christophermadden

  • Mirror sculpture

    contemporary art mirror reflections circles

    Mirror art. Interlinked rings.

    Mirror, card, acrylic. 30x30x18cm Feb 2024

    A sculpture composed of a mirror with a sculptural form made of card and paper attached to its surface. The card and paper are painted with acrylic paint.

    The interlinking of, and interplay between, the horizontal and vertical forms in the sculpture are significant features of the piece.

    contemporary art mirror sculpture reflections

    The upright sculptural forms are held in place on the mirror by magnets attached to the back of the mirror. The magnets attract small pieces of steel tape that are embedded in the card of the sculpture. This ensures that the sculpture can be held invisibly on the mirror, with no obvious means of attachment such as fasteners or glue.

    The mirror in this piece is a standard rear-coated mirror, so there is a separation between the objects on the mirror and their reflections. Some of the pieces on the mirror are painted a different colour on the side that is facing the mirror so that the underside adds an extra element to the composition. In other works where I don’t want a separation between the objects and their reflections I use front-coated mirrors.

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  • Anthropomorphic Sculpture from Tools

    contemporary sculpture from found objects

    Anthropomorphic Sculpture from Tools

    Steel pliers, magnet. 8x3x18cm February 2024

    A sculpture composed of a pair of large pliers and a pair of small pliers. I suppose it fits into the category of sculpture made with found objects or sculptures made of scrap. The pliers are held together by a magnet, although they do actually balance without it, if a bit precariously. The resulting figure resembles a person with arms held high and with horns. Maybe a demon. The figure actually reminds me of a bodybuilder: the stocky torso and muscular legs, not to mention the pose.

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  • Mirror art – Squaring the Circle

    contemporary mirror art reflections

    Mirror art. Squaring the Circle

    Mirror, card, paper, acrylic. 28x28x18cm Feb 2024

    A mirror piece consisting of a semicircle of card half of which passes inside a box-like construction. The semicircle and box are resting on a mirror so that the semicircle appears to be part of a full circle that enters and exits the box.

    contemporary art mirror sculpture reflections

    The reflection of the box makes the box appear to be half of a square structure, with the circle entering and leaving the interior of the square via its openings where the square is cut. This gives rise to the title of the piece, Squaring the Circle.

    contemporary art mirror sculpture reflections

    The mirror is a front-coated (or first-coated) mirror. Unlike standard mirrors that have their reflective coating on the rear surface of the glass front-coated mirrors have the reflective surface on the front. With a standard mirror the thickness of the glass creates a gap or space between the object on the glass and the reflection, while with a front-coated mirror the object and the reflection are ‘touching’.

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  • Watercolour pencil art – Organic Matrix

    contemporary art works on paper Organic Matrix

    Watercolour pencil art – Organic Matrix

    Watercolour pencil on paper. 20 x 29cm January 2024

    A painting, created with watercolour pencils, depicting a network or matrix of organic forms linked by tube-like structures.

    The work is from the imagination (as you can see), and although it wasn’t created with any particular meaning in mind it probably alludes to the connectedness of life, with the blobby entities being connected to each other by the tube-like structures. I’m not sure whether the blobs are meant to look like slightly unsettling organisms or wonky potatoes. Probably both. The work may allude in some way to the nature of consciousness or intelligence, with the entities possibly communicating with each other like cells in a brain.

    A work on paper created using Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle watercolour pencils, which have a very high pigment content.

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  • Lunging Figure – gouache on paper

    contemporary art works on paper lunging figure

    Lunging figure

    Gouache on paper. 350 x 250mm November 2018

    A gouache work on paper featuring a lunging figure.

    The work is from the imagination and was created as part of a series of relatively spontaneous, unmediated artworks.

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  • Black spheres, red sphere

    contemporary abstract art black spheres red sphere

    Black spheres, red sphere

    Digital. December 2023

    An abstract image created using Procreate on an iPad

    The black spheroid forms seem to be holding the smaller red spherical form in suspension between them. The proximity of the black spheres gives the small gap between them the feeling of some form of concentrated energy.

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  • Mirror art – Flite

    contemporary art mirrors reflections

    Mirror art. Flite.

    Mirror, card, acrylic. 28x28x18cm Feb 2024

    A wall mounted mirror piece.

    A wall mounted sculpture composed of a mirror with a sculptural form made of card attached to its surface. The card is painted with acrylic paint.

    contemporary art mirror sculpture reflections

    The sculptural form is held in place on the mirror by a magnet attached to the back of the mirror. The magnet attracts a small piece of steel tape that is embedded in the card of the sculpture. This ensures that the sculpture can be held invisibly on the mirror, with no obvious means of attachment such as bolts or glue.

