Affordable art for all! Well, until 13th Nov!

'Top Bunk! has now become the best-selling Cornerhouse Projects exhibition in recent memory'

This was the news on Facebook this week! The show co-curated by Bren O Callaghan and myself which launched earlier this month has already sold more work than any other Cornerhouse Projects exhibition and it's not even done yet!

With just under two weeks left you can still see work by The Hammo, John Powell-Jones, Simon Misra, David Bailey, Tasha Whittle, Adam Cadwell and Bryony Jackson and myself in the Cornerhouse cafe-bar.

All the work is for sale and is made up of limited edition prints and original art work at very affordable prices! So if you're looking for a Christmas present with a difference this year get down there while you can!

For a list of work and prices you can download the exhibition guide HERE

Cornerhouse 70 Oxford St Manchester M1 5NH

Other news:

Sketch-O-Matic which was launched in conjunction with Top Bunk! to promote accessible and affordable art was also a huge hit with well over 1000 visitors in it's 10 day run! This simple idea of an automated photo booth where an artist replaces the camera really captured the public's imagination.

On the opening night I got filmed for a short piece about the booth and you can see me amongst other Manchester artists talking about our experiences with Sketch-O-Matic in this one off video :)

I wanna booth with you!

 Some of last nights portraits while I was in the Sketch-O-Matic booth

This week sees the return of Sketch-O-Matic at the Cornerhouse Manchester. Held in conjunction with Top Bunk! currently exhibiting in the cafe-bar, Sketch-O-Matic is a full size photo booth where the camera is replaced by an miniaturised artist studio and one very cramped artist!

Only on until this coming Sunday come and catch it while you can and get you portrait done by one of over 40 Manchester artists including ME!

My confirmed times are:

Friday 7-9pm

Saturday 7-8pm

Thursday afternoon tbc!

I was in there last night for two hours and had a blast drawing a host of beautiful Mancunians! I love your faces people! See my Facebook page for updates and photos of portraits done so far!...

Tonight!

It's tonight, it's new art and it's Top Bunk!

Affordable limited edition prints from artists both local and from around the UK:

Hammo, John Powell-Jones, Gemma Parker, Simon Misra, Emma Mount, David Bailey, Tasha Whittle, Adam Cadwell and Bryony Jackson
  
6pm Cornerhouse Cafe-bar

Runs until 13th Nov 2012

70 Oxford Rd
Manchester
M1 5NH

Top Bunk!

 

I was always drawing. Give me some paper, give me an old telephone book, hell, let me loose on my bedroom wall and I would draw on it! (which indeed I did, it had a lovely scene I like to call 'Dinosaur Utopia' around it's entirety, my Mum and Dad were very understanding towards the creative soul). Such was the pattern of my childhood when I was an artist before I was an 'artist'. 

I drew cats, mermaids the occasional A Team reference, made up historical scenes and girls, always girls! Girls in big dresses, girls with huge boobs and hair, girls with punk attitude and killer heels. Above all, girls with glamour. Nothing much has changed, it's just now I can officially call it art because I am offcially an artist.

That is one of the reasons I am so excited about Top Bunk! a new show taking place in the Cornerhouse Cafe-Bar next month. As the press release states;

Artists don’t tumble from moulds in institutions, the innate spark is not taught but fanned to life beneath catalogue-bought duvet sets and candlewick throws. Sprawled across the floor or hunched over a hand-me-down desk, doodles become sketches, words become poems, wild imaginings scurry for shelter at the back of the wardrobe; soft, pink and glistening, yet to form a hard shell to deflect the criticism that awaits.

Top Bunk! is a Cornerhouse Projects exhibition that seeks to capture the spark of enthusiasm before it bends to fit the restrictive moulds that await; from academia to peer review and the cost of living. No subject is unsuited, no method discouraged. A range of responses include wistful juvenilia, rampaging robots, melancholia, psychedelic daydreams, teen-fan adulation, the allure of adulthood and beginning of sexual fruition.

I am showing two pieces in this show, which I have also helped to curate alongside Bren O Callaghan Cornerhouse's Visual Arts Programme Manager. The first is the pin up girl for the exhibtion; my portait of Layla as seen in the poster, who encapsulates the quinisential 1950's idealised teen. The second is a new piece inspired by my many hours studying the 1970's Jackie Annuals I was given as a child. They were from a bygone era even when I was a kid but I used to love reading them from cover to cover; taking in the problem pages, and fashion tips, loving the picture stories with their super glam illustrations.

 A photo of 'Jackie' in progress, prints of the finished piece can be seen at Top Bunk!

'Jackie' is a painting I created remembering those 70's style hints and Bay City Rollers posters mixed with the awkward feelings of first love and trying to fit in. Being not quite completely formed as a person but doing your damnedest to stand out while not standing out too much. For me, this painting is a girl waiting to be noticed, standing in a field on a Saturday morning watching the boys play football, while her new heels sink futher and further into the mud. 

