‘Ouroboros Studies’

Here, following, is part I of a collection of slates from the Ouroboros Triptych photo session/’outside installation’ that I think deserve to exist in their own right. I am fairly pleased with the results of ideas that floated around my consciousness at that time, which bore these bulbous rotten fruits with ease.

The Blood Slate series.

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‘Iron Serenity’

“Iron Serenity”. June 2007. (newspaper, glossy paper and black/white spray paint on canvas)

Here’s a photograph of a recently finished collage that I made as a wedding gift for old friends (Clash fans – as am I).

Designed partly with an image in mind of those faded old gig flyers and notices that you still see pasted on wallspaces in towns and cities around the country.

I am also a sucker for collecting media/news about anything I’m interested in (I have a ton of Cure news clippings and VHS tapes that’s nearly two decades old, for instance), and sometimes looking back on these tattered totems, thinking sagely about the past and of who survived it all. And who didn’t.

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\\\\\\\Transmission .V.

[yes, I realise its been a few weeks since I’ve last typed a few words here. Here’s why…]

The ‘Black Lodge’ is coming. Its not black. And there are no lodgers. But my oddly monikered studio is finally coming along and forming into the Lodge after being delivered and installed at the end of May. Painting, repainting, cleaning up, designing, general syphoning of finances later, and time rushes past at a rate of knots. Thus, no updates on this blog since mid-May. That will all change once the studio is up and running – a place that will inspire new ideas and embellish existing thoughts. A place of extreme art, fresh coffee, an abundance of rare horror dvds, cult music, and much more besides (including an absinthe room).

For an idea of what the future may hold, art-wise, here’s a pic of some of the many products I’ve recently purchased…


I won’t leave it so long next time. I’ve posted examples of some of the things I’ve been working on since the last update, anyhoo… oh, and obviously my photographic work is hi-res originally, many being transferred to canvas in time. I just compress each pic down to about 800×600 in size for this blog, so you can have a quick gander. In other words, these blog images are neither indicative of quality nor size of the original work they are taken from.

Namaste,

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‘Awareness Trilogy’

As I mention at the bottom of my 2007 Manifesto list, I plan to create multimedia experiments this year.

Earlier this month I devised what I am referring to as my ‘Awareness Trilogy’; three very different, massively public art events. The latter two events I won’t make mention of yet, as I believe in bad luck, but I can talk about the first one, because that’s now NOT going to happen.

There is a massive, white factory near the North Lynn Industrial Estate that towers over all nearby buildings and constructs, and cuts an imposing figure on the skyline – always jutting into my line of sight when I work around that area. Almost hypnotic in its bullying presence.

The first event In my ‘Awareness Trilogy’ was going to be a massive projection of 10 images, projected onto the face of this factory building at night, for a 60 minute slideshow. The resulting effect would be that most households in North Lynn could see the images, such as ‘The Wretched’ (which concerns their voting for the BNP), and other works that detail the negative aspects of youth/yob culture. I was also going to air my Ouroboros Triptych exclusively on the factory wall. And my ‘From the Mouths of Babel’ piece (imagine a 100ft dirty toilet, with George Bush head, gaping out into the night for all to see).

Now, I planned all of this event in minute detail; I surveyed the area, I looked round the site to see how I could access it covertly with my laptop and hired projector (I was going to wear a fake beard on the night, of course), and I researched my hasty exit. I even built up a list of names of local/national journalists that I would contact 4.5 hours before the projection was due to happen, for possible widespread coverage.

But one small problem; the bloomin’ projector. I had contact with 3 different companies and found a London company called E/T/C, who said they would lease such a high-powered projector out to me. No problem. A chap there arranged all the details and everything. Fine.

Except the price.

And logistics.

The company said that I would need to hire an actual technician for £500 and the equipment for another £500. On top of that, I would need to pay £200+ for a set of slides taken from my images. And it would most likely need to be plugged into the mains power supply – not a portable battery.

Hmmm.