    The mirror is a front-coated (or first-coated) mirror. Unlike standard mirrors that have their reflective coating on the rear surface of the glass front-coated mirrors have the reflective surface on the front. If a standard mirror had been used the thickness of the glass would have created a gap or space between the object on the glass and its reflection, while with a front-coated mirror the object and the reflection are ‘touching’.

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  • Proposal for environmental contemporary art: Tree of Life

    contemporary art environment tree of life

    Environmental contemporary art proposal: Tree of Life

    Proposal for a mural. Image drawn: 2008

    A proposal for a mural on a gallery wall based on a drawing of the Tree of Life that I created in 2008 as a pen and ink drawing.

    The concept reflects my interest in environmental issues. I drew my first environmental images in the early 1970s.

    The concept behind the image is that the Tree of Life, or perhaps more specifically the Tree of Evolution, has at the top of its highest branch a human being, signifying that within this concept the human being is the highest or most evolved form of life on the planet.

    The concept is twisted however by the fact that in the image the human being, due to his elevated vantage point, can destroy the rest of life on earth as a direct result of his evolutionary position, with his highly evolved intelligence making him capable of designing and manufacturing guns). The Tree of Life becomes the Tree of Death.

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  • Art from everyday objects

    contemporary art from everyday objects

    Prestige

    Prestige steel baking tray on front of glazed picture frame 46x60cm 2008

    A work created from a mundane everyday object – a kitchen baking tray – mounted on the exterior of a glazed picture frame.

    One of the motivations behind the work was to show the beauty and rich visual interest intrinsic in mundane objects from mundane environments.

    Below is a detail of the intricate patterns and patina on the steel surface of the baking tray. The word ‘Prestige’ it the centre is an important feature.

    contemporary art from everyday objects

    I’ve been interested in the concept of finding beauty in the mundane ever since I admired the colours in the film of detergent on a wire mess kitchen utensil (maybe a cake stand) as it caught the sun. That was in my parents’ kitchen about sixty years ago.

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  • Kitchen sink art

    contemporary art kitchen sink tea pot

    Kitchen sink art: Tea pot in washing up bowl

    Photograph. 2023

    A photograph showing the rim of a tea pot protruding from the detergent bubbles in a washing up bowl in a kitchen sink.

    The photograph is a good example of finding aesthetic interest in the everyday and the mundane. What can be more everyday and mundane than the washing up?.

    The first time that I remember noticing such a phenomenon was a specific occasion when I was a child in the early 1960s and I was fascinated by the colours in the soap films that were filling the gaps in the mesh of a cake stand (or similar kitchen item). I specifically remember thinking about the phenomenon of the beauty of the soap films in the setting of the drab environment of the kitchen.

    I’ve called this type of work Kitchen Sink Art in homage to the kitchen sink drama of the 1960s.

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  • Contemporary abstract art – Red Disc, Yellow Rim

    contemporary abstract geometric art red circle

    Contemporary abstract geometric art: Red disk, yellow rim

    Digital. May 2023

    A geometric abstract painting produced using Procreate on an iPad with an Apple Pencil. This is a particularly useful way to create artwork, as the combination of tools lend themselves to particularly intuitive and spontaneous creations.

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  • Mirror art – waving fingers

    Mirror art. Study for waving fingers.

    Mirrors, cloth, person.      61 seconds. Nov 2023

    A study for a work involving a triangular mirror box with an opening in one corner through which a person’s fingers are intruding. You may notice that the reflections of some of the fingers are noticeably blurred. This is because this study is using standard commercial mirror tiles which, like most mirrors, produce a reflection from the front surface of the glass as well as from the mirrored rear surface. Front coated mirrors or similar would avoid this problem, but they are too expensive for use in development studies.

    The multiple reflections within the mirror box create a ring of fingers that look like a sea anemone or a strange and unsettling alien lifeform.

    contemporary art mirror reflections of fingers

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  • Bell

    contemporary art sketch hanging man bell

    Hanging man. For whom the bell tolls

    Digital sketch December 2023

    A sketch created using Procreate on an iPad.

    The sketch shows a bell. Inside the bell, in the place where the clapper should be, is a hanging man.

    The image came to me spontaneously while I was looking at a (much smaller) bell. I think that part of the idea may be that the bell marks out time, announcing the hours,and therefore marks out life.

