What Inspires You?

From time to time I get contacted by students who are investigating my work as part of their studies at school or university. I really enjoy writing about my practice, in fact I think it has made me understand myself better as an artist. Here are some insights into my art and what’s behind the work, thanks to some wonderful questions sent to my inbox.

What inspires you?

 I grew up in a small town in Gloucestershire and my Grandparents lived half an hour away in a very small village in the countryside. There wasn’t really anything to do apart from exploring the outdoors. My grandfather taught me about birds, my grandmother taught me species of plants, they had both lived through the second world war and grew a lot of their own food. Growing up in the 1980s in a working-class household with not much spare income we were encouraged to make things and mend stuff. Looking back, I can see now that this is really at the core of who I am as an artist and feeds into my work as inspiration. The animals, plants, and birds all come from childhood and the desire to create something has been a constant in my life.  Picasso famously said: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” I think you remain an artist by being open to be inspired by anything and everything. For me that’s music, food, fashion, writing, painting, sculpture, the sky, the sea, and everything in between. That’s the exciting bit of being an artist, you never know when the lightning bolt of inspiration will hit you next!

Me and my little sister. Mid 1980s.

Are there certain subjects/topics you like painting and how do you evolve your style?

I evolve my style by constantly making. There are no shortcuts with anything you want to be good at. You must put the work in. I can look back at work from a decade ago and see how far I’ve come in my practice. I am better skilled today than I was then, but I am always striving to be better. When I’ve finished an artwork, I can see what has worked and what hasn’t been as successful. Then I take that knowledge and start over on the next piece.

As well as nature in my work I love painting subjects from anatomy, especially skulls. I had a serious accident when I was 18 and broke a lot of bones in my body, including my spine. It has left me fascinated with the mechanics in the human body particularly the skeleton. There is a type of still life painting called Memento Mori or Vanitas (very popular in art history in the 16th and 17th century) where a skull is included with lots of objects from a person’s life. The skull can be read in these scenes as quite morbid but I think it is beautiful. My interpretation of the skull in art is to embrace life, live fully and find happiness. Those are the modern Memento Mori paintings I love to make today. 

Why do you think there are more well known male street artists when there are so many talented female street artists?

 I can’t really speak to street art, but history in general has not been kind to women. In certain parts of the world right now, women do not have the same rights as we do here in the UK and in some countries the people in power are even trying to take our rights away from us. Art history and the art market have had a problematic past too. Art history (or as we know it) has been predominantly written by men. That means that they included who and what they wanted to write about. That does not mean that women were not making art. It means that art history either didn’t think it was important to include them or left them out purposely. For large parts of history women were not allowed to be educated, especially in art (unless you were rich, then you could make and create as a hobby, until you married.) But that doesn’t mean that women weren’t creating art despite restrictions of gender. They created in secret, under a male pseudonym, in the home, or because they had resources and privilege to do so. We just didn’t get to hear about most of them or see what they were creating. Now in the 21st Century art is catching up, but there is a long way to go. Now we can study and we can create freely but the art market is still running on an old patriarchal system. Male artists at auction can make more than 10 times that of women artists. It doesn’t mean the work is better, but to some people £££s create a ‘value’ (So it must be better, right? – Er, NOT AT ALL!). I think there is still an old-fashioned notion that women artists are ‘hobbyists’ and our work doesn’t deserve to be looked at seriously. Street art is notoriously male dominated. I could argue that it’s messy. Located in large public spaces that can feel daunting and sometimes not strictly legal, which can feel a bit intimidating for any artist. But I don’t believe these are the reasons that women are not as visible in street art. Women are making amazing street art, but it is the same in the gallery as it is on the street. Because if you go into any gallery or museum the men dominate those spaces too! Things are changing, there are some great people out there championing women artists. The Guerrilla Girls, an amazing collective. (Check out their piece ‘The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist) And a great book: The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel, who’s in-depth research is bringing women artists back into history where they belong.

Women are out there making extraordinary things; we always have been. There just need to be an equal opportunity to show our creations to the world.

Describe a perfect Sunday….

 A perfect Sunday for me would include a walk around the city, grab a coffee and something delicious to eat. I love to keep my Sundays quite chill, I love reading, listening to podcasts and most Sundays I work a little. Paint if I’ve got a piece I’m working on, sometimes I’ll work on some ideas, make notes, sketches, and planning out the next week in my diary.

What artists do you rate and why?

Two artists I am passionate about are Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keefe. Both these artists in their lifetimes opened doors for women. They defied convention in a time when society required women to mainly be wives and mothers. They created work that they found interesting, ignoring trends, and told their own stories through art. At the time this was radical especially for women. They showed their pain and joy through the work, ignored the critics, and created their own way. Both found success within their lifetimes although Frida Kahlo died at 47, through complications of ill health. Her legacy has influenced not only the art industry but fashion and film. The themes in her work such as the human body and identity are as relevant today as they were for her in the early 20th century. Georgia O’Keefe lived to be 98 years old and at the end of her life in 1986 every major art institution in American had acquired one or more of her paintings. Throughout her life she never lost faith in herself or her art and she became one of Americans most successful artists.   

Any advice you can give to aspiring artists?

Books are better than the internet and seeing art in a gallery is better than seeing it in a book.

Read as much as you can and find a love of reading.

All ideas are valid, write them down (even if they seem wildly ambitious or completely silly). Keep an idea book.

Know that everything you make won’t be a ‘masterpiece’ but have fun in the process, that’s when you learn the most.

Keep going, being an artist can be challenging. You’re going to feel like you want to quit over and over again… DON’T.

Poem

Fledgling.

I would have held her in my hand.

Tiny thing, not long left the nest.

Wind swept on acrid seas,

Plunged into the concrete.

From the twisted wreck a coiled plume,

Taste of iron and grit.

Unpick feather from bone.

Skin sagged

Cut, torn, stitched, and scarred

Pricked by saline drip.

A second chance on the second month,

Learning to fly again.

Gemma Compton - February 2024.

Moki Cherry - Here and Now.

Make your offering. Cut the warp and weft. Weave in rhythm, life is a stage. Step into the spotlight, feel the glow. ‘Who dares to make the commitment of living in the moment?’ Stitches in time create small cuts. Shed your blood, women’s work. Pull at the stitches, come apart at the seams. Flow. Rush, heave, and swell. Surge. You were not made to be contained anyway.

Moki Cherry (1943 – 2009) was a multi disciplined artist, whose work didn’t just grace the gallery walls, it embodied every part of her life. She trained as a fashion designer in 1963 at the Beckman’s School for Design in Stockholm, when she met her husband the American jazz musician Don Cherry who was touring the city. She made the move to New York with Don, and together they started a 20-year collaboration of music, art, and design. Her interdisciplinary practice included textile, sculpture, drawing, painting, writing, and set design. Moki and Don’s artistic partnership became known as ‘Organic Music’ and Moki, a talented pattern cutter, created backdrops, tapestries and costumes for all their performances. By the end of the 60s they had two children, Neneh and Eagle-Eye. Both would go on to become famous musicians, with Grammy nominations and platinum albums.

