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Abstract radiating lines and spheres

contemporary abstract art radiating lines and spheres

Abstract radiating lines and spheres

Digital print from animation still. 2022.

A print created from a frame from a digital abstract animation.

The abstract animation from which this print is taken consists primarily of brightly coloured repeating forms such as lines, stripes and spheres radiating outwards from the centre. The image here captures a particular moment in the expansion of the composition and has the status of a work in its own right.

The radiating lines and stripes, along with the bright colours, give the work a expansive and positive feel.

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Swarm of flying ants video

Swarm

Video.  16sec. 2nd September 2018

A video of a dense swarm of flying ants at the top of Zenor Hill, Cornwall.
The 16 second video is extended by repeating and reversing several times.

A swarm of flying ants consists of male ants and virgin queen ants performing their mating ritual. Following this nuptial flight the fertilised queens will dissipate to form new colonies. The males will die.

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Angels and birds – flight and freedom

Angels and birds – flight and freedom

Video.  2min 56sec. November 2018

A video about freedom and its opposite: limitation or confinement.
Freedom is expressed by the unconfined wheeling and soaring flight of the crows. Limitation is symbolised by the inert, motionless statue of an angel around which the crows are flying.
Pathos is a major ingredient of the work, because both the birds and the statue have wings, but only the birds can fly.
The unconstrained flight of the birds only serves to emphasise the fact that the statue of the angel is rooted to the spot.
The work is a comment on the desire of the creators of the statue (us) to have the power of natural flight, and their obvious inability to have it.

The statue is on Alexandra Palace in north London.

Moving image contemporary art angel and birds – flight and freedom
An earth-bound angel and flying birds – a photomontage based on the video above.

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Wings of Stone, Wings of Feathers – an artwork about flight

Wings of Stone, Wings of Feathers

Video.  2min 13sec. November 2018

A video about flight, showing crows flying round a statue of an angel.
The birds and the statue both have wings, but only the birds can fly.
The wheeling, swirling motion of the birds only serves to emphasise the fact that the statue of the angel is a lumpen object rooted to the spot.
The work is a comment on the desire of the statue’s creators to have the power of natural flight, and their inability to have it.

The statue is on Alexandra Palace in north London.

Contemporary art about flight - birds flying round winged angel statue
Crows flying round an angel statue – a photomontage based on the video above
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Environmental art installation

Environmental contemporary art installation - planet earth in a rubbish bin
Eco art sculpture: the earth in a rubbish bin

Earth Bin

Environmental sculpture/installation. January 2017

A sculpture showing how I feel the human race is treating the environment – by putting the planet into the rubbish bin.
The sculpture consists of a standard kitchen waste bin, lined internally with black material and with a back-lit image of the earth at its base. The result is the illusion that by looking into the bin you are looking into outer space as though through a porthole in a spacecraft, with the earth floating in the distance. It’s surprisingly effective.
The kitchen waste bin was deliberately chosen as the reciprocal that contains the earth because of its banality, to emphasise how we are depleting the earth’s resources through mundane consumption.

A version of this work was shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022 and was exhibited in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, the same year.
I’ve been creating environmental art in one form or another since about 1970.

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Travelling Glomeris Marginata

Travelling Glomeris Marginata

Video. Zennor, Cornwall. October 2018

The creature in this video isn’t a woodlouse, it’s a pill millipede, of the species glomeris marginata.
It’s climbing up the outside of a door frame.
I was struck by the way that the millipede seemed to be gliding along its course up the door frame as though hovering slightly above it, as its multitude of legs are concealed. I also like the armour plating, which, along with the hovering, makes the creature look like either a high tech machine or an alien. Or a hybrid of both. The feelers help too.

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Cluster flies on a window – insects as art

Cluster flies (pollenia rudis) on a window

Video. 17 sec. Near St Ives, Cornwall. October 2018

When I made this video I assumed that the flies that it features were house flies that had been feasting on a rotting animal carcass concealed somewhere within the walls of the building. The sinisterness of the insects was intended to be a feature of the video.
Since then a bit of research has informed me that the insects were in fact harmless cluster flies (pollenia rudis).
Cluster flies enter buildings on autumn evenings in search of shelter from the worsening weather conditions. Then the following day they sometimes want to get out again, as in the video.
They may enter buildings in small numbers or they may enter in thousands. In the case in the video it was many many hundreds.
The flies live in the countryside, where their larvae feeding on earthworms. They aren’t a health hazard (as far as I know).
Knowing that the flies were harmless and had entered the building seeking shelter rather than being house flies fresh from exiting a rotting corpse in the attic altered my view of them considerably, and I now rather like them, at least on the video. They are an inconvenience though.

I particularly like the way that the flies in the video are moving in an almost choreographed manner. It’s like a little piece of performance art.
The nice calm view out of the window (apart from a bit of wind) is in stark contrast to the dynamic motion of the flies on the window pane.