• Leaping man with antlers

    contemporary art print – sketch from the imagination

    Leaping Stagman.

    Pen and ink plus digital. 30x21cm. 2020

    A sketch of a leaping male figure with antlers.
    I’ve drawn several images featuring men who have antlers growing from their heads. They are something to do with the concept of alpha males, or males who try to pass themselves off as alpha males. Linked to concepts of freedom and over-reaching ambition.

  • Pencil sketch – imaginary winged creatures

    contemporary art pencil sketch from the imagination - imaginary winged creature

    Imaginary winged creatures.

    Drawing from the imagination. Pencil on paper. 21.3.2022.

    Drawings from my sketchbook. Imaginary creatures consisting of spheres with anatomical features such as wings or legs recur quite often in my work. I like the way that in anatomical terms a sphere can be both a head and a body at the same time.
    This is a drawing from the imagination (obviously), drawn during a spare moment over a coffee in a cafe.

  • Spider heads – pencil sketch from the imagination

    contemporary art spiders - pencil sketch from the imagination

    Spider heads.

    Pencil on paper. 20.6.2022.

    I frequently draw imaginary heads in unusual situations. On two of these ‘spider heads’ I’ve turned the hair on the heads into long spider legs, with the heads forming the anatomically incorrect spiders’ bodies.
    I think the spider legs in these sketches probably owe something to the spiders of Louise Bourgeois. The spiders may also be influenced by the work of Symbolist artist Odilon Redon, whose The Crying Spider has definnite similarities, although I don’t remember having seeing it before I drew my sketch. I did read a book about Symbolism back in the 1970s, Dreamers of Decadence by Philippe Jullian, so maybe it was in that (When I say I read the book, I mean that I looked at the pictures).
    Like many of my imaginary sketches these were drawn over a cup of coffee in a cafe.

  • Pencil sketch from the imagination

    contemporary art drawing from the imagination

    Ball with multiple arms and legs.

    Pencil on paper. 10.8.2022.

    I often carry a sketch book with me in case I have a free moment when inspiration strikes. I drew this in a cafe over a cup of coffee.
    It incorporates several motifs that recur in my work (spheres and arms and legs).
    I think that the idea is that the imaginary creature in the drawing moves forwards by rolling from leg to leg rather than by swinging its legs as we do.
    Like most of my work, it’s purely from my imagination (and the imaginations of artists and illustrators that I’ve seem previously and that have seeped into my subconscious).

  • Pencil sketch from the subconscious – balls on stalks

    contemporary art pencil drawing from the imagination

    Balls on stalks.

    Pencil on paper. 16.6.2022.

    I frequently draw sketches from my imagination with little or no preconceived idea about what I’m going to draw. This is one of them.
    These ideas frequently reappear at a later date as part of a more finished concept.

  • Contemporary art print: dandelion clock figure

    Contemporary art print - dandelion clock figure

    Dandelion clock figure.

    Pen and ink drawing with digital additions. This version: July 2022.

    This print shows a dandelion seed head, or dandelion clock, with one of the seeds in flight. The seed resembles a human figure.
    The image could be symbolic of freedom, although the slightly sinister nature of the image makes this ambiguous.

  • Procession

    Contemporary sculpture - sphere with hands

    Procession.

    Wooden spheres,plastic hands. May 2022.

    A sculptural piece consisting of toy plastic hands ( sometimes known as finger hands) attached to wooden spheres.
    The hands are almost the only anatomical feature possessed by the spheres. This makes their function ambiguous – are they actually hands, or are they feet?Or even wings?
    The ‘creatures’ in the procession are quite unsettling. Their lack of anatomical features other than hands gives them the impression that they are crawling clumsily and blindly forward.
    Other artworks in this series feature these objects suspended by thread on a mobile. In these works the hands unmistakably also function as wings. In the natural world the wings of birds and bats have evolved from hands (or front feet, which are what hands have evolved from), so the idea of hands being used as wings is far from far-fetched.
    This work is partly inspired by my interest in evolutionary science and the natural world, and partly by my interest in the bizarre and the ambiguous.

  • Political protest art – the Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed

    Political contemporary art - hammer sculpture - oppression overthrown by the oppressed

    The Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed. Hammer and nails sculpture.

    Hammer, nails. This version, May 2022. Original concept, 2010.

    This sculpture is partly a metaphor for oppression and rebellion.
    The work shows a hammer nailed to a surface by nails.
    Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits.
    How did the nails manage to impale the hammer? Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not necessarily a metaphor for the oppressed rising up to overthrow 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’s been overthrown.
    The use of handyman’s tools such as hammers, pliers and spanners is a recurring feature of my artwork.

  • Metamorphosis – recycling in contemporary art

    Environmental art - contemporary sculpture from waste packaging

    Metamorphosis (from pie containers to insect larvae)

    Wood (recycled food containers). 2021.

    A sculpture fabricated from recycled wooden pie containers.
    The pie containers, for Charlie Bigham pies (mainly fish pies with the odd cauliflower cheese in there), are stacked as curved forms suggestive of insect larvae such as caterpillars or grubs.
    Insect larvae undergo metamorphosis when they change into the imago or mature form of the insect. Here the pie containers have undergone a similar metamorphosis by turning into the insect larvae.

    This work reflects my interest in the natural world and the environment, as well as my concerns for environmental issues caused by human activity (this work being an example of recycling or upcycling of consumer waste).
    An example of art made from scrap material. A form of arte povera perhaps.

  • Unstable construction

    Contemporary sculpture made of workman's tools

    Unstable construction made of G clamps

    G clamps.    40x40x40cm (variable).    2021.