Airmail 1980. Silk

Moki used her creativity throughout her life, she saw ‘home as stage, stage as home.’ She was influenced by music, Buddhism, Pop Art, abstraction, and fashion. Her work was not just the aesthetic for the stage and album covers, it challenged the stereotype of what being a wife, mother and artist could really be.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1979. Silk.

Here and Now at the ICA in London was the first UK solo exhibition of Moki Cherry’s work. I found the exhibition inspirational, especially as an artist from a background of fashion and textiles. Her work showed me that we don’t always have to label ourselves as one thing. I always describe myself as a painter. I love to make paintings but as an artist I do have a much larger skill set, especially in sewing and pattern cutting that I gained through my university degree. This exhibition has encouraged me to extend my practice, to break out of the rigid rules I have unknowingly set for myself over the years. Art like life, doesn’t always have to be so serious. Moki Cherry’s work evokes a sense of experimentation and play that I think is essential to the creation of great art. As a result of this exhibition, I will dust off my sewing machine that has been dormant for many years, learn to let go of expectation, and make some more room for fun.

Make an Offering to the Gods of Dayly Survival. 2004. Oil pastel and pencil on paper (postcard from ICA)

Luke Jerram – Oil Fountain

Rise up from your well, dark pool. Decay and death bring power. Black mirror, a portal to the underworld. Reflecting our selfish nature to conquer and crusade. King maker, destroyer of worlds, leach to the surface for bloodletting. Your acrid flow entwines our lives, granting us freedom and comfort. But we renounced our pact with Mother Nature when we were banished from the garden. A new deal struck. We crash into the earth, break through crust to mantle. Looking to strike. A covenant with dark spirits, leads us on a path to annihilation.

Customarily, towns were built around sources of clean drinking water, and fountains were a prominent feature of communities around the globe. A place to convene, a symbol for life, a monument for celebration and sovereignty. Nowadays our capitalist structures create societies around the use of oil. It is used to heat our homes, fuel our transport, and dominates every consumer choice from food packaging to clothing. Can our contemporary civilization move away from its dependency for oil?  Luke Jerram’s latest artwork ‘Oil Fountain’ is designed to encourage that debate. With its dark eerie pools, the fountain feels like a memorial for all the death and destruction humans has caused the earth since the industrial revolution. On view in Bristol Cathedral, ‘Fountain’ feels even more contemplative, and even solemn. Species of plant and animal are engraved on its side that we have already driven to extinction.

““We all need to do what we can to reduce our dependency on oil, help fight climate change and steer society towards a net zero future. With a climate crisis underway, I hope this artwork will act as a focal point for conversations and help stimulate debate about this vital issue.” ”

— Luke Jerram

At the end of the exhibit all materials will be recycled from the ‘Oil Fountain.’ Public projects like this are a powerful a way of bringing global topics to the front of people’s minds through the experience of art. The climate crisis is an important issue to tackle and our reliance on oil needs to be questioned. Today, governments around the world are allowing the construction of new oil platforms across our oceans. As we stopped praying to old gods, oil became our new religion and we seem determined to sacrifice everything to obtain it.

Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life.

After hearing your name, I make my pilgrimage. The old power station still generates a sacred energy. A basilica of the arts. Rich yokes combined with pigment, guided from another sphere. Landscapes nourish the trees, Alpha and the Omega. Abstracted language seeks out religion, exploring nature to her atomic level. Hidden for years your masterwork, ten windows to another world. We sit at the altar, waiting patiently for a channel to the other side.

Forms of Life at the Tate Modern in London, is a unique exhibition combining two forces of modern art. Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian. Mondrian, gained recognition and success within his lifetime and is acknowledged as one of the pioneers of 20th century abstract art. But could art history be rewritten to recognise Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, whose lesser-known mystical paintings are considered by many to be the first abstract works in western history?  Although neither artist met their shared ideas run throughout their work and this exhibition. They both started their artistic careers as landscape painters, they shared a passion for botany and the natural world. They both shared interests of scientific discovery, spirituality, and philosophy, and both were members of the Theosophical Society. An esoteric new religious movement founded in 1875, influenced by Buddhism, Hinduism, Neoplatonism, and the occult. ‘There is no religion higher than the truth.’  

 The exhibition begins with the earliest works, landscapes. Af Klint’s beautifully rendered paintings have depth, texture, and mesmerising skies. A very proficient and traditional landscape. But I am taken aback by Mondrian. Although a little more expressionistic, large brush strokes, and scrapping back through the impasto, I wonder how did the artist that created these works go on to master the very flat and precise geometry of his famous grid?

The next room leads you to Hilma af Klint’s ‘The Evolution’ series. 16 panels a little over 1m by 1.3m. Black, white and soft pinks lead into blues, reds, and bold oranges as the paintings progress. There is a language here, every painting is loaded with birth, life, and death. Religious symbolism, sacred geometry, reproduction, good, evil, rebirth and connection. Some of the work looks like slides under a microscope, life at an atomic level.

Another ‘Evolution’ is hung on the opposite wall. A triptych panel of a goddess, that sits somewhere between the transition of art nouveau to art deco. An artist shifting toward a more graphic style, distinct line, and bold colour. ‘Lighthouse at Westkapelle’ (1910) sits next to ‘Evolution’. Amongst this loose, pastel toned lighthouse I can see the beginning of a grid. The monument is defined by line and flat strokes of colour. Piet Mondrian is evolving too.

Lighthouse at Westkapelle.

The exhibition continues to works on paper and sketchbook pages. Both Mondrian and af Klint were obsessive about botany. Af Klint’s sketchbooks almost feel like field guides and Mondrian created still lives, detailed chrysanthemums and lilies resting in vases and bottles.

Grids are forming now as we move around the room. From 1914 Mondrian’s work dissolved into abstraction. Vertical lines representing male, spiritual energy and horizontal lines, a female material vitality. ‘A universal harmony based on the balance of oppositional forces.’

In the same year, Hilma af Klint shifted between her nature based figurative imagery to complete abstraction. Her series ‘The Swan’ starts with the two fowl, one white and one black reflected horizontally across the canvas. There is a pull here, a struggle almost like the ying-yang representing opposite but interconnected forces. This is the year the world became consumed by the First World War and this feels evident in the work. Birds merge into spirals and geometric forms vibrate in the room.  Light and dark, male and female, life and death.

In the 1920s Piet Mondrian developed his theory of Neo Plasticism, and created his renowned visual language of the grid. Reducing painting to its basic principle, neo plasticism consisted of horizonal and vertical lines with flat and bold primary colours, grey, black, and white. Mondrian’s goal was to ‘express the universal’ to show us the beauty of life in its purest form. This is the work that would make him one of the greatest modern artists in history.

For Hilma af Klint her life’s work would remain unseen until 20 years after her death in 1944. Although she attempted to exhibit her paintings, she was led to believe that her work would not be excepted or understood by her contemporaries. This critique of her work caused Hilma af Klint to doubt herself and stop painting. She did not pick up a brush for 4 years.

