Surveillance

Collection

Organisation

Relationship

 Colour

Randrops on Drainpipes and Wispers of Colour

Miroslav Tichy

I absolutly adore the work of Miroslav Tichy.  I discovered him a few years ago in The Pompidou Center in Paris. I fell in love. Although unquestionably voyeristic his photographs seem to capture a  haunting, romantisism in a time where communisim and hardship were rife.  

I have recently re-discovered his greatness.

 Info:

Tichy left the Academy of Arts in Prague following the communist overthrow of 1948. Unwilling to subordinate to the political system he spent some eight years in prison and psychiatric wards for no reason other than he was ‘different’ and considered subversive. Upon his release he became an outsider, occupying his time by obsessively taking photographs of the women of Brno, using homemade cameras constructed from tin cans, children’s spectacle lenses, rubber bands, scotch tape and other junk found on the streets. He captured images of their ankles, faces and torsos whilst out strolling or sunbathing, behind the counter shop-girls, mothers pushing prams, and any others who caught his eye, sometimes finding himself in trouble with the police.

Each of Tichy’s photographs is unique - he would sometimes add frames decorated with watercolour inks or embellish the photographs with pencil lines. Many prints are veiled in stains after years of being discarded in Tichy’s dilapidated house.

Ref erence:  http://www.michaelhoppengallery.com

This is not a protest....

 

Sometimes doing NOTHING can lead to.....Sandwiches.

I'm not frightened of dying.....

Prague

 

 

 

Night

Down / Up

Just wanted to take some time to reflect on Martin Creeds well organised exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery which has not long finished its summer run.

Couldn't help but thinking how he stores the work when it is in transit!?!

Long Exposures

Tangled up in Blue....red, yellow, purple, green...

Threads

Chromophobia - A short animation

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David Batchelor - Chromophobia

I recently bought this book by Scottish artist David Batchelor.
I am still waiting on Amazon delivering it. I think they have forgotten about me.

About the book:

The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse - a fear of corruption or contamination through color - lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge color, either by making it the property of some "foreign body" - the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological - or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic.

Chromophobia has been a cultural phenomenon since ancient Greek times; this book is concerned with forms of resistance to it. Writers have tended to look no further than the end of the nineteenth century. David Batchelor seeks to go beyond the limits of earlier studies, analyzing the motivations behind chromophobia and considering the work of writers and artists who have been prepared to look at color as a positive value. Exploring a wide range of imagery including Melville's "great white whale", Huxley's reflections on mescaline, and Le Corbusier's "journey to the East", Batchelor also discusses the use of color in Pop, Minimal, and more recent art. (Amazon)

Chain of Stools

 

 

A splash of colour

My two new favourite artists at the moment:

Sarah Sze - New York based artist.

 

David Batchelor - Scottish artist/author, currently working in London.

Crayons

I found these Crayons in work. I had to have them.

Glasgow

 

35mm Pentax camera using Ilford HP5 400 B&W film.

 

This is a series about the relationship between the city and the people that inhabit it.

I love Edinburgh but I think Glasgow really stands out as a city. It is full of character. 

The people of Glasgow make the city real.

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A hard days night

Jumble sale

I love to be organised.

My room. My bag. I write lists for everything.

Though somehow my life and thoughts still seem to be a jumbled mess.
An 'organised' mess at best.

I am very indecisive.

I am always unsure of myself.

I am dyslexic.

I don’t see it as a problem though.

I love to read, and I read well.

I write well.

I just don’t spell very well....nothing a dictionary can’t sort out.

Dyslexia means that there is a difficulty in processing information. This can be letters, words, sentences, numbers or even general thoughts and information.

This is very apparent in myself.
Instead of ignoring it or masking it I intent to embrace it as part of my work.

I want to organise my ideas so that my jumbled thoughts become easy to follow for me and for others.

This will be the stimulus for my work.

I have a really strong love for words. I write poems and songs and often spend a long time finding the perfect word for what I am trying to convey.

I am not so good at speaking. I get nervous and confused when I talk. I often end up not saying what I want to say.     

JUMBLED!!!

I think that’s why I love to write. I can focus what I am trying to say and say it well.

 In my Educational Psychology test for Dyslexia my highest score was in my knowledge/ spoken vocabulary.

My lowest score was in my written vocabulary.

Except I always work better (even spell slightly better) when I am writing.

I have decided to create a small personal dictionary for myself.

Words that stick in my head. Points of interest.

This is where all my work stems from. The words that inspire me and my work.

I am the common denominator to all of the words so therefore no matter how scattered or random they seem, they will fit together.

Framing

I have been thinking about the idea of framing or grouping collective thoughts or ideas together.Framing is the basis in which we lay our ideas, or a viewing space to interperate a thought or a piece of work. For me it is a way to organise things into catagories. It is a method to arrange my thoughts into a more manageable order as I tend to jump around myself a little. Which always ends up confusing everyone.

Lucy Skaer

I am really loving Lusy Skaer's drawings at the moment. 

They are so delecate and yet, in some sense, undoubtably chaotic. 

The intense detail and use of colour within her drawings give them a beautiful and very unique characteristic.