Top Bunk! runs from 12th Oct to 13th Nov at the Cornerhouse Cafe-Bar featuring limited edition affordable prints and will coincide with this years Sketch-O-Matic...more details to follow!

Cornerhouse: 70 Oxford Street Manchester M1 5NH

The Marilyn Mystery

August 5th will be the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. You may have noticed her presence more in the press lately; a blonde woman with big half closed eyes, a heart shaped face and cherry lips. Her image is instantly recognisable and has been a constant apparition in popular culture for the past 60 years or so. She is probably the greatest sex symbol and feminine icon in modern history and has come to represent the ultimate in tragedy, beauty, star power and glamour.

As a glut of new material claiming to add extra substance to the Marilyn myth is published and broadcast I can't help wondering just how horrified Marilyn would be to know that her every move has been examined down to the last detail. Everything from her dry cleaning receipts to her love affairs and personal diaries have been forensically studied and put out for mass public consumption.

Long lost lovers, friends and family have all queued up to sell their own version of the Marilyn experience, and I'm sure the list will never cease because the demand is always there, we all want to know what she was really like. As she once said about the frenzy of press and fans that followed her during her life, "... everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like sort of a chunk of you. They kind of ... take pieces out of you.... but you do want to stay intact -- intact and on two feet."

Marilyn lived her life in the glare of the spotlight and it has to be said gloried in it; she shone and turned herself into whatever people wanted her to be; a malable female figure, the template for every woman in the public eye since; to just be herself wasn't enough, she had to fit the ideal. In modern day it's safe to say many women feel the same pressure to conform. 

Even half a century after she died we are still the owners of her image, we loot it, study it, borrow it, pull it apart and stick it back together to fit our needs. Marilyn Monroe is, I think, the modern western world's most iconic female. She has become more than the sum of her parts because we invest so much into her legend.

I worry though that we will never cease to keep wanting more from her. Her privacy has been invaded with reckless abandon, her life has become a series of moments to be consumed. But here's where I feel the real enchantment kicks in. Because no matter what we think we know, or how much we find out in the future, Monroe the woman is a total enigma.

During her life she was multi-dimensional, she craved attention and longed for retreat. She played up her character of the dumb blonde but wanted to be taken seriously. She was completely self absorbed yet she was a great friend, generous and giving to the last. Her life was a constant battle to balance out all her complex contradictions.

In death we are no closer to finding out who Marilyn Monore really was. We'll never be able to fully understand her, she is a like all the greatest goddesses that came before, unattainable. We believe in her but her existence is nothing but a mystery.

News and updates

 

 

Today Fiona visited the studio to pick up her portrait. Even though I'd completed this painting a couple of months ago it wasn't until today that Fiona saw it with her own eyes.

I'm very pleased to say she loved it and said she thought it was beautiful! I love to see the finished article in the hands of the person who commssioned it as it gives me a sense of real satisfaction!

Other news:

Currently I'm busy putting a profile together of who my audience is based on the results of my online survey. Thanks to you lot who helped me out! And congrats to the prize draw winner, Mikey from Stoke, who was lucky enough to gain a limited edition print just by answering some questions about my art practice!

I plan to use my survey information in marketing my work. It's been fun because this is a totally different aspect to the creative hands on side of being an artist and I feel I'm learning new skills as I go.

Art news:

 

 

In between the pie charts and data analysis I've been putting together some ideas for a new series of paintings; I recently read a book based in the early 1800's where reference was made to a 'tatez-y' (pronounced tat-ay-zee). To put it into context, a lady's freckle was being admired and was refered to as a 'tatez-y' or 'touch here', to translate the french slang.

I thought how wonderful this idea was; subtley sensual but sweet at the same time, to focus on a blemish or mark on the skin and turn it into something desirable and decadent. I've looked online for more about this phrase but so far have only found reference to it as a low lacey neckline from the same peroid. I'll continue to research to see what more can be found and I have an idea to make this an interactive project turning the intimate into a celebrated theme. It's all a bit hazy at the moment but I'll keep you informed as I go...

A long long time ago I told you about my femme fatale diptych I planned to embroid based on historic themes. Those of you who visit my Facebook page will have seen this photo before but I have now completed Madame Guillotine (I just haven't got a finished photo of her yet) and I'm going to start work on Lady Gunpowder in the next few weeks!

When they are finished I plan to frame them, unlike my past embroideries which I have left in the hoop to be displayed, I think these ladies need a gilded window in which to look out of so I'm hoping to find for some antique style gold frames. I'll let you know how I get on :)

Jubilee cheesecake!

 

In 1953 two fabulous things happened, firstly Elizabeth Winsdor was crowned Queen of England, Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith, and secondly one of the best films ever was released, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!

To celebrate this eventful weekend and get us all in the jubilee spirit I created this image in honor of Her Majesty with a little inspiration from that Hollywood era which gave us Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in fine glamorous form! 

It's easy to forget that our Queen was once a young woman too, and quite a fox at that! So happy Diamond Jubilee weekend Your Majesty, thanks for the last 60 years!