 Af Klint was killed in a traffic accident at the age of 81 in Sweden. She left more than 1200 paintings and 125 sketchbooks and diaries to her nephew. Amongst her colossal oeuvre was ‘The Ten Largest,’ one of af Klints most ambitious works. This series was created in just 40 days, each painting a giant at 321 x 240cm, representing childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. This series was part of a collection ‘Paintings for the Temple’ that af Klint was making, taking cues from the spirit realm to ‘give the world a glimpse of the stages of life.’

These paintings are really what I came to this exhibition for and they do not disappoint. I am dwarfed by them, consumed by them. Each holds a force, a power that needs to be decoded.  Cells divide, dissected flora, atoms collide, swirls of colour lead me to the interconnectedness of life. Everything in motion and flow until nothing. Then the cycle starts again.  Forms of Life is an exhibition that does feel in parts like a spiritual experience. It shows the immense power of art, a shared consciousness that is beyond the written word. Two artist’s conveying similar ideas and principles in very distinctive ways. I am saddened though that the genius of Hilma af Klint was not recognised within her lifetime. An all to familiar story for women artists across history. Whether purposely left out from the canon or reduced to crafters and hobbyists, there is still a long way to go, but I hope exhibitions like this at the Tate Modern will start to address that balance.

Forms of Life is on now at the Tate Modern London, until 3rd September 2023.

Bharti Kher - The Body is a Place.

Swimming, swirling, galaxies unfold before my eyes. Ripples of colour, reflection. This inner space. Patterns become portals, cells divided and conquer, a world within worlds.

A multidisciplinary artist, Kher’s artworks span over 3 decades combining themes of myth and science, creating portals to other dimensions, and reflecting our inner world. ‘The Body is a Place’ brings together sculptures including her famous ready-made’s, Bindi paintings and rarely seen drawings.

‘Its like the pencil has been told what to do; the hand knows and the paper listens.’

The first encounter of Kher’s work at the Arnofini is a series of her drawings created at a residency in Somerset in 2019. I visited her exhibition ‘A Wonderful Anarchy’ at Hauser and Wirth that year and was blown away by her sculptures of dissected goddesses and deities.

Drawing is fundamental to Bharti Kher’s practice. She works intuitively, imagining herself inside the paper, working her way back out. The works feel like she is connecting to another realm, creating universes on the paper, and channelling the spiritual. In the same room is another series on paper; ‘Links in a Chain.’ These are created on found objects (a favourite medium for the artist) pages of educational children’s books from the 1930s. These pieces include text and collage. They disrupt the original narrative and now explore questions of race, fear, and neuroses. Kher was born in England, but relocated as young woman to Indian, experiencing the feeling of being other. ‘Not fully British and not fully Indian.’  Exhibited in large steel frames in the centre of the gallery, these double-sided works command attention as you move through the space.

The first floor of the exhibition hosts a selection of Kher’s large scale Bindi paintings. A bindi is traditionally a coloured dot representing the sixth chakra or the third eye in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. An access to inner wisdom, to retain energy and a symbol for marriage. Kher abstracts this symbol and turns it into the cellular world of a virus. She began making this series in 2010 and mapped out a series for Virus to be made over the next 30 years. With each Virus, Kher accompanies a predictive text about the future. She references things in her personal life, technological advancements, climate change and medical advancements. Here are one of her ‘predictions’ for Virus XIII.

Kher’s bindi paintings up close were amazing. I felt I was witnessing cells under a microscope, land arial maps of distant lands or swept away across galaxies. They vibrated and felt fluid, like they were growing in front of my eyes, cell proliferation, a disease taking over its host. As a viewer I felt like I could assimilate, become absorbed in the artwork, or pulled through a portal to another dimension, a black hole, powerless to whatever maybe on the other side.

‘The Body is a Place’ felt like witnessing alchemy on Bristol’s historical dockside.

The anonymous heART project - BIDDING NOW LIVE!

A few months ago I created a small original artwork as an illustrated found poem which I donated to Heart research UK. Along with many other artists the artworks are now available to bid on until 13th November. ‘It’s so beautiful at Midnight..’ is lot number 267 follow the link to make your bid and help raise funds for such an important charity.

BID HERE.

Damien Hirst – The Currency.

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Over 5 years in the making, The Currency is the latest project from one of the giants of the contemporary art world and as always, Hirst remains a disruptor. From a diamond incrusted human skull (For the Love of God) to the life cycle of flies (A Thousand Years), Hirst has always pushed the boundaries of what contemporary art can be. The Currency is no different. In a world of consumerism and right now in the UK at least, the possibility of financial collapse, maybe it’s the right time to question currency in its basic form. What really is money? Our lives are driven by the conviction of the paper in our wallets and the numbers in our accounts. Our credit.

Derived from the Latin credito and meaning belief or trust, credit was first used in English in the 1520s. But it was the Industrial Age that laid the foundation for our modern-day financial systems of loans, credit cards and debt.

Hirst’s latest project plays the role of testing that belief and trust. Could a production of 10,000 original works of art function as a currency?

Hypnotic, brightly coloured dots, dance across the thousands of sheets of handmade paper, hanging meticulously in the Newport Street Gallery in London. A dot painting is not an original image for Hirst, he has been painting dots for the last 25 years, but the scale of this project is impressive. The room has a kind of vibrancy and vibration.

Each artwork exists alongside a digital counterpart (NFT). These non-fungible tokens were the first part of the experiment. Who would believe in the new digital currency, parting with pounds for code on a blockchain. The deal you make with Hirst is that after a year of holding on to your NFT you can exchange it for the physical artwork.  A real, physical work of art. Individual, handmade, titled, watermarked with the artist’s own face, foiled, stamped and signed. Or if you choose to remain digital, your counterpart artwork will be destroyed.

The physical artwork already has a calibre on today’s art market. Hirst is one of the wealthiest living artists, with his works setting and breaking records at auction. This makes a physical piece by him a safe bet as an investment or currency. A trust in the Damien Hirst name.

The belief lies in the NFT. This new, unregulated arena has made some impressive monetary gains in the last few years. Not only in the art market (Beeple at Christie’s) but with celebrity endorsement such as Bored Ape collaborations with Snoop Dogg and Eminem. But where there are great gains there are also great losses, especially for a new type of currency. The opening of this latest exhibition marks a sort of closing of this project but by no means an end to the experiment. 5,149 NFTs were exchanged for physical paintings, leaving 4,851 on the blockchain. Which will hold a higher value in the months and years to come? Real or digital?

As part of Frieze Week the 4,851 corresponding original paintings not exchanged are being destroyed. In an almost performance art style, Hirst himself burned the first 1,000 on the 12th October 2022 in the Newport Street Gallery. Fashioned in chrome, fire retardant trousers, surrounded by 6 fires, each individual artwork was captured on camera burning down to ash. Damien Hirst pushes the boundaries once more, moving art into new digital spaces and challenging the belief that art is sacred or is it now just another commodity.

 The Currency runs until 30th October 2022 at Newport Street Gallery, Vauxhall, London.

Henry Moore - Sharing Form.