So. To recap; To illuminate the night sky with 10 of my images to thousands of North Lynn citizens, I would need to pay in excess of £1,200 for 60 minutes work, have a lumbersome technician trailing behind me, and have the projector set up and plugged into the power socket of a house or building nearby. It wasn’t going to work.

I reluctantly, yet swiftly, jettisoned the idea.

Now onto the 2nd event of the trilogy, which won’t cost me anything…

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ps. Here’s a rough mock-up of what the projections could have looked like:

[oh what could have been]
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‘The Ouroboros Triptych’

May 2007.
Part of the ‘Death’ Manifesto node.

Ouroboros – the serpent eating its own tail.

Personally speaking, the three images above, and the original ‘Outside Installation’ I created, conjure up feelings of helplessness in life’s daily conventions, powerlessness in halting time and decay (and its inevitable grief), and restriction of confidence and self-assurance in the face of all that we go through to exist, until we too must perish.

This work is chiefly inspired by deeply unfortunate endings in my personal life.

As a more global extension of these themes;

Trawling through various media outlets during this particular age of human evolution, you inevitably get the continuously strong sense of ‘powerlessness’ deep within modern human existence, that we are somehow stuck-fast in our murky predicaments. Unable to reach out of the quicksand and grab a branch to save us from a slow sinking death.

In the past century we unquestioningly looked to the Government to save us (1900-1940’s), embraced the youth culture to invigorate and inspire us (1950’s-1960’s), the protest movement and Unions to empower us – if we were lucky – (the 1970’s), capitalism to provide a ‘better life for us all’ (the 1980’s), and the Information Age to bring us all ‘closer together’ (the 1990’s).

And where did all that (often genuine) progression get us, now we’re at the starting block of a new Millennium?

Constrained/restrained at every turn by our conflicting beliefs, faith, social convention, war, fear of difference, censorship, political correctness, climate ignorance, dead-end Americanised youth culture gorging itself on violence and intimidation of innocents/the elderly, while the world’s Governments are obviously doing the same for the eternally deprived and the starved. You all know this, of course. Blah blah blah. I know. I’m a “Preachy Fucker”.

But its worth repeating it until your final breath.

The Ouroboros World.

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[original version 1/3]

[strawberry version 2/3]

[colour version 3/3]

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‘Studies of a Drunk’

‘Studies of a Drunk’ series. May 2007.
Part of the ‘Violence and Intimidation’ Manifesto node.

Here’s a few pieces of work I recently completed after I observed a somewhat intimidating anonymous drunkard whilst waiting for my bus home from town (I cannot drive a car). He was having a quick vertical doze before embarking on his own solemn journey away from the Godforsaken Frankenstein’s Monster (GFM) that is Kings Lynn.

Enjoy,

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‘Meat the Mutilators – Sponsored by T-Mobile’

‘Meat the Mutilators – Sponsored by T-Mobile’. Sometime in 2003.

The above is a montage of drawings I quickly did after having an idea (not since come to fruition) of a comic series entitled Meat the Mutilators. Now part of the ‘Violence & Intimidation’ Manifesto node.

The idea is this – I own copyright to this by the way, all you magpies out there; Each week, members of the Mutilator family (some named above) would hold a humorous conversation about current political events/showbiz gossip whilst slowly mutilating/disemboweling themselves in unique ways until they’re a gibbering lump of steaming meat by the last panel of the strip (the punchline panel).

But the Cubist-esque characters appear again fully formed each week for another endless, unfeeling bout of self-harm and uncensored witty conversation. My plans included a self-made cloud that constantly hovered over the head of the ‘Raper’ character each week, always with a different deadly weapon (inevitably dropping an axe/bag of starved rats/life-sized Combine Harvester onto him while he discusses the ethics behind Michael Barrymore’s existence, for example). My ideas were endless during their creation. Sadly, I haven’t done anything with that main idea since. One of those ’round-to-it’ ideas I never get to. Maybe they’ll re-surface again one day.

Or maybe not. Who knows?

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