    Bells are also tolled to mark out death.

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  • Flight mobile sculpture – hands as wings

    contemporary art fight mobile

    Flight.

    Wood, plastic. June 2022. Solo exhibition, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall.

    A mobile sculpture consisting of wooden spheres with plastic hands that form wings.

    Hands are a recurrent theme in my work, as is flight. I’ve created several works that feature hands as wings, usually in the form of sketches and other drawings.

    Using hands as wings is actually far from being far-fetched. The wings of birds and bats both evolved from hands (which is why birds and bats don’t have hands – it’s a choice of one or the other. Angels and fairies have both, but they are made up and are anatomically incorrect). Insect wings evolved along a different route, possibly from heat-gathering flaps or panels (insects being very dependant on the heat of the sun).

    The symbolism of flight is linked closely with the concept of freedom. This link can be overstated, I think, especially when we project it onto the natural world. We envy the flight of birds, but birds don’t fly because they are free. Small birds that in theory can fly wherever they please often tend to spend their whole lives in a single place such as an individual tree. Some of them may migrate thousands of miles to reach their chosen tree, but they’ve possibly travelled there from another individual tree in a different part of the world. On top of this, on isolated islands that have no predators birds frequently lose the power of flight, so flying obviously isn’t one of their primary concerns.

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  • Expansion II

    Expansion II

    Digital animation.    2023

    A digital animation composed of layers of expanding and radiating forms.

    This work is from a series that explores the generation of complexity from simplicity by the interaction of simple forms to create complex forms.

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  • Architecture as abstract art

    architecture as abstract art

    Architecture as abstract art.

    Photograph. 1st December 2023.

    A cropped photograph creating an image that is quite hard to interpret due to the lack of context or visual cues.

    The railings help once you’ve realised what they are. It’s a photograph of the steps at Alexandra Palace railway station, London. Due to the cropping of the photograph the steps lose their significance as steps and only the parallel nature of the lines of the steps becomes significant, creating an abstract pattern.

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  • Light art

    light art

    Light art.

    Light box, card, paper. 480x360mm. November 2023.

    Light art in the form of a light panel with a collage of cut paper and card.

    The illuminated triangular centre of the work is framed by black card with a triangular aperture at its centre. The curved and circular geometric shapes are formed of cut pieces of card or paper. Some of the pieces are cut so that they are not quite perfectly regular. This hopefully gives the work a degree of added dynamism.

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  • Mirror Box Creating Infinite Reflections

    contemporary art mirror reflections

    Contemporary mirror art. Multiple reflections inside mirror box

    Mirrors, paper, card.     2023.

    Three mirrors joined to create a triangular box or prism, with the mirror surfaces facing inwards. On the inside bass of the box a number of semicircular pieces of card and paper are arranged so that their reflections create the appearance of complete rings.

    contemporary art infinity mirror reflections

    Each of the mirrors reflects the other mirrors (and the reflections in the mirrors). The reflections in the mirrors include the reflections of reflections. This would result in an infinite number of reflections if the mirrors were perfectly reflective (and were optically perfect in other ways too), however there is a loss of light with each reflection so the reflections gradually become dimmer and darker.

    Below is a video of the sculpture. Because of the nature of the multiple reflections in the mirrors it’s particularly important to see the sculpture from different angles.

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    I’ve been interested in mirrors and reflections for most of my adult life. While I was still at school in the late 1960s I ground an eight and a half inch (215mm) parabolic mirror for an astronomical telescope that I constructed. I used the mirror in this early artistic experiment. My first conscious encounter with infinite mirrors was a few years later when I was in a lift (elevator) while at university studying maths and physics. The lift had mirror panels on its walls.

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  • Environmental art – smoking globe

    contemporary environmental art – earth on fire

    Global warming art – Smoking Globe

    Digital print. November 2023.

    A smoking globe. Planet Earth suffering the consequences of climate change or global warming.

    The globe in the image is resting on the ground rather than floating in space. It may be a giant sculpture of the earth smouldering as a result of climate change. It also has the appearance of being some sort of crashed or abandoned man-made structure, as though the earth is an artificial artefact, which in many ways it is, and that this is the reason for its stricken state.

    The globe is resting on the ground in a very large field. In the background is a row of trees. These trees give a hint towards the existence of nature and the natural world, however on a second look it may be noticed that the trees themselves are in a perfectly straight line and are all the same age and species – they are in fact part of a completely man-made landscape.

    This is one of my many works dealing with environmental issues such as climate change and global warming.

