Man and his sandwich.

Sitting in the Tube I watched transfixed as a man tore open the packaging containing some rather unexciting sandwiches. His gaze was unfocused. His face, lined by age bore no signs of emotion. He was absorbed in his own world,totally disconnected from his fellow passengers.The actions of his hands were extraordinarily slow, almost ritualistic. The movement one of resignation but also of pleasure, a savouring of the moment.
I am not sure exactly what it was about him that made me feel so profoundly moved.Perhaps he made me reflect about lost and squandered time. Or maybe I just felt excluded from his inner world and sensed again my own isolation.

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...or maybe I just fancied a sandwich!

The Emperors new clothes

It maybe the smarting of recent rejections from various 'opens'/artists opportunities that has made me rather critical of the showing of Yoko Ono's work at The Serpentine, London.
A few weeks ago I  went to The Serpentine  anticipating something special. It was however with a sense of bewildered disappointment that I left some three quarters of an hour later.
The show is made up of various installations, videos and poems both old and new. Cut Piece (1964) remains a powerful video work of some depth confirmed by the shocked and absorbed expressions of those watching. Ono's latest work, including the interactive #smilesfilm and Wish Tree are in my opinion dated, wishy washy, and vacuously sentimental.
The little brochure produced by The Serpentine claims that, 'Ono has influenced generations of artists..' and that 'she is a pioneer of conceptual art...' mmmm that maybe so, who am I to comment?What I must  question though is why yet again we have to be fooled by the Emperor's new clothes?
Anyway best to see for yourself and add your smile to create the 'global string of smiles covering the planet' ( Yoko Ono To The Light Serpentine Gallery Brochure 2012 ) ...I think mine is just a grimace!

Poem

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The following poem was written by Ian Buckley in response to seeing my work at Salthouse Gallery in May.

Cradles of thread

net stitch, bag stitch

grids, pockets, matrices –

step down to

the moving spawn

seeds ready to solve

their own codes;

things becoming, before

light finds them and hides them.

Intensity of eye

to wait on the substance,

watch how radiance begins

between fibres

and listen

' Your work is deeply unfashionable but it is pure poetry...' MA Tutor Norwich School of Art 2010.

Instacrit Show RCA 2012

‘To grow small by degrees, and beautifully less’  Everyman’s Thesaurus Revised Edition 1971.

A trip to London this week gave me a chance to see some of the final year shows at the RCA and with that an invitation to contribute to Instacrit, ‘ a live commentary on Show RCA 2012′.  Visitor’s were invited to email a concise description in 20 to 70 words of any work in the show. I had already picked out Charlotte Brown’s beautifully spare work and so I sent in the following:

‘White, black; soft, hard; light, heavy; open, shut; translucent, opaque; silk, wool; paper, lead; caressed, pressed; hand, machine. Inheritance: less gives so much more.’

Charlotte Brown’s Blog

As always I was drawn to that same pared down, stripped back quality that I search for constantly in my own drawing and writing.

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