'One cannot speak anymore of being, one must speak only of mess.' - Samuel Beckett

Saturday, April 30, 2005

The Un-Sento



The Un-Sento reduces clutter by de-atomizing (less dangerous than full matter compression) any array of household trinkets constipated by the sodden weight of full-on emotional attachment or sentimentalisation. The reduction process still has a lot to be desired. The 'Composite Of Sentimentality' is currently not the most appropriate sum of parts in any aesthetic sense though the reductive process is a success. We are considering geometric archetypes that can readily be absorbed into a domestic unconsciousness. Nevertheless, as an obstacle to the smooth introduction of these archetypes, trials are beginning to uncover a worrying trend; trial groups have asked for duck shapes, frogs and forms of an equestrian nature. The latter suggests that a successful application of the Un-Sento would be incomplete without a parallel course of counseling.

(Devised & drawn on the 4.45 to London Kings Cross via Stevenage.)

Friday, April 29, 2005

Dark-Ramps



A Dark-Ramp can be used with almost any container allowing darkness to exit from the top without discomfort.

Revelation



A method.

Positive retrieval



Small unit apparatus for the retrieval of positive feedback otherwise somehow off centre. Also for the posting of requests for the lost and stolen. Archaic, tribal manifestations of a similair technology might also be used for the dissemination of voodoo, however this particular incarnation of this particular route to positivity seeks to avoid becoming a channel for revenge or providing shortcuts for vigilantes. Of course like all things intended for good the direction of intent see-saws upon the delicate fulcrum of discretion. Enjoy!

Thursday, April 28, 2005

For purposes unknown



Powered by a plant. 2005

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

The Air-Truth analog modulator



The Modulator is a way to collect whatever residues of truth and insight there may be present in the air at just above average roof height. The collector at the top is placed into the chimney where the connecting base resonates through a Vent-residue of least resistence. The small and otherwise undetected airborne flights of insight and Breeze-truth that are found in small percentages at this height are caught in a filter at the back. The filter or Confessional-gauze must be cleaned of the inevitable build up of lies and deceit pollen once a week.

At the bottom of the chimney the flights of insight and Breeze-truth are filtered through small receptors called positive receivers. The next step is that these are made into sounds via a small analog synth. The amount of sound modulation, wave type and tempo are conditioned by the qualities of truth, insight and the level of bullshit. The sounds are never recorded but effect the atmosphere as one might be touched by the presence of another.

The Anger-Still



Design for an Anger-Still.

(Some technical aspects of this prototype have already been improved upon with regards to output at the Phoenix end of the still. Although logically one speaker would do, there are another seven electromagnetic diaphragms (speakers to you and me) encompassing sharps and flats.)

More later on all this when I have a little more time.



One more than four and one less than six. 2005 Graphite on hand made paper. 56x76cm



Instead of dying I fail to live, instead of killing I fail to love. 2005 Oil on handmade paper. 56x76cm



If we had five instead of four. 2005 A5 sketch

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Simple, not simple...

For all the things I cannot write. I cannot write.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

La Jolie Roussie

Be indulgent when you compare us
to those who were the perfection of order
We who look for adventure everywhere.

We're not your enemies,
we want to give you vast and strange domains
where mystery in flower spreads out for those who would pluck it.
Pity us who fight always at the boundaries
of infinity and the future,
pity our errors pity our sins.

From the book 'Calligrammes' by Guillaume Apollinaire 1930

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

The old stone poet.



The bust of the poet Rossi sits just outside the kitchen in my garden. My Grandfather spotted him alone and waiting for a reluctant bus somewhere outside of Brightlingsea, on the East Coast one day. He decided that a journey home in his Bentley would be preferable to whatever other fate may have awaited him.

I wore the undignified and atrophied leather hat that sits upon his head when I was in my late teens, it covered my skull of ubiquitous boho length hair and a poorly rendered sense of self-esteem.

Disembark

In the dust and swept up was the body of a little bird, a small Bluetit, as fragile as the dried leaves and dust in which it lay. It must have dropped dead from disease or just plain old age. The cat that once proudly governed this small enclave of English garden had died some months before so the little bird couldn't have fallen prey to that obvious predator. I went out to take a photograph of the little corpse so that I could see the beauty of it, see the dust in myself swept up against a corner with no right or wrong in it. But an urgency of clearage had beaten me to it and the little bird had gone, swept away. Where do all the lights go?

