year. Each piece is meant to be a story in itself. The influences are many, the styles are almost the same.

1. 'The Story of Judith' - A bible story - Judith means "Jewess". In the orginal painting she had cut off the head of Bethulia. I have made her into a hero of the last century with references to the first world war. Read into it what you will. One day will the Earth be water or dessert?

2. 'The Cardinal Obscura' - The title is taken from 'Camera Obscura' which from the latin means the following, Camera = Latin for “room”, Obscura = Latin for “dark”. So in this case it means that the Cardinal is dark.

3. 'The Curse of the Blue Dream' - A clown in quicksand is that? Clowns are the stuff of nightmares for some people, used in fiction as the evil side of the carnival and for others it is a clear case of finding them funny. If you see a clown in your dreams it means this:
'To see a clown in you dream, symbolizes absurdity, light-heartedness, and a childish side to your own character. The countenance of the clown is a reflection of your own feelings and emotions. Whether it is a happy clown or a sad clown, that will help guide you through how you may be feeling. The actions of the clown signifies your uninhibited nature. If you have a fear or phobia of clowns, the clown may represent a mysterious person in your life who mean you harm. Somebody you know may not be who they appear to be. Or somebody may be pretending to be somebody they are not and are hiding under a facade'.

4. 'A modern Lousie has a nightmare' - Another surreal dream piece. I felt that the girl in this picture looked like the old movie starlet, Louise Brook, mainly because of the hairstyle:
Louise Brook, a picture from the Louise Brook Society website. She died in 1985 and is remembered for that orginal 1920's hairstyle. Our modern Louise is having a bad time in my piece of art. At the top of her head is a map of Market Drayton and then a multiple exposure of waiting in a dream like state. It goes on to be scarey towards the bottom and the last image is about drowning.
I have an interest in multiple exposures, but can't seem to do them on my digital camera, which is a shame.

5. 'A Staircase Dream' - One of my favourite themes is Ladies dressed as men. I believe from the film 'Cabaret' that this was popular with ladies during the wars in Germany. In my dream piece, the sun is a watch face and the house is perched at the top of the staircase. It reminds me for some reason of Normal Bates in Hitchcocks 'Psycho'. I have a love for the artistic shapes that are produced by spiral staircases.

6. 'Ferris Halo Girl' - This is another attempt at 'Jacket Girl' style picture from last year. The halo is made up of a the slow exposure of a ferris wheel at a fairground at night. There is always an interest in the circus or the fairground in some of my work and this has come to a head here. It is a modern female Iconic image and shows an intention to collide two worlds together.

7. '5 Girls' - Another of my influence is Peter Blake as mentioned in other journal entries. This is a modern version of some of his 'Pop Art' pictures. In my work I have kept to the mosaic patterning and use circles as well.

8. 'Architectresque' - This piece follows the theme of the previous work and uses not the human form but builds in the top left is the Eiffel Tower designed by Gustav Eiffel and one of the most famous landmarks in Paris, France.
The Eiffel Tower was the winning entry in a competition for a ‘centerpiece’ for the Paris Exposition of 1889. The design by an engineer named Gustav Eiffel was selected from over three hundred entries for its striking design and for its economical structure which displayed the French prowess in metal construction.

9. 'Sunday Nude with Five Bars' - Tasteful, beauty posed for maximum control of style. As you can see it is like the bars in Peter Blake's work. I like to recycle paper and pictures in my art, which is popular at the moment. I sometimes feel that I am doing in art what Rappers/DJ's are doing with sampling past music and making them into a new piece of sound sculpture. I am very pleased with this section of work from earlier this year and I hope to bring more storytelling to my work. I love to be influenced and have an influence myself. I hope that this is a turning point in the continuing journey that is my artwork.

1. '2 Ladies' - This was an attempt in 2005 to use a picture that was solid in the piece and use the mosaic patterning as a 'frame'. Is it just a picture with a nice frame or is it telling us something, is there more to these ladies than we think?

