WIRED

In various conversations this piece has become known as Wired Thomas. It was never concieved as a portrait of a living person, and never really intended as a deliberate artwork, but that doesn't preclude it from being a slaeable, genuine art commodity. From it's completion I have been very satisfied with it's simplicity, and it's a shame to see it go. It has inspired a new series however, more of the simple visual floating expressions that depict little moments of everyday and not so everyday. I think I will call the series Nick Hersey's Brown Jumpers, though none of them have v-necks in.

happiness

Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary that he was "As happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!". I, like Pepys, am Lucky.


Not always, yet not infrequently. 'Musn't grumble' would probably nail it. 

The Message

All too often I find myself ranting, spitting and fussing at various expressions of modern media and society- balking at Television's gaping maw, whingeing at the Saturday supplement in the newspaper. My wife's fatigue at my cynicism, and my own realisation that I am a grumpy old man, have eventually galvanised my resolve to do something about it, turning my views into creative expression.

The T Shirt has become occupies a strange position in contemporary culture, in that it has forged a place for itself among the wardrobes of the masses, with the accepted faculty of some message or graphic being intrinsic to its being. People who would never normally choose to express themselves, or a view or opinion, seem happy to convey a particular message or aesthetic choice through the adornment of a t shirt. Here I speak generally about the type which has some kind of printing on it, be it a logo, image or text. Very few t shirts (in the wider scheme of t shirt production) are actually sold without any such embellisment, those that are are vehicles of expression through overall colour choice.

Graphics, text and slogan have become an accepted aesthetic choice through the t shirt. DC comic characters are celebrated, then re-pastiched for mass market bands, then re-adopted by cutting edge fashionista's to ironically subvert the message. The given trend in graphic visual communication does not spend long in the pages of Eye or Wallpaper before being squeezed through the meatgrinder of mulitnational consumer powerhouses such as ASDA or Topshop. Buyers now are sifting through design blogs and hanging out at Threadless, reducing the gap between Purple Cow and Mainstream Fodder to almost nothing. In the words of Dash Parr, "Another way of saying evryone is special- Nobody is special". Trendy is a redundant term in modern society.

However, the position of the T Shirt as vociferous statement or political intent has not entirely disappeared. It is porbably just the case that you'll buy it from Matalan instead of some dingy stall at Kensington Market or Posh Unit in the Kings Road. By choosing this medium to air my ill tempered outbursts, I am not trying to be ironic or subversive (obviously, as the designs achieve neither) but instead capitalise on a mainstream medium to dilute any pompous or high brow intention. They're just T shirts- all post-philospohising can be bolted on later when they appear in Dazed :)

More T Shirts

T Shirt Project

More info here soon...

If you go down to the woods today

One of the defining factors in the decision to return to the UK was the possibility that the family might enjoy some of the rural charms that English life may have to offer. A 10 minute walk from our house is this beautiful woodland. Couple that with some autumnal early afternoon sunshine, and you have the recipe for poor amateur photography, a sense of tremendous well being and a belief in some kind of higher consciousness...

Couple Trouble

More random gouache-ness. There is a definite and consciencious intention in these simple works. They are intended as conceptual pieces- I have been tempted (but avoided) including graphic or text to support and enhance the image as an illustration would- they probably say more as slightly more ambiguous statements in their own right. Ultimately it might be nice to set them in resin blocks, or hang them from the washing line and watch them decay... but I think Clarke deserves better than that, the old smoothee!

double trouble

Best of the Worst...

As previously mentioned, the Frieze was a mixed bag indeed... however some elements did manage to shine, among the manure.

These typographic pieces were quite fun- the lazer cut aluminium here was notable much more for the medium and technique than for the message itself- marshal mcluhan would have been impressed more than I.

 The message here, however, engaged me a little more. Set in front of Broadway style lightbulbs set in a rough grid, the rusted type was an aesthetic object as well as metaphysical prospect. Quite fun, and has that essential humorour element why I so often crave...

Illustration- pure and simple... elevated to status of high art- quite common apparently now days, the artists seem to be hijacking the base methods which illustrators have been peddling for years. Whether this is done with an ironic twist (yawn) or genuine flattery in mimickery I know not and care less. Looked ok to me though.

More illustration as Art. Chuckle, yawn... Next!

 Now here's something else that tickled... a kind of Takahashi meets Man Ray, and such a proposition was encountered a few times that afternoon. Not entirely bad, though.

I think I only liked this because it reminded me of a double chair drawing I had done years ago. Again though, I feel the gimmicky strip/serial number at the bottom is something I would do, and I come here to have my eyes opened in awe and inspiration, not to think 'I would have done that'. Next!

 Nuff said...

One of my favourites, this. Does exactly what it says on the tin- but what does say on that tin, eh?

These too- concise, direct, funny, simple- 10 out of 10.

This was OK, a touchof Max Ernst, a smidge of Man Ray or someone, or was it just crap graffiti? Not sure

Fresh Romantics...

Feeling the romanticism love, after a trip to the Tate Britain... some beautiful examples of personal fave Sam Palmer,  great examples of JMW "can't do faces" Turner, Henry "eccentric" Fuseli at his shakespearean best... and my wife's favourite picture, ever: Death of Chatterton. She's such an old romantic!

The image shows a large Chestnut tree near my Dads house, on a kentish Autumnal afternoon.