Dear Mr Moore,

I thought I knew you… Round breasted, reclining nude. Soft bodied carved from rock. Liquid metal, seeped into form, amongst the rolling hills of England. I hadn’t prepared for the power and the presence of your life’s work. Twisted joints, splintered bone, cut stone carving air. Every atom plays its part. Vibration. Sacred monoliths require a sacrifice, like ancient artefacts shaped by Neolithic ancestors, they call out to the Gods of old. Sun and Moon cast their shadows on the work of this miner’s son. A calling back into the earth.

 G

Henry Moore - ‘Sharing Form’ Hauser & Wirth Somerset. In collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation and Mary Moore, the artist’s daughter.

28th May – 4th September 2022.

Back to the Cave

I decide to write on the hottest day of the year. The heat radiates from the concrete city like waves of a mirage.  The taps of my keyboard are sticky in the thick air and I wish for goosebumps and condensated breath, like thick fog. I think back to the cave. The silence. No birdsong, no traffic, no distant electrical hum. Down into the cold earth. Hard men were forged from this ore. Ancient pigments. Ochres. Skilled hands created form. Placed deep underground like ancient artifacts from distant times.

David Mach – Spike 2011.

Curated by Pangolin Gallery, ‘Back to the Cave’ is a vast sculptural exhibition across 10 caverns in the Forest of Dean. I’ve visited a lot of places in the pursuit of art but underground was definitely a first. Clearwell Caves are on the outskirts of Coleford in Gloucestershire, close to the boarder of Wales. From Bristol it took around an hour and once off the motorway it was rolling hills and beautiful valleys all the way. The caves were mined for iron ore but large-scale work stopped in 1945 but Clearwell’s history dates as far back as the Stone age. Alongside the iron ore, ochre pigments have been collected from the earth on this site for thousands of years and are still being mined on site today and used by artists all over the world. A perfect prehistoric backdrop for modern and contemporary art sculpture.

With over 40 internationally renowned artists taking part I was already excited to see work by artists I already admired, such as Hirst, Lucas, Hambling and Morgan. But with so much to see, I was soon circling names on the map of the sculptures I loved, eager to learn more about each artist. Here are a few of my favourites.

Daniel Chadwick – Whale 2003

Perfectly placed. Like excavating a creature from long ago. The acrylic forms float above an underground pool. I’m unsure if we are with a creature under the sea or a flock of birds soaring across a sky. A fixed work of art that feels in constant motion.

Stik – The Ochre Man 2022.

Stik is well known for his bold stick figures painted on buildings across the world but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one as appropriately located as The Ochre Man. Commission especially for the exhibition this figure is painted directly onto the cave wall using the raw ochre mined on site. The position is perfect, as the stick man appears to be holding back the rock or emerging from it like a prehistoric cave painting. The Ochre man was created using only the natural pigments with permission from the family who own the mine. He watches over you like a stone age deity as you pass by, showing you the way to go.

Abigail Fallis – Dagon 2017.

A strange creature from the Ark of God. A deity worshiped thousands of years ago. Half man, half fish – representing the earth and the sea. Dagon. The twist of bones, unsure where this creature begins and ends. Placed on a small island of rocks in a pool, reflective and quiet. At the back of the cave, a painting of a skeleton on the wall. Is this an offering, an alter or a grave? The composition of both is harmoniously macabre. I instantly love it. But I love even more the story of the strange cave painting that I discover in the gift shop later. In the 1970s a group of people broke into the mine to have a large party that lasted several days. They commemorated their event by leaving the painted skeleton as a practical joke. The caves first piece of modern art!

These are just a few of the works I loved. The whole show was amazing not just because of the high calibre of art and artists but because it felt like an adventure. The caves go down to a depth of 100 feet and I wasn’t prepared for how cold it got (take a hoodie). Also, the damp in the air and maybe even the iron ore in the rock messed with my camera but my phone seemed to be fine. The exhibition continues until 29th August 2022 and tickets are £9.50 each.

For more information check out the website clearwellcaves.com

CopyRight

Writing a little biography for the other artist in the household - Mr C. I find it hard to write about my own practice, the reasons I create and the everyday that feeds its way into the art. So I thought I’d have a bash at a quick bio for Chris, seeing the things he’s too close to and putting the pieces together. Hope he likes it :)

CopyRight.

British seaside towns are a mix of nostalgia. The grandeur of the Victorian era boom blended with bright lights, buzzing arcades, colourful candy floss and sticks of rock. It’s this assimilation that CopyRight brings into his artistic practice. Taking stories from the past and transforming them using contemporary motifs and influences of PopArt, to create a modern romanticism through his paintings.

Born in the early 80’s, on Friday the 13th CopyRight grew up in a seaside town near Bristol. A childhood love of hero’s and villains, comic books and cartoons influenced a love of drawing and making from a young age. Part of the MTV generation lead CopyRight to experiment with film making and he completed a degree in Media Studies at Plymouth University but he never deviated from his passion for painting. Influenced by artists such as Andy Warhol, CopyRight wanted explore larger, multiples of an image. While living in London in 2003 he would begin to experiment with stencils and start taking his art to the streets. The first image he created was the ‘rose’. These were quick to paint and easy to transport. Appearing in alley ways and abandoned sites in cities across the UK. A juxtaposition of beauty, a symbol for romance, existing in dark, unloved spaces. These themes are still present in his work today. Now his work has transitioned from the streets to the gallery. Pushing his work forward, mixing new materials and techniques, still with his original trademark style.

Over nearly two decades CopyRight has exhibited his work worldwide, including solo shows in London, Chicago and Tokyo.

His highly stylised paintings have featured in publications including Harpers Bazaar and Teen Vogue and he was featured on series 8 of the BBC show ‘The Apprentice’.

artbycopyright.com

Grayson’s Art Club – The Exhibition Volume II.

Choose your weapon. Make your mark. We are in this together, behind closed doors. Separated but not separate. Shared fears mixed with sourdough starters and endless banana breads. Panic, pandemic, pantomime (our government), pancake day, panettone (Christmas), pain au chocolat (stress eating). Another trip around the sun. Another year of covid.

The last two years had us observing and absorbing culture through our television sets and smart phones. But can art save us? Can using our imaginations and creativity help us heal from these covid times? Can it give us back the freedoms we have craved? I have always believed in the power behind a creative path. Grayson’s Art Club was proof that whether we are the creator or the viewer, art creates connection. In a world that seems so divided I believe art can bring us back to ourselves and lead to more positive relationships with each other.

Bristol Museum is a neoclassical masterpiece but happens to be situated on top of one of the city’s larges hills, Park Street.  If like me you’re coming from the south of the city on foot, you might appreciate a strong cuppa and some wonderful contemporary art after you’ve finished your ascent. Grayson’s Art Club is the second gallery exhibition from the smash hit tv series on channel 4, where Grayson and his wife, psychotherapist Philippa Perry encouraged us to get making to combat the stresses of the pandemic. The exhibition is spread across the three floors of the museum, with vibrant and imaginative pieces of art sitting alongside the permanent collection. There are artworks by Grayson and Philippa, as well as members of the public, celebrities and established artists. The exhibition is poignant, emotive and a personal account of lives during these covid times. The show is split into themes from the series of family, nature, food, dreams, work and travel. As well as Graysons work (of which I am a huge fan) there are pieces by some of my firm favourite artists. Banksy, Polly Morgan, Lucy Sparrow, Chila Kumari Burman-Singh and Yinka Ilori, but I found the general public entries the most moving.

