Late on Wednesday night I began drawing shapes with ink. I had an idea of what I wanted to try on a big canvas and yesterday I just went for it.
I looked at it this morning and it looks ok -ish.I am never sure how these things will work out. The sculptures on the table are shapes that hopped out of the paintings. I see one of them as a long 3D paint drip.
I found this book 25 years ago on the floor of a train going from Dublin to Limerick. I love the cigarette burn and old ticket from London to Southampton used as a bookmark. The author was born in Paris in 1918 and was the youngest son of René Gimpel, the well-known art dealer from that time. He had an exciting life and having read his book, I get the feeling he would rather be in a car crash than share a meal with an artist. If he had …
There is so much magic in this short video of Giacometti working in his famously dirty studio.
Most of the iconic photos I have seen of him have a greyness about them. He is like a mystical hairy creature living in a world of grey dust, smoke and raindrops. I saw…
Got up early, met some cool trees and my favourite unicorn on a toilet door. Passed two floating boxes and some exploding buildings. Bumped into some geometric lines that were hanging out with cool greys and greens. Stumbled on a place that was delicate since the 1800s. Saw a human who has seen many things. Cracked open a …
“Your physical universe is your guru” is a line from a slightly naff Kung Fu movie I remember from back in the day. But I think it’s true. I am open to what’s on offer around me. Imprints on walls that have been improved and forgotten about or vertical shapes in industrial compositions. They are like low sensory vibrations pulling my eye. Some are in urban areas ...
I’ve been painting a contemporary landscape in my head for a long time. The idea first appeared about five years ago while working on the tiny plot of organic vegetables at the back my house. I was just putting in my rocket salads when along came this guy with a giant mechanical machine spraying chemicals on the field surrounding us. Until recently this had been a meadow with a very diverse ecosystem. I liked the wildness of...
Sometimes things remind me of other things out of context. The steel surface of this bin in Berlin reminds me of tree bark. One of my favourite...
He describes Giacometti's' mood swings, his silence, his laughter and joking and how he "demolished with joy” the portrait at different stages only to begin again the next day. It's an in-depth record of what it was like to sit for Giacometti. There was a great line in it when Giacometti says to his irate sitter: ''The best way to obtain success is to run away from it. I was looking for old footage of...
"A grey that lives in the shadow of green" is how I would describe this colour I made by accident two nights ago. It's like a wet plaster colour. I think it came from looking at frescos in Florence and Arezzo recently. I have since learnt that there are two schools of thought when it comes to restoring frescoes. Years ago they would have tried to repair any damage in...
A few days ago I went to see Masaccio’s frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. I have been painting a lot more than I thought I would since coming to Italy and usually if I get into a run I tend not to venture too far from the studio in case I fall out of the work groove. I'm only writing this now because I'm a bit lost today and don't know what to do with myself so I guess it’s a good time to jot down...
I was trying to post a parcel in Mysore (no mean feat to do this in India as it turned out) and there it was, this wall outside the post office. I love everything about it. The 70s concretness, its scale and the coloured shapes. It was kind of...
I found this image in a German art magazine and was captured by the movement in it. The narrative is about a saint on a journey. Sitting here in the studio, a year into the pandemic, I realise that the idea of travelling has become so alien to me. Ironic, considering that Christopher is the patron saint of travellers. I made a promise to myself to go and find this Patinir painting in the flesh when all this Covid is over. What’s happening in the painting is just as interesting. Patinir’s treatment of the …