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 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!
A general view of my solo exhibition in the gallery at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall.
More of the work in the show. Don’t forget to notice the hammer and nails.
A sculpture constructed from vinyl records.
The star-shaped object at the top of the tower, which looks like a radio transmitter, is composed of pawns from a chess set (a recurring theme in my work).
The work in my solo exhibition at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance, Cornwall. May – June 2022
There’s another work composed of vinyl records here.
Image of a hand with unfeasibly long fingers
This image is an exercise in digital manipulation of photographs of the human body in order to show the way in which familiar parts of the anatomy can take on sinister or comic form (or both) with the application of small variations due to our hypersensitivity to the dimensions of the human body
An image of a swarm of ants forming the shape of one giant ant.
The image is intended to convey the scientific concept of the superorganism, where the individual members of an animal community (often insects such as bees, wasps or ants) cannot exist as individuals but have to function as part of a larger unified communal entity.
The concept of the superorganism is similar to the concept of the hive mind. The hive mind is perhaps more closely identified with neural activity rather than physical activity, and in human society is associated with the concepts of collective consciousness, group think and other thought processes. Hive mind activities such as group think are not necessarily positive.
The work reflects my interest in science, evolution, the natural world and the environment. It is based on a conncept and image that I created in the 1990s for the Guardian newspaper.
Some people argue that human society is a superorganism, generally on the grounds that we live in an incredibly complex society that is full of specialisation of roles, and that society would fall apart if some of these roles were to fail to function. This definition however doesn’t take into account one of the prerequisites of a superorganism, which is that the individual organisms within the superorganism can’t survive alone. Humans can easily survive even if our complex society collapses – there are people all around the world doing that very thing right now.
A pen and ink sketch of a tree drawn from the imagination, with a collaged sphere painted in gouache.
The sphere is meant to have a slightly otherworldly quality about it, as though it’s from a different dimension or reality.
A projection of the work Expansion II.
An impression of what the work Expansion II would look like projected onto a wall of the National Theatre in London.
A sculptural work composed of a number of 12 inch vinyl LP records arranged on the floor. The records are placed on blocks to hold them above the floor.
Exhibited in my solo exhibition at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, in 2022.
Part of the appeal of this work, to me, is in the fact that the vinyl records of which it is composed are ruthlessly precise and austere in their physical presence – perfect discs of shiny black plastic – but that they contain in themselves the information for producing music, perhaps the most ethereal of art forms. The manner in which the discs seem to hover above the ground seems to link the physical nature of the records with the floating, insubstantial nature of music.
There’s another work composed of vinyl records here.
Some of my work on display in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, in 2022.
The abstract paintings are from a series of gouache and acrylic works on paper featuring simple geometric forms in flat colours. The works are all linked by, amongst other things, the use of the curved shapes with bulbous ends that exhibit an unusual organic quality.
The three works displayed below the paintings are all sculptural works that feature mirrors.
An artwork depicting an anglepoise lamp with a rainbow emerging from the lamp’s shade. When the rainbow reaches the tabletop it forms splashes of coloured water droplets as though the light from the lamp has turned into liquid as an act of metamorphosis.
It’s got a bit of the Patrick Hughes about it.
A kitchen sieve placed in front of an old framed mirror. The reflection of the mesh of the sieve in the mirror creates interesting Moiré fringes as it interacts with the actual mesh.
When a person looks at their reflection in the mirror through the mesh of the sieve the observer experiences a degree of psychological distancing from their reflected self, almost as though the reflected person is in a strange cage.
Two mirrors set at an angle to each other with a hemispherical object placed between them.
The reflection of the hemisphere in the mirror on which its base rests creates the effect of a complete sphere, while the second mirror generates multiple reflections to give the effect of a ring of spheres. The number of spheres can be changed by varying the angle between the mirrors.
It’s interesting to notice that when you look at this work you see reflected spheres although in reality you’re seeing reflected hemispheres. The sphere is visually, conceptually and metaphorically a more dominating form than the hemisphere, and thus its apparent presence in this work swamps the actual reality of there only being a hemisphere present.
This work taps into my interest in the generation of forms from more basic forms, with simple forms being the building blocks of more complex entities and objects (see also my abstract moving image work). In this case the hemisphere can be interpreted as being an incomplete form which transforms into a complete sphere which in turn creates more spheres.