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  • Leaping Stagman

    contemporary art print leaping stagman

    Leaping Stagman

    Digital print. 30cm x 21cm 2023.

    This work was exhibited in Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery over the summer of 2023.

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  • Contemporary mirror art

    contemporary art mirror reflections

    Contemporary mirror art. Multiple reflections creating complete rings

    Mirrors, wood, card, acrylic.     2023.

    Two mirrors joined along their bottom horizontal edges are held at an angle to each other. Placed between the mirrors are three painted card sections of circles. Multiple reflections of the sections of card around the axis of the joined mirrors produce full circles. There are six reflections (or multiple reflections) in the mirrors, creating a full circle composed of seven sections.

    contemporary art mirror reflections

    A second component of coloured card is lying flat on the surface beside the mirror structure. The shape and colour of this second construction add another dimension to the assemblage as a whole. The fact that this part of the piece is in two colours and that it forms only part of a ring add to the resonance of the structure.

    contemporary art mirror reflections

    Below is a video of the sculpture. Because of the nature of the multiple reflections in the mirrors it’s particularly important to see the sculpture from different angles.

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  • Environmental art – black flower sketch

    contemporary environmental art – acrylic and watercolour black flower

    Environmental art. Black flower sketch.

    Acrylic and watercolour on paper. 2023.

    An acrylic and watercolour painting of a black flower.
    This painting is an example of my work relating to environmental issues, a subject with which I’ve been involved since the late 1960s. In this painting the flower’s petals are black, the flower’s stem is black, and the grass is black. The flower’s petals are shrivelled and misshapen and the stem is crooked. It’s an image of foreboding.
    In contrast to all this blackness the centre of the flower is reflective gold. But it’s a dull gold, which may act to reinforce the bleakness of the black rather than creating a glimmer of brightness. It’s ambiguous.
    The gold centre to the flower and the spiky petals give a hint of a dying sun or star, with the accompanying implications for life on earth (such as the flower). It’s a dying sunflower.

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  • Conic construction in a landscape

    contemporary art watercolour painting

    Conic construction in a landscape

    Watercolour and gouache with digital additions.      2023.

    A watercolour and gouache painting of a cone in a landscape, with additional features added digitally.
    The original watercolour painting was scanned to create a digital file to which additional features were then added in Adobe Photoshop. The digital additions were created as spontaneously as possible, without too much conscious consideration. The results are similar to other works that I have produced using the same process, but I suppose that’s only to be expected. Next time I’ll consciously try to do something different.
    The image partly resembles a creature of some sort, maybe with a beak and what may be an eye. If the white blob that may be an eye had a dot inside it, it would obviously be an eye, but it would lose some of its slightly sinister mystery.
    Maybe it’s not an eye at all. Maybe it’s a hole in the top of a wigwam. Those straight lines protruding from the top of the cone look a bit wigwamy now I come to look at them.

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  • Environmental art – Earth in a Builder’s Skip II

    Environmental art. The Earth in a builder’s skip

    Video (1min 1sec). November 2023

    A video camera moves towards a builder’s skip and travels through a hole in the tarpaulin that covers the skip to reveal the contents of the skip.

    The contents are seen to be a view of outer space with planet Earth suspended or floating in it. The builder’s skip may be thought of as a portal to another dimension.

    A meaning of the artwork is that the Earth has been reduced to the rubble and rubbish that is disposed of in builder’s skips or dumpsters, which are primarily designed to hold the debris and waste from construction projects and demolition projects. The work is a critique of our disposable consumer society and the environmental crisis that we are currently living through. In the area of London in which I live there are frequently builder’s skips positioned on the road in front of houses as the owners rip out perfectly good kitchens and replace them with new kitchens. It’s happening just a few doors away right now.

    contemporary environmental art - planet earth in a builder's skip
    A video still from the Earth in a Builder’s Skip video.

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  • Photography as abstract art

    contemporary art photography as abstract art - window

    Photography as abstract art.

    Photograph. May 2020. Zennor, Cornwall.

    A photograph as abstract art.

    I took this photograph because when I looked at the object in the photo in real life I was surprised how much it was transformed by a particular quality of light so that it resembled an abstract artwork.

    It’s a photograph of a window in my house.

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  • Drawing from the imagination: Strange clothes, strange propulsion

    Drawing from the imagination

    Drawing from the imagination: Strange clothes, strange propulsion

    Digital sketch. 16th July 2023

    A quick sketch from the imagination drawn using Procreate on an iPad with an Apple Pencil.