2. 'Laugh' - This is taken from a large piece that was cut down to form what was the very first round picture, I ever created. I cut it out because the patterning of the outside was not in keeping with the colours of the circle and within.

3. 'AT HOME' - A chance in 05 to use text as well as pictures in my art. It is a surreal poem about friendship that was made up of text from a magazine and reads as follows:
'At home, discarded, tossed out with the rubbish. Two worlds meet, the songs are sad, wisely we use our scarcest commodity: time. People think I'm joking when I say some species, the isolated humans have such a magnetic sense in their compound eyes to use sound echoes to detect where you are, and the direction to your destination and substitue the veils of mystery to reveal answers that surprise and, in some cases, amaze.'

4. 'Half a World' - Half a girl, half a circle, all we need in this modernist world of packaging. The hair of the girl is salon ready.

5. 'Grey Monument' - Small pictures make up the incircle of life, on the outside grey life takes a greater place than it should. Travel, follow the map to peace away from the nightmare that is everyday life. Close a chapter and get on with everything else.

6. 'Majesty of Christ' - Cut down from a larger picture yet again. The centre is the centre of an ivory Christ. He is in his temple, all is well. Prayer is the answer, so pray to Christ for some answers and all will be well.

7. 'World's best nude' - This was my attempt at the cubist images of the early twentieth century. Climb into the picture, the pieces don't mean that there is a story or is there?

8. 'Men have more balls to play with' - The humour of the title of this piece shows that I designed this with a certain person in mind and that person knows who they are. It is unmounted because I decided not to give it to them. This is a man's world caprtured in all its morning glory. Wind, rain, hail the King!

We open the box on yet another batch of imagination and March/April has proved that there is some interesting subjects to tackle and I wonder why that is. The major influence that is coming through is health and surrealism. That is mainly thanks to the work of Robert Motherwell:
Spanish Jail by Robert Motherwell
"To end up with a canvas that is no less beautiful than the empty canvas is to begin with."
In 1940, a young painter named Robert Motherwell came to New York City and joined a group of artists — including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Franz Kline — who set out to change the face of American painting. These painters renounced the prevalent American style, believing its realism depicted only the surface of American life. Their interest was in exploring the deeper sense of reality beyond the recognizable image. Influenced by the Surrealists, many of whom had emigrated from Europe to New York, the Abstract Expressionists sought to create essential images that revealed emotional truth and authenticity of feeling. On July 16, 1991, at the age of 76 he died: the last of the great Abstract Expressionists. From the 1949 painting, AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON, until the end of his life, Motherwell continued his search for a personal and political voice in abstraction. This search produced a body of work that remains a testament to the human soul and its persistence, and to the genre of abstract painting out of which it came.

1. 'White Jacket' - This 'hair piece' is taken from a hairdressing magazine and is mosaic'd on hardboard. Infact it is the first piece ever on hardboard.

2. 'Out of a grey rain moon, comes green map sunshine' - This is inspired by the work of Robert Motherwell and its the longest titled piece of my work ever. The idea was to give the whole story out of the title and not have to explain the piece if I had of called it "Cheese revenge!" or "Mountain of my soulmate's hair" I think that you get the drift.

3. 'Postive Energy' - After a day of negative energy I decided to come home and make a piece of work out of mainly the envolpes in which my girlfriend's birthday cards came in. Other sweet wrappers and crap came out of the litter bin and away we went on the Kurt Schwitters mode warp factor two.

4. 'Sunset Towers' - As the large collaged abstract moon goes down the building is bathed in sunset and it takes on a beauty of its own. The building is in Sweden, ten points if you guessed right!