Esther Jeanes - ‘Daily Exercise’. A beautiful record of lockdown and the consistency of nature to remain unaffected by covid. These miniatures are a charming timeline but my favourite part is the greyed-out squares, indicating an anomaly in the timeline. We all have those days when for whatever reason we can’t achieve what we set out to because life just gets in the way and I can really relate to that.

Ian Withall – ‘Vegan Minced Steak’. This gorgeous little acrylic on canvas really got my attention. Something so ordinary and maybe even a little ugly, created so elegantly. Such attention to detail with the rippled plastic, playing with light and shade. I love the word play of the label, it really made me smile. It was a stark reminder that especially through the first lockdown when we were under the toughest of restrictions, you almost had to go out of your way to make the ordinary extraordinary.

Simon Fraser – ‘Ticket Rug’. Being instructed to remain at home was tough on a lot of people and our mental health as a nation really suffered during multiple lockdowns. I won’t be taking our freedom to travel for granted now we have opened back up to the world and this giant train ticket really made me smile. I love the ‘wrong’ scale, it is so joyful and silly. Dated April 1st seems appropriate. The artist is ‘in’ on the joke. It is beautifully constructed, encased in perspex to stop the urges of people like me who can’t resist its tactile nature.

Sally-Anne Wilson – ‘Sherbet Lemon: A Memory of Colin’. This piece was one of the most moving artworks in the exhibition for me. The crinkle and shine of the wrapper felt tangible, constructed in tiny shapes of ceramic. It’s acidic yellow evokes memories of childhood and it’s fizzing sour centre. A simple gesture of connection – sharing a sweet. NHS workers certainly bore the brunt of the pandemic. This is dedication to a colleague who passed away in the first wave of covid. A kind man, who ‘left you feeling you mattered.’ ‘He could win anyone over with a big smile, beautiful laugh and a sherbet lemon.’

Grayson’s Art Club is on now and runs until 4th September 2022. For more information go to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

The Pansy Project

On a dark and stormy afternoon, you stood defiant, gazing at the sky. Roots searching for soil between the cold stone. You are destined for more, not just a pretty face. Chosen. Your small stature will not speak softly. Violet replacing violence. Reclaiming the earth, restoring the peace. An act of hate has placed you here but the hands that guide you act with love and respect.

MShed - Bristol Harbourside.

Outside the M Shed on Bristol harbourside we wait in what can only be described as a torrent of rain. Not an ideal day for an art tour of the city but we’ve never been fair weather people and as our paper coffee cups and our fruit Danish slowly starts to turn to papier-mâché we are suddenly greeted with big beaming smiles by the curator of the Vanguard exhibition and the artist Paul Harfleet. The Pansy Project was started by Paul as a way for him to reclaim the space where he experienced homophobic abuse and today, we are heading out around the city to plant pansies where others have faced similar experiences. A small act, a positive action with a little unassuming plant, who’s species is vitally important to this project. As Paul explains not only does the word ‘Pansy’ refer to an effeminate or gay man but it originates from the French word ‘to think’ and that’s exactly what the project is inviting you the viewer to do.

We head out into the rain firstly to Wine Street in the city centre, where this summer a Pride Flag was installed by the council on a prominent pedestrian crossing. It was to show the inclusivity of Bristol, however within a week it was defaced with the words “Jesus Loves Sinners”. Paul moves meticulously and silently to find the perfect spot for his plant. He never just plonks the plant at the scene, out of context and out of the soil. He tells me it’s extremely important that the plant could take root here, or appear to have seeded itself. He looks for the nearest source of earth closest to the attack, not curating the scene and never moving anything to change the narrative.

Wine Street - Bristol.

We spend the afternoon together and travel on foot across the city to two other sites to install pansies. One at the bottom of Park St on College Green next to Bristol Cathedral and the other outside a nightclub where a famous England cricketer was involved in a homophobic altercation. At each location Paul explains what had happened here, respectfully and never revealing the identities of individuals involved. Between each planting on our walks, it is lovely to get to know the artist. He has a big beaming smile, an infectious laugh and a great sense of humour. But when we reach each location Paul is quiet, everything he does is with the upmost care and respect for what has happened here - from finding the right spot, planting the pansy to obtaining his photograph. As we watch him, I feel we are witnessing something very special. In 2021 there shouldn’t be a need for Paul’s work. We hear all the time about more visibility, equal opportunity and acceptance of others but aside from the buzz words and promises of the people in power we still have a lot of work to do as individuals. Kindness is what I took away from my afternoon with Paul Harfleet. In the form of a small humble flower, Pauls pansies radiate light and hope in the ugliness of human behaviour. They are a powerful statement against homophobia and an act of resistance against abuse.

Clifton Triangle - Bristol.

For more information thepansyproject.com

Frank Bowling - Land of Many Waters - Arnolfini, Bristol.

I am a drift. The calm and stillness within this space envelops my being and the racing of my mind eases, the modern-day steeplechase to a soft hush. I am barefoot on the shore, staring out to sea in the Land of Many Waters. A long look at the horizon and then I am washed away, tangled in a current of pigment, floating, stripped of all form and lost at sea.

At the age of 87, Sir Frank Bowling’s only ambition is to keep creating works. His exhibition at the Arnolfini, located on the historical dockside of Bristol, is a culmination of studio work from the last 10 years.  A member of the Royal Academy and an OBE, Bowling is upheld as one of Britain’s best abstract painters and his work ethic is remarkable as he enters his studio every day.

Born in British Guiana in 1934 (now Guyana), Bowling’s dreamscapes and colour fields take you on a journey through his life. Crossing the vast waterways from South America to Britain in the 1950s and the many transatlantic journeys from New York and London between his artist studios.

The work is fluid. Skies merge effortlessly into shorelines with liquid washes of colour. A technique of poured paint Bowling first experimented with in the 1970s. The ‘liquid paint’ is a mixture of acrylic, water and ammonia on canvas with marouflage (which is an adhesive).

Bleeds of iridescent pinks and greens stain the landscape; they feel like faraway lands I am yet to see. Some feel like other worlds, planets in distant galaxies, hot, acrid, never to be explored by man. Some works contain small objects pushed into the paint, like small dinosaurs, plastic bugs and birds. These ‘Charms’ are a personal record for the artist of family, friends, people and places. I don’t think they are for the viewer to decipher. They are a moment in time positioned within the flowing paint, representing memories within the flow of Frank Bowling’s own life.  

I left the Land of Many Waters with an overwhelming sense of calm and clarity. Life for all of us is a mixture of ebb and flow. We all come from somewhere and we are all on a journey whether physical or spiritual. Always moving, finding our own flow through life. Just like the unpredictability of Bowling’s pour technique life can feel unsure, a risk, but the results of taking a chance can be very beautiful indeed.

 Frank Bowling – Land of Many Waters. Arnolfini in association with Hauser and Wirth.

