Business as Usual? Post Apocalyptic Sculptures

Like scavengers extracting sustenance out of the discarded remains of capitalism, we sift through the flotsam and jetsam washed up by the winter storms. Much of it has been in the water for a long time. It has been reconfigured, eaten away, oxidised, twisted, battered and crushed on its elemental journey. It is edifying, this … More Business as Usual? Post Apocalyptic Sculptures

The Magic of Islands

Rocks breathe, springs circulate; now is the change complete. She is absorbed into the body of the island, visible to the seer’s eye alone. The Myth of Santa Warner, Ithell Colquhoun, 1947 When I was researching our recent visit to the island of Crete I remembered that one of my favourite artists, Ithell Colquhoun, was … More The Magic of Islands

Palingenesis, and the Art of Everythingism

Two important exhibitions in London last weekend: Natalia Goncharova Retrospective at Tate Modern, and Lee Krasner: Living Colour at Barbican. In Goncharova’s famous painting, The Cyclist, the figure is willfully heading in the opposite direction to that indicated by the pointing authoritarian finger. It suitably sums up Goncharova’s spirit. A leading figure of the new … More Palingenesis, and the Art of Everythingism

Inscape/Outscape

My brother and I currently have work on display in Kemi’s cafe, Pontcanna. We present work in dialogue with each other, working from very different perspectives. Matt paints plein air from landscapes around Somerset and Portsmouth, while my paintings emerge from inner imaginative worlds. I am interested in capturing fleeting moments from the mundus imaginalis, … More Inscape/Outscape

Animating the Aliens

On the after-school Storytelling and Art course at Llanover Hall, the children decided to create a theatre out of cardboard. As our theme for that week was Sci-fi, everyone made alien characters to star in the show. On the first week, the parents got a preview of act one, with one boy being narrator, others … More Animating the Aliens

Windows on the World

In their passports, participants of the Storytelling and Art from Around the World course inserted a picture of themselves as a character of their choosing complete with name, magical attributes, and planet of origin.   Using coloured acetates, windows were made to look in upon various characters created in response to folk stories. This week: … More Windows on the World

Story Mapping

The after-school story-telling and art sessions have evolved into the children writing their own story in weekly installments that I type up and read back to them the following week. They still listen to folk or creation tales from different cultures each week, and these tend to inspire elements of their own story. Week one, … More Story Mapping