5. 'The Man in the Golden Suit'. - This illustration come from a magazine sold in the 1970s and its about being shy! I thought that he didn't look that shy. As I used to be very shy (believe it or not) I could relate to the written text but not the picture, so I used it in my artworld. The title comes from the brilliant film starring Frank Sinatra and Kim Novack.
the film stars Frank Sinatra as Frankie Machine, expert card dealer (hence the title). Recently released from prison, Frankie is determined to set his life in order-and that means divesting himself of his drug habit. He dreams of becoming a jazz drummer, but his greedy wife Eleanor Parker wants him to continue his lucrative gambling activities. Since Parker is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a car accident caused by Frankie, he's in no position to refuse. Only the audience knows that Parker is not crippled, but is faking her invalid status to keep Frankie under her thumb. Gambling boss Robert Strauss wants Frankie to deal at a high-stakes poker game; terrified that he's lost his touch, Frankie asks dope pusher Darren McGavin to supply him with narcotics. When McGavin discovers that Parker is not an invalid, she kills him, and Frankie (who is elsewhere at the time) is accused of the murder. He is willing to go to the cops, but he doesn't want to show up with drugs in his system. So with the help of sympathetic B-girl Kim Novak, Sinatra locks himself up and goes "cold turkey"-a still-harrowing sequence, despite the glut of "doper" films that followed in the wake of this picture. After Parker herself is killed in a suicidal fall, the path is cleared for Frankie to pursue a clean new life with Novak.

6. 'Sukhj Purvak' - In Yoga this is I believe the alternate nostril breathing posture:
Sit comfortably in a chair with your feet on the floor, spine straight, shoulders back.
Close your eyes.
Exhale completely through your nose.
Gently place your left thumb against your left nostril, closing it off.
Using the three-part breathing technique, inhale through your right nostril slowly and deliberately.
Release your left nostril and pinch your right nostril closed with your right thumb
Exhale completely through your left nostril, then inhale through your left nostril, pinch it closed and exhale through your right nostril. Repeat this alternating pattern five times, working up to 10.

7. 'Sleeping Drunk' - Another 1970's picture. Note the difference in the colour of the drunk's coat. His hand clutches the bottle for his dear life. Nowadays its young adults that need to be watched for the fear of alcholic abuse. Binge drinking is all the rage and its this age group that are going to be suffering in later life through abuse of the body.

8. 'Kinetic 2nd Wednesday' - This is based on a famous Bauhaus art movement picture:
Bauhaus was an art movement to which Kurt Schwitters was a member, also in the late 70's early 80's there was a semi-gothic group by the same name, which had a big hit with David Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust'

9. 'Movement' - A flash of "Clockwork Orange" about this piece? Well its Motherwell meets Stanley Kurbrick in a head on smash. Yet, do you see a crowd watching all around waiting? Why is the mouth open? Surprise or 'ultraviolence', bring in Beethoven and the droogs. (This will mean nothing to those of you that have not seen the film).

10. 'An illusion of beauty under a padded sun' - The blurred movement of the female nude waiting in the doorway, the beating of a padded sun down on her body to give the golden light. Is that a hint of a smile upon her lips. Waiting again. There is a sense of disappointment with the blueness of the mosaic down one side and the multicoloured excitement to come.

11. 'Black-eyed Gina' - Dennis Potter was the most challanging drama writer of the twentieth centry and good luck to him. Blackeyes introduced us to Gina Bellman and what a performance. Most recently known for the comedy series 'Coupling'. She is a deep-eyed beauty and is married to an a sculpturist. In 'Blackeyes' the plot was about "Sugar Bush," tracing the rise and decline of fictional fashion model Blackeyes (Gina Bellman), victimized by men. No easy watching believe you me, but yet very challanging for Potter. GIna's best known quote is: "I don't understand happy people. How can you just be satisfied?"

12. 'A moment's reflection' - Its that time of day when you need to give yourself time to think about what is important in your life and how you should proceed. Naked at one with yourself, the eyes are the windows of the soul. Look deeper than most.
More on the way, like the heatwave Summer.