Hunting and Gathering – Henry Taylor: Hauser and Wirth Somerset.

As lockdown eased in early April and we all tentatively began to get back to our lives and loved ones, I was in need of some art therapy that wasn’t online or from the ton of art books that kept ‘turning up’ to the house.

I am more myself now from the darker, winter months. British summer time, more daylight hours, feeling not so hopeless. But as I approach the car at nearly 8am I am CBD’d up to the eyeballs to take the edge off the hour-long car journey for some visual culture. I had never been a good traveller before the pandemic – say a prayer before getting on a plane, Valium and the white-knuckle grip of the passenger seat as we ‘favourite lane’ (slow lane) it down the M5. But since we have been more confined to our homes over the last year, stayed local and travelled less if at all, I have been left with a bit of a trust issue with our car. Like a deer approaching a watering hole, sensing the danger but desperate for a sip, I slide into the front seat as we make our way to Durslade Farm in Bruton.

It’s a cool grey morning. Typically British, spitting. I enjoy the grey days the most. They feel quieter, more subdued than the grand expectations of our rare sunnier microclimate but they have the possibility to be greater, more creative and colourful.

Henry Taylor’s art brought a vast depth of feeling and colour to that grey day. Before seeing his vast solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, (which included works created as part of an artist residency in Somerset during the winter lockdown months) I had never heard of Henry Taylor.

Born in 1958, this American painter creates mostly bold colourful portraits (although doesn’t like to be referred to as a portrait artist) found object sculpture and large installations. Taylor has exhibited retrospectives at the MOMA and the Whitney, as well as winning the Robert De Niro Sr Prize for his achievements in painting. His fast, loose, bold painters style invites the viewer to connect with the sitter. Taylor has painted friends, family, acquaintances and strangers. Celebrities and homeless people. Each subject is given equal respect and presents on his canvas of expressive brush marks.

His work is personal, representing communities closet to him. He uses symbols of freedom and power alongside pop culture. Within the exhibition was some of Henry Taylors earlier works, miniature paintings created on cigarette and cereal packets and matchboxes. Created in the 1990s when he was still an art student, the miniature paintings are like little thoughts/moments and expressions of what was going on in Taylor’s life at the time. Playful logos and domestic scenes, these were some of the pieces that really struck me from the exhibition. As a painter but also because I have created a small series of works on vintage matchboxes, Henry Taylor’s small works were beautiful and packed a real punch of lived experience. There was one in particular I loved. A cerulean blue sky with a tiny blob of a helicopter just off centre. Strangely, as I left the exhibition and headed back to the car, I heard that familiar humming in the sky and as I looked up, I saw a helicopter flying low over Bruton. Although not in the same context as Taylor created his miniature, that experience made me feel connected to the work somehow, a small gesture of serendipity.

Amongst the paintings were a series of found object sculptures. Henry Taylor is a collector of things and he likes to bring these together to tell stories of his lived experience, voyage and a sense of place. My favourite was the horse. Two old worn-out saw horses, one mounting the other, endowed with a rusty hammer. A representational bust for added form finished off with a multitude of hair extensions. It was fun and it made us smile, the dare of art.

At the end of the galleries as you venture out to the beautiful gardens by international landscape designer Piet Oudolf, sits Henry Taylor’s first outdoor bronze. This sculpture was inspired by his older brother Randy who was the founding member of the Black Panther chapter in Ventura, California and his experience of racism. The lone black figure with a tree rising up from his shoulders, looks hurried as he strides out in his black jacket between the greenery.

This exhibition was sensational. The work was reflective, emotive combined with a sense of play and fun. I can’t believe I’d never encountered Henry Taylor before. After this exhibition I will be seeking out more of Taylors work. I left feeling motivated and inspired.

Endless possibilities on a grey but not so ordinary day.

Kindness.

The last year has been tough. You can feel it in every community across the world. It’s like a fog, palpable, it hangs from all of us. Heightened emotional states, like soldiers going to war. The uncertainty of the future and an enemy we can’t see. Pandemic.

You would think we would unite against such a common enemy. I think in the beginning we did. Amongst the empty supermarket shelves, we clapped for the NHS and rallied around for our neighbours. Zoom became a noun rather than verb seen mainly in comic books or pop art posters. Our streets were empty, businesses closed and daily updates from Downing Street were frightening as the numbers started to rise.  

Over a year later we have had a series of restrictions and lockdowns and our behaviours have had to change. Along with it we have a miracle of modern medicine in the form of a vaccine. Conspiracy theorists, no longer confined to looking for ET in Nevada. New concerns of micro-chipping and 5G signals. We have seen mass protests, issues of inequality, climate change and the safety of women. As food banks began to be overwhelmed a premier league footballer stepped in to feed Britain’s children where Government had failed.  Failures to act, absence of track and trace, contracts to wealthy friends, always claiming to be following the science when the science suits the agenda. An NHS now stretched to breaking point, a 1% pay raise for all their efforts during this horrendous time.

The year had taken its toll. Grief for the people we have lost. The sleepless nights as our businesses struggle to survive. Our homes became the workplace, the classroom, home gym and pub. We sanitised till our skin fell off and collectively made Jeff Bezos a trillionaire.

 Now as we emerge from most of the limitations under the success of the vaccine programme, we encounter traffic light travel systems and concerns over variants.  Keeping our very British stiff upper lip, we are all smiles and laughs as we hug our loved ones.  We head out to the beaches, grab a coffee or a quick pint, trying to forget the trauma of the past 18 months. But we are all changed by this. We will carry the strain and distress for months maybe years to come. We were locked away, confronted by our demons and fuelled by fear. I am not afraid to admit it has been one of the toughest times for me and my mental health. And as we move through still uncertain times, we need to move past the stigma surrounding mental health issues and learn to talk openly about not being ok. As I have reconnected with my friends and family there has been a mutual honesty, if you really prod a bit deeper in the conversation. The struggles felt over the last year. We are connected through our experiences of this pandemic. We have all felt the length and breadth of human emotions on this rollercoaster… and that’s normal. The constant tiredness, the inability to work, struggling with the family, impatience with strangers, worrying about productivity and performance. Our brains have hit overload and as we eagerly edge back towards ‘normal’ we should reassess whether this was really working for us and our mental health in the first place.

For me, I have learnt a lot of the pressure I felt before was put there by myself. Negative thought patterns, always thinking I need to fill every bit of time, competitive natured. If I worked harder, I would be more successful but instead I was just constantly hitting burn out. Teamed with chronic health problems, the ‘zero to 100’ method I was living pre pandemic was just leaving me frustrated with my creative and physical progress. Not much kindness for myself and that has been my biggest lesson in this time of the virus. More kindness for myself, for the people around me and for the stranger in the street, because not one of us has got through this the past year unscathed. We walk on common ground now and kindness could be the foundation where we grow a better future.

For help with mental health please find links below:

Mind.org

Ben Raemers Foundation

Samaritans

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.   – Naomi Shihab Nye 1952

Bristol Life Magazine - Two Sides Interview.

An interview with Gemma Compton and Artist husband CopyRight.

March 2021 Issue.

How, when and where did you two first meet?