The sphere can be thought of as a symbol of perfection or completeness, while a hemisphere is axiomatically incomplete (as its name implies).
In the history of modern art and contemporary art a noticable number of practitioners started their careers working in areas of commercial art such as graphic design and illustration. They had to earn a living after all.
Pop artist Andy Warhol is probably the most well known, but he’s joined by others such as Philip Guston, Ed Ruscha and Edward Hopper.
Some artists started out by trying their hand drawing cartoons. Philip Guston enrolled in a correspondence course from the Cleveland School of Cartooning.
A lot of artists tend to take themselves very seriously, so drawing funny cartoons isn’t necessarily the best fit for them.
If you look at the cartoons in Punch magazine from around the year 1900 and you compare them to the style of cartoons drawn today you’ll notice how good the draughtsmanship was in the earlier cartoons, but also how unfunny they often are (at least to us in the twenty-first century). That of course may be partly a symptom of humour not aging well, but it could also be partly that in those early Punch cartoons the cartoons were drawn by artists of high technical skill but with low senses of humour, while today it’s more likely that cartoons are drawn by people with high senses of humour but low technical skills.
The contemporary art world is generally a very serious place, in which the deeper meanings of art are to be prized and where works are scrutinised for evidence of profound political, social and psychological insights in every brushstroke or choice of colour.
In the world of contemporary art seriousness prevails, however, at the same time serious issues (currently dominated by identity politics) are tackled in a totally different way within the genre of comedy, especially stand-up, where the main purveyors such as Ricky Gervais can earn a fortune from a single Netflix special.
Cartoons are often dismissed as being trivial and unworthy of serious consideration. I would strongly disagree with this, being a cartoonist myself (See the book below). The same criticism can be applied to all disciplines of creative endeavour after all.
A sculpture or assemblage constructed from old objects such as a discarded ball, clips for holding paper on a drawing board and a discarded homemade ‘constructivist’ toy.
An example of up-cycling in art, with associations to art movements such as arte povera and environmental art.
A sculpture constructed from G-clamps attached to a speed clamp.
Normally clamps are used in order to hold other objects together (such as glued pieces of wood while the glue dries). Here the clamps are holding each other together. The assemblage can be interpreted as a metaphor for human society holding itseld together by using its own inherent qualities and strengths.
An version of this concept shows the clamps at an angle – possibly a metaphor for the precariousness of the cohesion of human society.
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).
A sculpture formed of two painted wood blocks placed between two mirrors at angles to each other.
Unlike with most mirrors, which are vertical, the mirrors in this work are at 45 degrees to the horizontal, producing a reflection that includes the vertical axis rather than just the usual horizontal one.
I think that reflections on the verticle axis are inherently more interesting than those on the horizontal axis because they invert the image top to bottom rather than just flipping it right to left – a right to left reflection simply puts the right side to the left, with the only striking evidence of anything being unusual is when writing becomes back-to-front. Vertically reflected images however turn the whole world upsidedown.
A sketch of a person with a head in the form of a padlock. The person is carrying a walking stick in the form of a key.
I’ve used a padlock as a head in several works. I think that it probably signifies mental states of various kinds. States that need unlocking.
The key in this sketch probably acts as an aid or a crutch.
This sculpture suggests a contemporary art Christian crucifix.
A sculpture formed from a wood block, plastic hands and a small hand torch.
The work is composed of very simple components (the wood block is a piece of 2×2). In this version the cross is dramatically lit by a pocket torch.
The work bears a resemblence to a Christian crucifix, although this is actually an emergent property of the work rather than a primary aim. The initial concept behind the sculpture is of hands that also resemble wings attached to a geometrically simple form (In this case a rectangular block, in other cases spheres).
The position of the hands give an impressing of offering embrace, while also giving the impression of being elevating (when the hands are seen as wings). These are properties that enhance the work’s identification to the ideals of Christianity. The feeling of elevation in the work is enhanced by the fact that the cross seems to be suspended in the air. It is actually firmly rooted on a dark blue, flat horizontal surface, with the atmosphere of elevation being provided by the simple dramatic light of the hand torch.
You may also notice that one hand is black while the other is white, which may be seen as a symbol of inclusivity and universal human togetherness.