    I find that drawing quick sketches with no particular end in mind is an excellent way to open up to new possibilities. Obviously the same themes and styles keep cropping up, but often with minor variations that move the sketches off into different and new directions. That’s the nature of evolution of course – small changes over time gradually end up creating something new.

    I’ve drawn quite a few sketches of people or strange creatures that seem to have a wheel instead of legs. Haven’t managed to work out why yet.

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  • Contemporary mirror art – Yellow Ring

    Contemporary art, mirror art.    Yellow Ring

    Mirrors, wood, card, acrylic      2023

    A sculpture exploring reflections in mirrors. The sculpture is composed of two mirrors set at angles to each other so that they show the reflections of each other and thus show multiple reflections of objects reflected in them.

    Resting on the mirrors is a curved length of yellow card that forms a quarter of the circumference of a circle. Multiple reflections in the mirrors turn the quarter of a circle into a complete circle.

    Contemporary art mirrors multiple reflections

    From some viewpoints only part of the circle can be seen, giving the effect that the circle is somehow partly disappearing – a form of optical illusion created because the brain can’t interpret what it is seeing properly.

    Contemporary art mirrors multiple reflections

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  • Snail

    Contemporary art print - snail

    Contemporary art print. Snail

    Digital photograph. June 2018.

    A contemporary art print of an old snail shell on the top of a cylindrical marble plinth. The snail shell has lost all of its colour due to its age and the amount of time that it had spent outside in the elements. It is now almost indistinguishable from the marble of the plinth on which it rests.

    The photograph is taken from a small sculpture that I created from a snail shell found in my garden (It’s the shell of a common garden snail, cornu aspersum).

    One of the things that I like about this piece is the fact that the old snail shell is incredibly fragile and light while the marble is hard and heavy, yet they both look remarkably similar on the surface. It is a piece partly concerned with the nature of superficial appearance. It’s also aesthetically pleasing, with all of those curved and rounded forms.

    The fragile snail shell evokes feelings about the fragility of nature and the environment in the time of the ongoing environmental crisis.

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  • Anthropomorphic sculpture

    Contemporary sculpture anthropomorphic found objects

    Anthropomorphic sculpture from found objects.

    Mole wrench and oil can cap. October 2023.

    A mole wrench and an oil can cap create an anthropomorphic sculpture suggesting an embracing couple.

    The sculpture came about when I was about to put teak oil on my kitchen worktop, which was something I’d been putting off for the previous five years. The cap of the tin of teak oil was rusted in place due to lack of use and I had to take it off using a mole wrench. Holding the resulting wrench and cap combination instantly I sensed the potential for it to be a work of art in some way, partly because the oil can’s cap resembled an eye when the light struck it. At first I thought that the assemblage perhaps resembled a fish, but after a bit of turning it round in my hands I saw human forms emerge.

    This is a good example of the way that people can interpret objects differently to the nature of the objects themselves. I believe that our brains interpret things based on a hierarchy of significance. The brain sees something and then scans down a list of likely possibilities for what the thing is, with highly significant things at the top of the list. At the very top of the list is ‘human being’. Very much lower down the list, if it’s on the list a all, is ‘mole wrench’. When you see a mole wrench in a tool box you automatically go straight to the ‘mole wrench’ item way down your brain’s list, because the context in which you see the wrench is strongly suggestive that it is indeed a mole wrench that you’re looking at. However, in the context-free setting of the photo above your brain has to work harder and has to consult its built-in list of possibilities, at the top of which is ‘human being’. The wrench possesses something of the shape of a human form, and thus the connection is made. The fact that the wrench is standing in a way that no mole wrench in the real world could do without support helps to amplify the effect.

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  • Bicycle Saddle

    Contemporary sculpture bicycle saddle

    Ceramic vessel with bicycle saddle.

    Sculpture. 2021.

    A ceramic pot with a bicycle saddle. The bicycle saddle is attached to a conventional bicycle seat pillar which is inserted into the narrow opening at the top of the ceramic vessel.

    Contemporary sculpture bicycle saddle

    In the context of the sculpture the shape of the bike seat automatically evokes the form of an animal head.

    Whenever the words bicycle seat, animal head and art are mentioned in the same sentence the name of Pablo Picasso and his 1942 work, Bull’s Head, inevitably come to mind. But we mustn’t let the great man’s work prevent the rest of us from using the same idea. He probably wasn’t the first person to think it up anyway, just the most famous. Remember, it was him who said “Good artists copy. Great artists steal”

    Contemporary sculpture bicycle saddle

    In my sculpture the bicycle saddle doesn’t only suggest an animal head. Something about its shape also evokes the concept of a sail or of some form of crest shaped modern architectural structure.