 G – We met on a night out at The Academy in Bristol. I was just in my second year at UWE, studying Fashion and Chris (who was living and working in London) came to town to catch up with friends. It was a complete fluke that we met, two twenty somethings, a lot of beer and a mutual love of hip-hop. After that night Chris came back to Bristol the following Saturday and we went out for dinner. It was instant love and the best friendship. That was fifteen years ago and we’ve barely been apart since.

When did it occur to you that your styles had a certain compatibility, that could work well together in collaboration?

 G – Even very early on in our relationship there was so much creativity. On the weekends when I would visit Chris in London, he was already starting to make a name for himself with his art, even though he was working full time as a graphic designer. He would take me to exhibitions, introduce me to other artists and it was a really special and exciting time. Alongside completing my degree, for those first two years of our relationship I would help Chris with organising his exhibitions, help with printing and assist him with his murals. He put a lot of trust in me and I learnt so much. We have basically been collaborating since the day we met. We bounce ideas off of each other, our passions are very similar. We completely understand each other as artists as well as individuals and I think that’s a very special thing.

 C – We both spent quite a few years developing our own original styles. We were both creating very different works stylistically and technically, but I think it was only when we both had individual identity, that we realised that a lot of the themes were similar. So, putting them together at that point was easy.

 Roughly how many pieces have you created together?

 C– Loads. No clue how many?  Dozens, including outside murals, gallery pieces and print editions.

 Have you ever hosted a joint exhibition?

 G -We’ve done a lot of projects together. My proudest collaboration was our exhibition we did a couple of years ago in Chicago. The show was called ‘Two Sides’, it was a combination of paintings as individual artists and collaborative works. The concept was two sides of a story, a relationship, coming together to create something new and exciting. The trip was amazing and the show was really well received. Chicago is an incredible place for art. We met so many amazing people and I can’t wait to be able to go back again. 

 How, in practice, do you work on a piece – what’s the process?

 C – Initially I just go wild on a canvas, just so I’m not starting on a blank space. Then I plan what I’m going to add to that, but I deliberately don’t create a finished plan, just a starting point really. I want to create in a way that’s more organic. Usually, it’s not until your actually painting it that the piece will tell you what it wants.

 G – My process is lengthy. I like to build layers of paint and a lot of details. I use brushes with mainly acrylic paint. I want to show different techniques and layering in the work. A lot of the time I start with an idea of what I want to create but as I start working on a piece it will almost ‘tell me’ what it needs as it develops. It sounds crazy, but you learn so much from each thing you create and you take that forward into the next work. Everything is always evolving.

 When working on individual pieces, do you still get involved in each other’s work?

 G – YES, all the time! Even if the other doesn’t want or care for the others opinion. We work well together, but we are both quite strong-willed individuals. At the time it can cause some tension in the household but I’d rather we were honest and critiqued each other’s work, encouraging each other to be better artists. It means that when one of us says the others work is good, its honest and not just because we don’t want to hurt the others feelings.

 C – It’s hard because you’ve got to know when to say something and when to bite your lip. Often, I’ve seen Gemma do something in a completely alien way to me then, a couple days later it’s this magical, beautiful completed rose or something. We learn to trust each other’s judgement but also trust each other’s creative freedom.    

 Girls and nature motifs seem to occur in both your works – are there any other similarities?

 G – There’s probably loads, I think we’re just too close to see it. Art really is our life and I feel so blessed to be on this creative journey together. I think we are always going to subconsciously feed into each other’s creative psyche, we are husband, wife, great friends and colleagues.

Has the other’s style and technique influenced your own style and technique?

 G – Chris has been a huge influence on me as an artist. He’s taught me a lot about this business. He has supported me and encouraged my development as I sometimes struggle with self-confidence issues. I think our styles and techniques have remained individual but we also complement each other well within the work.

 C – Gemma teaches me patience and subtleties, and how to use multiple mediums.

Which art movements, if any, have been an inspiration to you?

 C – Around the early 2000s I found myself in the middle of this new movement called street art. One day I was just doing my thing, next day it’s this whole scene. It has been amazing to discover a community of people doing similar work to me and share ideas and good times.

I do find a lot of inspiration in art history. I’m obsessed with POP ART and I’m inspired by the work of Renascence artists and Pre Raphaelites, so whenever we visit a new city the first stop is almost always a Museum. 

 G – For me it’s never really been one movement, I’ve always been drawn to painter’s technique. Weirdly, during this past year with various lockdowns I took several online art courses and one was on Abstract Expressionism, a movement which in the past just didn’t interest me. Now I’m hooked on the emotion within the abstraction and the movement of paint. I’m hoping I can take what I’ve learn forward into my own practice.

What does Chris most admire about Gemma’s work and approach, and vice versa?

 G- I adore Chris’ storytelling in his work. He’s great a conveying emotion in a contemporary way. So many people connect to his work and he has a vast number of collectors who love his paintings. I admire the bravery and boldness within the work, contrasted with a real sensitivity and sometimes sadness. That’s a powerful combination that makes good art.

 C – I’m in awe of Gemma patience and attention to detail and in that regard we’re totally different. I’m much more spontaneous and reactionary. Imagine having the skill and technique to paint anything you could dream up, that’s her, pure alchemy.

 Do you have a favourite piece that you’ve collaborated on?

 G- Probably ‘Muse’. She was created for our Chicago exhibition but I think most of our collaborative work for that show was pretty strong.

 C – Yeah ‘Muse’ is one of the standouts, but couple pieces from that collection were bangers. 

 Where about do you work?

 C – We are really lucky to have a great set up at home. We have our own spaces. Gem’s inside the house and we turned our garage into my studio. We did have a separate studio at one point but it made more sense to use the space we already had. It really works well for us.

If you weren’t artists, what would you be?

 G – Stunt Woman.

C – Clown.

How have you managed to keep afloat and positive during the past year?

 G – When the pandemic first happened, I thought well, this is scary but we’re used to being at home all the time, I’ll just use the time and make loads of great work. But the truth is we both found it really hard to be productive and because of all the uncertainty day to day our mental health really took a dive and it became impossible to work. Since then, there have been good days when the paint is flowing and weeks when it has been more of a challenge. I took online courses on art history, which was a great way to keep me connected to being an artist even though I couldn’t make any art. Now nearly a year later we have found more of a rhythm of working. We still are nowhere near as productive as before and there is still a lot of uncertainty in the future especially in the creative industry. At the moment we are finding a balance between creating and being kind to ourselves.

 The best and worst things about living with a fellow artist are……

 G – The best: Having someone who 100% knows your needs. Art takes time and a lot of dedication. You need someone who understands why you have been in the studio for days on end and can deal with the tantrums (artist temperament).

The worst: The mess. I’m organised and a neat freak, someone’s else not so much.

 C – The best; both being on exactly the same wavelength and workflow. Being able to bounce ideas off each other.

The worst: the artist temperaments!!!

 Any plans for the future?

 C – I have a plan for a big show in 2 parts, maybe at 2 galleries or in 2 separate cities or countries. It’s pretty vague and it’s hard to make concrete future plans at the moment, but I’m going to start work on it now so can put into action once I’m able.

