Going to Liverpool!

Tomorrow I am off to Liverpool for a conference called When Vision Explores Art. It is part of the Festival of Science in the European Capital of Culture. It is hosted by a group I am a member of called the Colour Group of Great Britain. It will be an all day meeting in the Victoria Gallery & Museum at the University of Liverpool. I have been looking forward to this since May.

As they say "This event will bring together scientists who study visual perception and artists. It explores how visual art can help us to understand cognitive mechanisms of vision and how the brain works. E.g. why do Bridget Riley’s paintings make your eyes go funny? We will try to provide answers to such questions based on our knowledge of how the human visual system works."

I am very excited. As it starts early I will be going up from London the day before. This means I can go pick up some of my work from View Two Gallery and go see art at the Walker Gallery!

BABE

The Bristol Artists’ Book Event.
Save the date. Come to Bristol on April 4th and 5th, 2009 to see 50 stands of fantastic artists’ books! The The Arnolfini gallery is a great location. I am very excited! I have really been looking forward to going again! I signed up today!

I am working on three big book projects so I will have new books to show. Come by and say hello.

Summer Ghosts

This Cathy Cullis artists' book Summer Ghosts looks interesting.

Steve Lambert and Keri Smith

In Keri Smith's book The Guerilla Art Kit there is a page called Steve Lambert's Superhero Exercise. It is a simple idea that helps you focus on what message you want your art to carry out into the world. It also caused me to go find Steve's website! Yay!

Recycled books for journals

These look really well made at: Tyler Bender Books

The Daily Palette

This is nice: The Daily Palette

Over four years of daily posts highlighting an artist or writer.

Cassy Sachar

I really like the artists' book TLG Notebook by Cassy Sachar.
Go here to see it.

It looks like she is having an exhibition here in London at The Reading Room, 21 Crooked Usage, Finchley, London N3 3HD
A small exhibition of bookworks by binder and artist Cassy Sachar
Dates: Sun 7 Sept 11am to 7pm and Monday 8 Sept to Wed 10 Sept 2pm to 8pm
www.cassysachar.com

A Touch of Red

This is one of the photos I have entered in an exhibition in Bristol entitled 'Colour and Landscape'. Hosted by CREATE - Colour Research for European Advanced Technology Employment

13th -23rd October 2008 at the Bower Ashton Gallery, F Gallery, School of Creative Arts, Bower Ashton Campus, UWE, on Kennel Lodge Road in Bristol, United Kingdom.
Private View: Monday, October 13, 2008 Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Please click image for a larger version.

The Incredible Shrinking Studio

I took these shots of my studio sometime in the last year.

Since then it has only gotten worse.

Garageland magazine

Garageland is a fantastic London art magazine put out by Transition Gallery . I am a subscriber and have every issue. (I even have 2 of issue 6 because I wrote down the wrong issue when renewing my subscription...) It takes hours to read one because they are really full and I want to read everything. "Conceived, written and illustrated by artists" it is by turns funny, clever, irreverent, and mysterious.

Postcard drawing

This is the tiny drawing that is in the corner of the postcards in my two sets, where the stamp will go. (You can see it in the set picture below.) It is by H Locke.

It shows someone reading a book and waiting lovingly and patiently while the artist works on the computer.

We make books, however you define that, and people are waiting to see them and hoping we keep making them.

Now available at the i-Candy Gallery shop in Hastings

My most popular artists' book works are these two postcard sets, Have a Nice Day and Compliments Slips.
They are now available at the i-Candy Gallery shop in Hastings.
Their web site is: iCandy Arts

Bookmarks collection

I have been working on a series of bookmarks that are about the relationship between the bookmark and the reader. There are 20 so far. Here are three. Click image for larger view.

My hands are my palette

I often use my hands as a palette when painting with acrylics. Here is an example at the CREATE Conference in France in February.
The image is from the CREATE website.

Certain Trees Book exhibit

Certain Trees: the Constructed Book, Poem and Object, 1964-2008

I went to see this show yesterday at the V&A.
If only they weren't in cases and you could handle them!
But many are one page cards and objects so you see a lot from just spending time examining the cases. If you like concrete poetry, puns and word twists, or the history of artists' books and small presses you will find this exhibition interesting.

Cy Twombly's Autunno

Cy Twombly's Autunno
I saw this painting yesterday at the Tate Modern and I love it.

New Painting

Butterfly Lung
June 2008, oil and acrylic on canvas, 150 x 120cm.

Caves Paintings

In addition to my investigation into colour I make figurative paintings that are concerned with communicating the way I see the world around me. Caves' paintings.

I love colour

I paint because I am fascinated by colour, both visually and conceptually. My work usually involves creating an interior or exterior space. Viewers often feel that they are seeing something vast but on a magnified level, like a universe inside a drop of water. The excitement of luminous colour and the rich variety of texture possible with paint overwhelm me with their beauty.
I want to see my ideas manifest. It is experimentation born of curiosity. My colour combinations move in a come-hither dance of attraction and repulsion, the romantic give and take of a relationship.

Love is for the Lucky and the Brave
2006, oil and acrylic on canvas,100x110x4cm

Twilight.

These paintings are some of the new work I showed at the Open Studios last weekend. It is unusual for me to make such small work. I had to make my space smaller. I found that to be able to keep my movements small and focus so close up I had to sit on the floor with the soles of my feet together and paint in my lap and on the floor. Because it was warm and I was in shorts this meant my legs were covered in paint everyday!

They are all oil and acrylic on linen, 30x40cm, made this April and May. I have titled the series Twilight because they are all based on the idea of creating light by darkening the rest of the picture. So I wanted a title that included the idea of darkness.

Click on the image for a larger view.