Tuesday, April 19, 2005



The shape of faces. 2004 oil on wood. 11x 13cm

Saturday, April 16, 2005



I sketched this in my studio whilst working on a painting yesterday. 2005 sketch on A5

Friday, April 15, 2005

A short exchange...

...between a small acrobat and a loosely clothed poor man both of whom stand inside a bun-shop just moments, a yard in fact from a house next door with only an old Victorian sealed drain conduit to give it character.

Man no.1
He fumbles in his pocket leaning against the illuminated glass counter for warmth and comfort.

"Excuse me, are you some kind of Acrobat? I ask not only to rudely assume from your tight fitting all over body suit, but to shed light on those powerful and calloused hands."

Man no.2
"Ah the hands, you noticed them. They're too big to hide I know. This outfit has no pockets to speak of and gives my occupation very little privacy."

Man no.1
"Ah, but why hide the marks of your graceful day job. You think that the Bakers get shy about flour in their hair?"

Man no.2
Looking at the ground and shifting from foot to foot.

"No, I suppose not, your quite right of course. But I didn't always want to be an Acrobat I wanted to be a Samaritan. Did you see that man outside with his trousers stuck in the grate?"

Man no.1
"You mean the speechless man with the wind in his hair? Yes I did he is called 'The Loob' and when the wind dies down he'll be able to pull free. I know him, it happens a lot, it's nothing to worry about really."

Man no.2
"Maybe we should give him some of our buns when we leave?"

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Of all People only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive. They converse with the past to enliven the present and teach those who live how to die.

Paraphrased from the words of Lucius Annaeus Seneca 4BC-AD65
www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Seneca.htm

I dream't about a man who, at the end of a great task, began to wrap the wings that he'd grown around him, coccooning him to sleep. He curls up inside a fridge to die.



Loathsome levitation. 2004 Sketchbook pencil drawing.

I just thought that I'd give this article of gloom a little air. I was about as low as I've ever been when I drew this. The logic to sharing an otherwise concealed page of darkness thins it out, makes it less opaque, lets in more light, brings a little sunshine in, a little more vitamin D.


Michelle. 2005 Oil on lazer jet


She and I. 2005 Graphite on paper

Monday, April 11, 2005


"It's just that I couldn't say it any other way!" 2005 Graphite on paper.


Was I just pretending? 2005. Graphite on paper.


The heavy bear that walks with me. 2005 148.5x148.5cm

"When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed."-Paul Klee


Verses for insects to rehearse. 2005 148.5x148.5cm


Sketch for 'Verses for insects to rehearse'.

Friday, April 08, 2005


In Silence. 2004 Mixed media on lazer jet print

You just...

Painting? What's that? I'm ticking 'to do's' off little lists in my little diary so that I can sleep. These are not great things I have to tell you. At this stage in my life whilst so many, many of my dutiful peers are buying and selling houses and companies, bringing up children and getting divorced I have a chair to sell at Bonhams, a bunch of books to bring to Amnesty International and an estate agent to call about blagging free exhibition space, see the doctor and look in on my grandmother who's lost the use of her right hand. I should be grateful, I am, I don't know what I'm complaining about but I'm a little fragile at the moment, trying to keep myself on the straight and narrow, being a bore! I took the heavy pile of these beautiful old seventies architectural design periodicals to Amnesty and they wouldn't take them! This spotty college kid addamently declined my offer of charity and frankly I felt a little offended. I walked out saying "God guys! I'm offering you a chance to make some more money and your turning it down!" Afterwards I regretted using the cringing word 'guys' like some spoilt child, an uncomfortable vernacular from an earlier self, a childish self, sulking me, turned away from his act of unrewarded generosity and of course the underlying fact that I had to carry the damn things home again.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005


"If words...and you understood." 2005 Graphite on paper.

"Each day art further diminishes its self-respect by bowing down before external reality." - Baudelaire

This beast I carry.

I can't scream out. I can probably make a sound that would alert people to my discomfort but I don't want anymore exposure than I'm already getting, the kind of attention that prefers ignorance as a response. The creature on my back sticks to me as a limpet to a rock, chaffing my skin and grinding into my being like sleeping always under wet sheets. This dark soundless weight stuffs its fist down my throat, seeding me with numbing junk of a sweet sham kind. When the fist is free from my bruised gullet it makes itself scarce and I am free again as I had always been and this bile rides up and out making shapes that form an image of myself that I cannot recognise on the ground about me and are greeted as I. I am just a shunned and dumb surragate, there for nothing but to provide metabolism and carriage.