the female enigma

Young Girl

The Marrying Kind

Outside the Club

On the Bus

In the Boudoir

Asleep

I have been doing some art work sketching out ideas about how we see women in so many different ways -

single mother
house wife
career woman
virgin
call girl
feminist ....

It was inspired by a scene in the production of Homer's 'The Odyssey', for which I have been designer and which will be hitting the stage next week:

http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/show/?eventid=1409

The director (Rafaella Marcus) and her cast have taken the scene where Odysseus encounters the Sirens, as written in this adaptation by Mary Zimmerman, and produced a striking piece of physical theatre, painting through voice and movement the many faces of women, intertwining them to create one of mythology's most dangerous femme fatal symbols.

It got me thinking, is there a bit of femme fatal in every woman/is there a bit of every woman in the femme fatal? I would like to do a big visual project about the different faces of women, and women's perceptions of each other and their own identities, with other creative females ... more on this later (and ideas, comments, potential suggestions for collaberation are most welcome!), but in the meantime some of the sketches I came up with ...

I have been working on some music response stuff too, coming soon...

A bit more

Just wanted to give a bit more today, show you two new things I have been working on ... one is a draft proposal for a piece called 'party' (second image)

the other also above (first image) is a response/combination piece for a poem I am working on :

It was dark and I was walking

It was dark and I was walking, cigarette in hand, along the street.

Shops hummed in sleep, street lights streamed and beamed above.

It wasn’t cloudy, the night was smooth, and the smoke rose

To mingle with the air.

I pulled up my hood and wiped my nose on the back of my hand, and then saw

Red and wet and raw,

The blood that had flooded my nostrils and had started to stream

Steadily down between my

Fingers, to pool on the floor.

people in paint

I have been painting away the last couple of days, doing a piece for my grandad, a portrait of him with his best friend - our dog, maggie. At the moment this piece is simply paint on paper, which is usually what I use in draft stage, so if he is happy with is it should make its way onto canvas now. I wanted to demonstrate the importance of line my composition process; especially with portraits, my main aim always is too try and capture the essence of the person through shape, which forces me to break down the image and make visually the association between a person's appearance and a person's personality, combining the two things that make them recognisable. I then try and continue this process in colour; colours are usually a continuation of this exploration rather than an actual portrayal of enviroment.

Doing this made me think about artistic process in general, and the way young artist explore their individual development. I have been watching : 'Goldsmiths: But is it Art?' on the BBC (it is still on i player) and it made me revisit the issues I have with going to art college. What do other people think? What does art college teach you, is it a pre requisit to launching yourself as a young artist? What does it proove - if it is about exploring artistic process, meeting people and getting you work out there, being inspired and learning from other artists and working collaberatively, I feel like I am embarking on this already and know other artists who are not at college who are doing the same. To be honest, a lot of the work displayed by young artists on the programme I found hard to understand; art for arts sake seemed to be the message, art without a purpose other than itself, and despite this a direct quote from one of the tutors was that modern art must have a clear motivation, it must be an 'act of communication'. The act of communication in my work is literally communicating who the person is, from them to paper to canvas to the viewer, a process of communication. This line of communication - presenting an interpretation of what things are to show a perspective that that the veiwer can connect with and interpreate themselves - is what informs most of what I do, and asks the question - 'How do we recognise objects/envrioments/ideas/sensory experiences/each other? How do we interprate them? How does our imagination inform this interpretation? How far can our imagination warp these things so we can still recognise them as well as others?' I don't know what artists think of my work but other people have always seen something in it and understand what I am doing through the images I produce; maybe other artists would see it is as too simplistic, under developed. But then should art really at a base level be for other artists, who validates work, the veiwer alone? Lots of questions.....

My latest painting, for the series I am working on based around the theme 'Us, Watching'. I wanted to do a piece based around Jeremy Kyle, because one of the most fascinating aspects of us as a watching society is how we are obsessed with watching each in situations that are usually preety groteque. Its the age old theory of shadenfroida put on a modern age media pedastal. I wanted to do a scene which had the elements and dimensions of an illustration plate in a childrens book, to ask a question about how innocent this example of us watching is.

new space

new space, to show you work and the things I am working on ....