    A sculpture composed of G clamps.
    G clamps are usually used for holding work together temporarily, such as when components are being glued together. Here the G clamps are holding on to each other so that they are part of a structure themselves rather than an instrument for creating a structure. The angle of the piece gives the structure a feeling of instability. This could have allusions to the instability of the modern world that we have constructed through our use of industry and technology, where the very means by which we have constructed our world leads to its inherent precariousness, especially now that we are inflicting such serious damage on the environment.

  • Abstract acrylic painting: linear and curved forms

    Abstract contemporary art - acrylic black and white based painting

    Linear and curved forms

    Acrylic, paper, collage.    35 x 25cm.    2022.

    A painting from a series of abstract acrylic artworks featuring strongly linear black forms interacting with curving coloured forms.
    Although the black linear elements in the painting are abstract their composition give the impression of a living entity such as an animal or a person – an effect that is heightened by the coloured curving forms, some of which hint at anatomical features such as eyes or ears.

  • Sculpture composed of expanded polystyrene packaging

    Upcycled art - sculpture from expanded polystyrene packaging

    Polystyrene Idol

    Expanded polystyrene packaging.    35 x 55cm.    2021.

    A sculpture fabricated from expanded polystyrene packaging – an example of upcycled art.
    Upcycling, or the repurposing of waste or redundant material, is a common phenomenon in art, especially recently since the rise of environmentally orientated art or eco art (and the invention of the word upcycling).
    Of course the practice is probably as old as art itself.
    I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice the sculptural qualities of pieces of polystyrene packaging.

    I call the work Polystyrene Idol because the shapes of the polystyrene in the piece are suggestive of the carved idols of some cultures. In the context of Western culture such an idol may be seen as an idol linked to the cult of consumerism, especially because the polystyrene is the material that protects consumer goods when they are in trannsit, and it is also the discarded waste material once the consumer goods have been acquired by the purchaser.

  • Rorschach mask

    Contemporary art - Rorschach mask

    Rorschach Mask

    Watercolour, acrylic, paper, collage.    30cm x 21cm.    2021.

    A watercolour Rorschach pattern, or inkblot test pattern, with a panel of stripes in acrylic collaged onto it, giving the impression of a mask.
    The type of watercolour paint used to create the Rorschach diagram (Daniel Smith lunar black) creates a particularly intricate and textured inkblot pattern.

    Below, the image framed.

    Rorschach test in contemporary art
  • Painting of linear and curved forms – acrylic on paper

    Contemporary artwork - abstract acrylic painting, black and white based

    Linear and curved forms

    Acrylic, paper, collage.    35x25cm.    2022.

    An abstract acrylic painting featuring a strongly linear black form overlaid by curving coloured forms (some of which are collage while others are painted directly onto the paper).
    Although the black linear elements are abstract they convey the impression of a dynamic animal form. This is heightened by the coloured curving forms, some of which hint at eyes or of other anatomical features.

  • Nailed and clamped sculpture

    Contemporary sculpture with nails and G clamp

    Clamped and nailed

    G clamp, nails, wooden sphere.    20 x 20 x 15cm.    2022.

    This sculpture is almost an accidental artwork.
    The nails in the sphere were put there to attach other objects to. The G clamp is there to hold the two halves of the sphere together (It’s composed of two hemispheres glued together.
    One of the skills needed in art is the ability to see the unexpected.

  • Perception-challenging artwork

    Perception challenging contemporary artwork

    Shapes at the edge of perception

    Papier mache, acrylic, card.    30x21cm.    2021.

    A wall hung artwork in which a matte black hemisphere protrudes from a flat matte black surface. Due to the darkness of the surface the protruding hemisphere is quite hard to see (although in this photograph it is lit in a way that makes it reasonably visible). Even less obvious than the protruding hemisphere, the matte black circle at the centre of the metallic area is actually a hemispherical indentation. This indentation is very rarely noticed by observers.
    The work is an investigation into perception, optical illusions and expectation.

  • Drawing from the subconscious

    Drawing from the subconscious

    Abstract figure drawn from the imagination

    Pencil on paper. 2021.

    A semi-abstract figure drawn from the imagination with no preparation.
    I have a feeling that my semi-floating figures like this owe something to the Symbolist painter Odilon Redon.

  • Prancing figure: sketch

    Contemporary art charcoal drawing - prancing figure

    Prancing figure

    Charcoal on paper, digital colouring. 2022.

    A sketch of a semi-abstract figure in a landscape. The figure is of a type that I’ve drawn on and off for the past thirty years, so it obviously has some sort of significance.

  • Assemblage of wood blocks

    Contemporary assemblage sculpture - wood blocks

    Wood block assemblage

    2″x2″ wood, acrylic paint. 2022. Height: 12cm, width: variable.

    An assemblage of blocks of wood painted very matte black on the sides and bright white on the top, positioned so that they almost suggest a formation, but not quite. Developed from a chess piece that I created, in which similar blocks formed a more regular chess board formation.
    This photo was taken at my solo show in the gallery at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall.

  • Op Art image

    Contemporary op art design

    Op art image

    Digital image created in Affinity Designer. 2022

    Op art has got many detractors, as can be deduced by the number of artists who have created optical or geometric art who very specifically claim that their art is not Op art.

    Personally, I like it very much, partly because of my interest in optics. I tend to view it partly as a scientific endeavour, with its forms expressing something of the underlying nature of perception.

    This image has more than a hint of Victor Vasarely about it. It didn’t look particularly like a Vasarely until I’d nearly finished it, when I applied a ‘bloat’ to the vertical parallel lines on the image, making them bulge (The image is digital, so that’s a very easy thing to do). Suddenly there he was – Victor Vasarely!