G – I want to create bigger and better work. Another solo show…But right now I’ll settle for getting through to the other side of this pandemic, a cold beer on a hot day with my friends in the pub and a hug from my Mum.

Small Steps.

On the eve of my 38th birthday at the start of November a disk ruptured in my lower back. This has become a common occurrence, usually once or twice a year.  I would love to have an adventurous tale of climbing the peak, completing my first ever ‘double pike’ for Olympic gold, or saving someone in the over enthusiastic style of Tom Cruise in whichever Mission Impossible movie. Free falling from 30,000 feet, to the roof of a speeding train, fighting off highly skilled assassins…But I simply stepped out of the shower. Wow, boring. In fact, … a little embarrassing.

I’m always amazed what the human body can do. Bodies that can lift tons, run for miles, bend in half, produce life. I sometimes feel I wake up in the human equivalent of a Skoda Estelle, (which had a review of ‘…fairly modern, but technically backwards car.’) as I shuffle from the bedroom in the dark mornings, trying to shake off the rust.

Some days are fine, others days socks are a challenge. Some days are filled with the hottest of baths, multiple duvets and endless hot water bottles. Like the challenges of a blacksmith, she must make the material malleable, expanding and contorting according to temperature.

Comfort is always an issue. In our 3-bedroom terrace we must have a collection of pillows bigger than an Amazon warehouse. Hard, soft, microfibre, memory form, wedge, full body, leg, pregnancy pillows. Even Goldilocks got it right on the third try!

My body is high maintenance. Swimming, yoga classes, Chiropractor. Deep tissue massage, acupuncture. We have had various degrees of success with nutritionists, osteopaths, GPs, surgeons, physiotherapists, meditation, therapy, CBD, herbal tinctures and even crystal healing. Not for a cure but so I can continue to tie my own shoelaces every morning.

I guess the decisions of a fully loaded teen can’t always just remain in the past. And as my young body was untangled from the wreak, the outcome was predicted to be a much gloomier affair.  That will be 20 years ago on 11th February next year.

That day has become a second birthday. Like the Queen or someone recovering from an addiction, celebrating the triumph of the day they decided to get sober. I guess this is my recovery, my triumph. That day I’ll notice my scars more, knowing that I have managed this pain and condition now for longer than my years before it. Some days I will break in frustration, worried what the future will hold if my body deteriorates. Angry by the pain and forced to take another ‘time out’ from my creative practice. Other mornings I’ll wake so elated and determined, I was given a second chance and I won’t waste a second. Over enthusiastically I’ll go 100 mph trying to do it all until I hit burn out.

The best days are not so melodramatic. I get up, stretch, paint a little, go out for walk across the city, grab a coffee. Discuss art with my husband. Cook and do chores. On those days he’ll ask me, ‘How’s your back today sweetheart?’ and I’ll realise amongst the mundane, day to day, I barely noticed the dull aches and pains. On those ordinary, routine days I take my small steps to victory.

Art in Review: Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin defined herself as an abstract expressionist although critics often described her work as minimalism.

Her serene artworks consisting of grids and stripes, created a profound and calming experience for the viewer influenced by Martin’s interest in Buddhism and Taoism from the early 1950s.

‘Untitled 1959’ (There were various untitled paintings throughout Agnes Martins career) is one of her earlier geometric abstractions created during her time in New York city. This painting is created in oil on canvas and is largely monochromatic, with two central horizontal stripes created in black and white pulling the eye directly to the centre of the painting and up from the pale grey foreground. Like all of Agnes Martins works, the mathematics create perfect symmetry. The top section of this painting is unusual and made ‘Untitled 1959’ stand out to me against her other works. The dark mauve ‘sky’ is streaked and layered with horizontal brush strokes, created by lowering the paints viscosity either with an oil or solvent and applying in thin layers. This artwork is incredibly calming and as the viewer I feel like I am in a desert, looking to the horizon and the sky within this colour field painting.

‘I Love the Whole World’ 1999. Martin passed away aged 92 in 2004 and she continued to create in New Mexico up until her death. This painting although from her later years still contains all the skill and accuracy from her earlier works. From 1966 onward Martin stopped using oil-based paint in favour for acrylic, possibly because of a quicker drying time and the multitude of paint layers within her works. ‘I Love the Whole World’ is created in acrylic on canvas, painted with 16 peach, horizontal stripes on a white background.  Another benefit of favouring acrylic over oil paint is the colours (especially white) won’t yellow over time. The stripes are divided accurately into two sets of eight, with a white band directly through the centre of the piece. Thin lines of graphite pencil can still be seen where the artist marked out her composition. Martin creates her stripes of colour by diluting acrylic paint with water to create an almost ‘wash’ like a water colourist. The peach colour in this painting is actually an orange, mixed with a white pigment and large amounts of water, then applied very thinly with a brush. To avoid the paint running and maintain clean lines Agnes Martin would often work on these canvases by rotating them ninety degrees and creating her stripes vertically. This painting is beautifully powerful in its subtlety. Its pale colour palette plays with the light and the stripes guide the eye in an almost optical illusion. ‘I Love the Whole World’ is such a life affirming positive title from an artist still creating in the later years of her life.

A Surge Of Power (Jen Reid) 2020

Marc Quinn.

My early morning walks during this pandemic have been my saviour, physically and for my mental health. I get up at 6am everyday, drag my husband with me and we head out for miles exploring different boroughs of our city, Bristol. For the last 14 weeks we have watched this city slowly wake up, enjoyed the peace and if we’re lucky (in recent weeks) picked up a fresh coffee or two. But today on our chosen route through the city centre we discovered something far more exciting. Standing on the infamous Colston plinth was this beautiful, powerful black woman, Jen Reid. An activist present at the Black Lives Matter march that saw the likeness of Edward Colston thrown into the watery depths. Early this morning, we were’t sure who had created this artwork but at just before 8am there was already a buzz and a small crowd had gathered to take pictures. I felt emotional taking her in, her strength, her resilience, she demands to be heard. It wasn’t until I got home and saw the news that I realised this was the work of Marc Quinn, know for his sculptures of Alison Lapper, Kate Moss and his famous Blood Head. ‘A Surge of Power’ has not been installed with permission and I’m guessing over the coming days we will see whether this artwork remains but it has continued the important conversation of equality, highlighting the Black Lives Matter movement and puts a spotlight on the lack of black historical representation in our public spaces.

Here is a quote from Quinns website published this morning:

Artist Marc Quinn and Bristol resident Jen Reid unveil a new temporary, public installation, A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020, on top of Edward Colston’s empty plinth in Bristol, England. This life-sized sculpture is based on an image the artist saw on Instagram of local resident Jen Reid standing on the vacant plinth with her fist raised in a Black Power salute, a spontaneous moment following a Black Lives Matter protest in June 2020. During the protest, a statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston was toppled from this spot. Cast in black resin, this new sculpture A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020 takes its place. No formal consent has been sought for the installation.

For more information on this project there is a beautiful joint statement by both Quinn and Reid, which I would recommend reading and if you can come to Bristol to experience the power of this wonderful work yourself.