    Below is a variation of the sculpture where I’ve cleaved the saddle firmly to its animal head incarnation by adding a pair of headphones. The headphones have the pleasing effect of looking like a weird pair of eyes as well as a pair of headphones. The idea of adding the headphones came to me simply because there was pair of headphones lying on the floor next to the sculpture.

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  • Doll

    Sculpture.    Found objects.  2023

    An anthropomorphic sculpture made of found objects.

    The doll’s head was found buried in my garden and the empty custard carton was found in my kitchen.

    The custard carton has been squeezed to extract every last bit of custard from inside. It was a simple matter to create a ready-made sculpture by attaching the doll’s head to the cap of the carton, especially as the head was rather sinisterly only the front of the head, thus it possessed a convenient rim that could be gripped by the carton’s screw cap.

    With the doll’s head attached, the custard carton is instantly transformed from being a crumpled piece of consumer waste into a doll’s body or a baby’s body. A quite disturbing body at that.

    Contemporary sculpture found objects doll

     The interpretation of the carton as a body in this sculpture is the result of the phenomenon of pareidolia, which is the tendency to see significant forms where they don’t exist (Faces in clouds and such-like). The presence of the doll’s head helps of course. Art, especially modern and contemporary art, is hugely reliant on pareidolia, as it allows a circle with a couple of dots inside it to become a human face.

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  • Environmental art – Sinking Time

    Contemporary environmental art sea level storm

    Sinking Time. Environmental art.

    Digital sketch. October 2023.

    A digital sketch or painting that reflects my concerns about environmental issues, showing a watch sinking in a stormy sea.

    The watch or clock is a metaphor for time (as usual). The watch is being buffeted by a stormy sea and is in the process of sinking. The sea is a metaphor for climate change, global warming and other environmental concerns, both generally and specifically as they apply to the sea. The fact that the clock or watch is sinking is a sign that we are running out of time. The clock is not just a metaphor for time, it is also a metaphor for civilisation and the technology on which we rely ( A clock being an elaborate piece of highly sophisticated engineering). The fact that it is impossible for a watch to float in the first place may be a factor to consider too.

    The theme of this sketch reflects my interest in creating environmental art because of my concerns about the state of the planet due to climate change, environmental degradation and other aspects of environmentalism (which has been a concern of mine since the 1960s).

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  • Insect sketch from the imagination

    Contemporary art sketch - insect print

    Imaginary beetle sketch

    Digital. 2012.

    A digital sketch created for a print. It features a stylised insect drawn from my imagination.
    The insect is drawn in a sketchy black and white style that is perhaps suggestive of images produced using traditional printmaking techniques such as woodcut, woodblock or linocut. It also reminds me of scraper board.
    The black sky makes me think that it’s a nocturnal insect of some kind. It also looks a bit like a tortoise for some reason, with perhaps a bit of rhinoceros thrown in.

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  • Circles and rays

    Contemporary abstract art and science - circles and rays

    Circles and rays

    Digital. 2022

    A print taken from a digital animation of expanding circles and rays.
    The work is related to my interest in both art and science, and is inspired by the concept of the expansion of the universe.
    I’ve been interested in both art and science most of my life. In fact in my youth (over fifty years ago) my ambition was to be an astronomer. I even constructed my own astronomical telescope, including grinding the parabolic mirror, when I was a teenager.

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  • Environmental art: watercolour tree

    contemporary watercolour tree

    Watercolour: Tree

    Watercolour on paper. 2023

    A watercolour painting from the imagination, depicting a tree in a sinister landscape. The dark foreboding atmosphere of the painting is partly to reflect the atmosphere of the ongoing environmental crisis and partly to reflect the atmosphere of thinking about it.

    The tree looks as though it has uprooted itself and is trying to get away from its environment by using its roots as limbs. Alternatively, maybe the ground around the tree’s roots has been washed way as part of environmental degradation (perhaps by floods caused by climate change or by people’s exploitation of the land), literally sweeping away or undermining the foundations of a sustainable environment. And what are those objects next to the tree?

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  • Sunshine and Shadows.

    Sunshine and Shadows.

    Video.   30 sec. May 2018

    A video of the sun creating complex patterns on the ground.

