059 | Back to Black | Painted 2022, Framed 2023 | Acrylic on double-framed birch panel | 89x64cm
I’ve highlighted below some of my key works and concepts from my second year at Turps in London. The course has brought me extraordinary joy and boosted my confidence to carry on. You can see my older work elsewhere on the site.
Some of the works below are in progress, some are finished and framed and others are just explorations which may or may not make it. I’ve got 20+ works on the go and have 200+ ideas, but as I only paint part time I have to make tough choices on what to actually create and commit to.
In the last few days I have had an offer to get limited edition prints of some of my work into a craft market and earlier this year I was approached by an art dealer to potentially go onto their books. I’ll explore these options after I finish my second year.
Finished works.
Over the last year I have been experimenting not just with my traditional hard-edged acrylic work, but adding in found objects and mixed media, including sand, glue, pencil, tape and varnish plus adding washes. I’ve also experimented with sponges and blotting with paper (see ‘D of the B of the Bang’ below. I plan to do another year at Turps.
072 | “Nah mate” Acrylic & varnish on birch timber board, charcoal surround
073 | Chesil Beach - Found Object | Mixed media: driftwood, acrylic support, acrylic paint, varnish, mounted in a box frame | Aug 2023
079 | Neo 001 | Acrylic and varnish on unprimed raw canvas & solid oak frame | 66cm x 66cm | 25 Nov 2023
080 | Linear Spectrum | Acrylic on canvas with indigo board in mock black ash frame | 43cm x 53cm | Dec 2023
081 | Braindump 2 | Approx 1000 Used 'Super Sticky' Post-it Notes of actual things I've done | 17 January 2024
082 | Portals | Acrylic paint on deep canvas | 50cm x 50cm | 26 Jan 2024
083 | D of the B of the Bang | Acrylic paints, done with brushes, sponges, wet paper & acrylic white wash; deep-set black frame | 86cm x 63cm |28 Mar 2024. B of the Bang was a spectacular piece of public sculpture in Manchester. Sadly it suffered massive structural issues and rather than be fixed or rebuilt, we were all aghast as our insane Council demolished it. So my piece is “Demolition of the B of the Bang”. Here’s my homage with the acrylic paint now dry. Pseudo abstract in style, zoom in and the brush marks denote some light texture on the steel - achieved by not mixing the grey paint properly, so that I got slight stripes and I curved the brushstrokes; the sky: extremely experimental, done with brushes, sponges, wet paper and a white wash.
084 | Waterhouse Column: work in progress
084 | Waterhouse Column | 42x59cm | Acrylic on birch panel, timber support & black spacer shadow gap | March_2024
085 | “PARTY TIME!!!!” | Mixed media on birch panel: primer, acrylic, sand, glue, tape. Charcoal black mount | 54cm x 54cm | April 2024
Concept works (digital renders).
The following ideas come from a mix of sources; over the last year I have found interest in the nostalgia and happy memories of favourite foodstuffs from when I was small. I’ve started a couple of them as canvases and still working through the rest, either tweaking on impulse or because of mentor guidance (the food abstractions below still need further tweaks before painting).
I also mocked up my soon-to-be-flattened former Uni campus. It’s a concrete mess to some (which is how I viewed it back in the day) and a Modernist utopia to others (which I now appreciate). The first image is a replay of a previous piece of work I did, with an added twist: my thin lines on my original (“Homage to Fromage”, which is in the On Canvas section of this site) were along the lines of something Mondrian might have done. My new take on it adds a new weight and heft from Max Bill.
Scroll through the gallery for a nosey at my concepts; feedback welcome!
![“Max Bill versus Homage to Fromage” [In Progress] 29 x 42cm | Acrylic on birch panel | March 2024](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/629651756015124e795429b3/ebdfed2c-5355-4f91-a963-762b36d3f416/3.+%E2%80%9CMax+Bill+versus+Homage+to+Fromage%E2%80%9D+_+29+x+42cm+_+Acrylic+on+birch+panel+_+March+2024.jpg)
“Max Bill versus Homage to Fromage” [In Progress] 29 x 42cm | Acrylic on birch panel | March 2024
“FFS_Missing Link” (working title) | Concept to be painted on 20x25cm canvas in acrylics | Mar 2024
“B of the Bang” | Would be done in acrylic | Size TBC
“Big Taste" | Food Abstractions concept | Will be painted in acrylics 46x61cm & framed with natural ash or oak | Mar 2024
"Custard Remade" | Digital Mock-up (to be painted in acrylics on canvas 45cm x 60cm) | Jan 2024
“UMIST" | University Campus Abstractions concept | Size and mount TBC | Late 2023
“A Taste of Lancashire" | Food Abstractions concept | In Progress: acrylic on deep canvas 60 x 60cm | Late 2023
“Hypersweet" | Food Abstractions concept | Will be painted in acrylics 46x61cm & framed with natural ash or oak | Late 2023
“Dorset in a Box" | Food Abstractions concept | Late 2023
“Frooty" | Food Abstractions concept | Size TBC | Late 2023
“Cornflake Utopia" | Food Abstractions concept | Will be painted in acrylics 46x61cm & framed with natural ash or oak | Mar 2024
Mixed media experiments.
A year ago I attended a slightly bonkers and very enjoyable 2-day mixed media course by Hazel Battersby in York. Some of the 50+ pieces I created are sampled below. I have dusted them off because of a renewed interest in the topic and am spying ways in which I might start to meld the rigid authority of hard-edged painting with the crazed world of mixed media. . .
MM001 Blue Wash
MM002 Wax Relax
MM003 Blue Dot
MM004 Charcoal Venn
MM005 Teabagging Up Close
MM006 Don’t cross the line
MM007 Fucked It
MM008 Let me out :/
MM009 Greenwashing
MM010 Relaxing Patina
MM011 Green Amalgam