    The video was shot in the gardens of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, UK. The shadows are created by the branches of a pleached lime walk and the structure that is supporting it.

    The video points to, amongst other things, the concept that the earth is connected to the sun in complex ways, with the sun creating the intricate patterns of life on earth (here portrayed by the complex patterns in the shadows of the branches). The fact that the pleached lime hedge is partly a work of artifice emphasises the link between the human race and the natural world (here portrayed by the shadows of the hedge’s supporting structure).

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  • Stilt Walker

    stilt walker - contemporary art sketch

    Stilt Walker

    Digital. 2023

    A digital sketch of a person on stilts. The stilts have wheels.

    Stilt walkers have been an occasionally recurring theme in my work since about 1975.

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  • Art about oppression – contemporary political sculpture

    political oppression art hammer sculpture

    The Oppressor. A sculpture about oppression.

    Hammer, nails, wood. 18x34x26cm. May 2023.

    This sculpture is a work of political art, as it is partly a metaphor for oppression and rebellion.
    The work shows a hammer empaled by nails.
    Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits – the nails. The hammer is a symbol of oppression and the nails are symbols of the oppressed.
    But the sculpture poses the question – how did the nails manage to impale the hammer? Nails by their nature need a hammer, or a stand-in for a hammer, in order to be effective and to fulfil their purpose. Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not a metaphor for the oppressed rising up against their oppressor (the hammer) using their own power, but are more like the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer that they’ve empaled.

    This sculpture is a development of an idea that I had in 2010 when it started life as a drawing of a hammer with three nails in it.
    Since then it developed into a 3D sculptural work composed of a hammer nailed directly onto a flat surface as though pinned down.
    This further version has the hammer suspended above the surface and with many more nails driven into it so that it’s starting to resemble a nail fetish figure.

    art about oppression - hammer sculpture
    political art - sculpture about oppression

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  • Surreal sea creature. Drawing from the imagination.

    contemporary art surreal dada bizarre sea creature

    A surreal sea creature drawn from the imagination.

    Digital image. 6th May 2023

    A bizarre sea creature created digitally in Procreate on an iPad. The shape of the sea creature is based on the number six, as the image was created as part of an exercise in which I sketched several images on my iPad based on the numbers between zero and nine. The concept behind the exercise was that by having to take into account the restraints of including a number in each image I would be forced to work with forms or shapes that I might not think up straight from my imagination.

    When creating the sketch I was attempting to produce a bizarre, weird and sinister image. The result looks as though it owes a debt to surrealism, dada and the symbolists.

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  • Three lengths of wood on a rock – land art

    contemporary land art in cornwall uk

    Land art, Cornwall, UK

    Wood battens, acrylic paint. Length: 2m (variable). June 2018.

    This piece of contemporary sculpture or land art was created on the granite rocks on the top of Zennor Hill in Cornwall, near where I live. It’s composed of three lengths of 2×2 inch wood batten of the type used in construction and joinery, painted with acrylic paint.

    contemporary land art in Cornwall, UK

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  • Contemporary art watercolour painting with digital additions

    Contemporary art watercolour painting

    Watecolour painting with digital additions.

    Watecolour painting using collage (April 2021) with digital additions (Oct 2023).

    A spontaneous semi-abstract watercolour painting with additions in Adobe Photoshop (added several years later, so it’s not that spontaneous).

    The watercolour rock-like object is collaged onto the sky, with the line work added later digitally.

    The painting is meant to have a sinister edge to it, with the rock-like form being some sort of creature. I’m very interested in the way that people see some creatures as being cure (baby mammals, especially furry ones being a prime example) and other creatures as being repellant (even at the baby stage).

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  • Dada and humour: Duchamp Fountain with added spider

    contemporary dada – Duchamp Fountain with spider

    Contemporary Dada: Duchamp Fountain with Spider

    Digital image. April 2023.

    A digital image based on Marcel Duchamp’s Dada artwork, Fountain. Fountain is a ready-made in the form of a pissoir. The version of Fountain in the image is in Tate Modern in London (Duchamp created several versions of the work using different pissoirs. The original version no longer exists).

    In this work a spider is trapped in the pissoir in the same way that spiders are trapped in baths.

    The spider hopefully adds an extra touch of humour to a work that is already humourous. The humour partly resides in the fact that it’s unusual to see a spider where you don’t expect to see one (in an artwork), but at the same time the spider is exactly where you’d expect to see one (trapped in a piece of bathroom sanitary ware).

    I’m a frequent visitor to Tate Modern, and whenever I look at Duchamp’s Fountain I’m struck by how esthetically pleasing the form of Fountain is. I’m not sure whether or not Duchamp thought this himself or whether he chose the pissoir with no esthetic considerations involved.

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  • Striding figure

    contemporary art striding figure

    Striding figure

    Digital sketch April 2023

    A monochrome sketch, created using Procreate on an iPad, depicting a striding figure.

    The work is from the imagination and was created spontaneously with no specific concept in mind.

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  • Contemporary sculpture – pliers and plaster (and paint)

    Contemporary sculpture in the Arte Povera genre

    Pliers Piece I

    Pliers, plaster, acrylic paint. 12x1815cm. 2020

    A sculpture composed of a pair of splayed handyman’s pliers and a painted plastercast of the inside of a coffee filter cone.

    Pliers and other handyman’s tools such as hammers and spanners are recurrent features in some of my constructions.

    The work is probably influenced by the Arte Povera movement, and the plastercast of the inside of the coffee filter may owe something to artists such as Rachel Whiteread (although I don’t think that she’s known for adding colour to her casts).

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  • Number Two in a series

    Contemporary art print usinng Procreate

    Number Two in a Series

    Digital print. Drawn in Procreate. March 2023

    Titled Number Two in a Series, this is part of a series of prints based on images of numbers drawn in Procreate on an iPad.

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  • Abstract digital art created on iPad

    abstract contemporary digital art in Procreate

    Digital abstract painting

    Painted in Procreate. March 2023

    This is an example of digital abstract art, created in Procreate on an iPad using an Apple Pencil.

    The brushes in software such as Procreate and Adobe Fresco are getting better all the time, allowing for much more spontaneous and expressive work than was ever possible in the past. The expressiveness of the medium is now such that I think that the results can legitimately be classed as paintings rather than just digital art.

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  • Contemporary sculpture – clothes rack stack

    Contemporary sculpture constructed from household objects

    Clothes Rack Stack

    Commercial clothes racks. 2022

    An installation composed of three clothes racks forming a pyramid.

    The pyramid of racks is this size purely because I only possess three clothes racks. Given a larger space and a larger number of racks the pyramid can be huge. You may notice in the photo that as well as a pausity of racks the low ceiling in the room mitigates against the construction of monumental artworks.

    This is a typical example of a work that almost created itself (I thought of it while I was moving the racks so that I could dry my washing). I have often admired the interplay of the horizontal and diagonal lines in the racks while I was using them for their proper purpose, but it was only recently that the idea of stacking them occurred to me.

    This work is probably partly inspired by the art movements of constructivism, dada and arte povera.

    Contemporay art sculpture inspired by constructivism, dada and arte povera

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  • Contemporary ceramics – organic cones

    Contemporary ceramic art - organic handmade clay cones

    Organic cones

    Glazed ceramic. 2007 30x30x40cm

    A cluster of organic forms, possibly resembling aquatic lifeforms. The small indentations in the top of some of the cones adds to the organic effect. The worm-like appearance of the cones makes them a slightly disturbing.

    The cones are hand-rolled clay.

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  • Pen and ink sketch – sweet chestnut tree

    dip pen and ink sketch sweet chestnut tree

    Dip pen and ink sketch of a sweet chestnut tree. Drawn from life.

    Dip pen and ink. 13cm x 18cm. 4th September 1991.

    This is a dip pen and ink sketch of a sweet chestnut tree in the Dordogne region of France that I drew from life on quite a cold day.

    There are numerous sweet chestnut trees in this part of France, as they were cultivated for their nuts, which I believe were a major part of the local diet.

    The tree was very old with lots of dead branches. There were also lots of leaves, which I think may have been growing on relatively new branches that may have sprouted lower down the tree when the tree recovered from a trauma of some description (and which nearly killed it off). Behind the tree is a ramshackle hut which appeared to have almost become part of the tree.

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  • Environmental art. One World – globe sculpture

    Contemporary environmental art sculpture using globes

    One World. Environmental art

    Environmental art sculpture, commercially bought globes. February 2023.

    The sculpture is composed of one large globe with several smaller globes attached to it.

    The use of a globe of the Earth in the sculpture reflects my interest in environmental issues and in creating environmental art. My concerns about environmentalism go back to the 1960s, when I was mainly concerned with threats to wildlife. Since then the list of environmental concerns has grown and now includes climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation and other aspects of environmentalism.

    One of several interpretations of the work is that it shows that on the one physical planet Earth there exist multiple cultural world-views.

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