33 years of mistakes
I had intended to keep my website as Zen as possible; couple of clicks, 2019 work only. 3 works max.
But the illusion of my current work bursting forth, fully-formed from nowhere would have missed the opportunity to share an interesting illustrated back story of self-doubt, dubious choices, indecision and absence of follow-through that have brought my work to where it is now.
Much of that work has been lost in the transit of time, some of it actually lost in transit, some stolen (unbelievably, from a garage in Croydon) and some pieces have been sold.
Fortunately, despite the erratic execution and preservation of my work, I have an obsessional drive to create and I photograph everything.
Come with me dear reader, backwards to 1986, starting with the best of my recent work since 2017:
I had spent the dozen or so years prior to 2017 trying to quit painting entirely. Here is the evidence that I couldn't even make a success of that:
Looking at them now, I can see the stirrings of the aesthetic that occupies me today; the area of unpainted canvas on the painting in the middle row; the restless movement in the pictures top left and bottom right; a sparer use of colour generally; a greater commitment to abstraction.
Here is the best of the surviving work between 1998 and 2003:
Though I had created some successful abstract images prior to this five-year period, I still swung between figuration and abstraction; the artistic identity crisis continued. Nothing survives from 2004, though I remember doing drawings that year that have turned out to be prototypes of my more successfully realised recent work.
Lastly, these are the best surviving examples from the eleven-year period from my graduation in 1986 to 1997. The piece in the bottom right corner from about February 1986, graced my degree show. When I'd finished it, I remember another student remarking that it was "terrific". Praise was never dispensed lightly at Goldsmiths.
It's been an interesting journey. Hopefully a little more predictable and even in the next 33 years.
But the illusion of my current work bursting forth, fully-formed from nowhere would have missed the opportunity to share an interesting illustrated back story of self-doubt, dubious choices, indecision and absence of follow-through that have brought my work to where it is now.
Much of that work has been lost in the transit of time, some of it actually lost in transit, some stolen (unbelievably, from a garage in Croydon) and some pieces have been sold.
Fortunately, despite the erratic execution and preservation of my work, I have an obsessional drive to create and I photograph everything.
Come with me dear reader, backwards to 1986, starting with the best of my recent work since 2017:
I had spent the dozen or so years prior to 2017 trying to quit painting entirely. Here is the evidence that I couldn't even make a success of that:
Looking at them now, I can see the stirrings of the aesthetic that occupies me today; the area of unpainted canvas on the painting in the middle row; the restless movement in the pictures top left and bottom right; a sparer use of colour generally; a greater commitment to abstraction.
Here is the best of the surviving work between 1998 and 2003:
Though I had created some successful abstract images prior to this five-year period, I still swung between figuration and abstraction; the artistic identity crisis continued. Nothing survives from 2004, though I remember doing drawings that year that have turned out to be prototypes of my more successfully realised recent work.
Lastly, these are the best surviving examples from the eleven-year period from my graduation in 1986 to 1997. The piece in the bottom right corner from about February 1986, graced my degree show. When I'd finished it, I remember another student remarking that it was "terrific". Praise was never dispensed lightly at Goldsmiths.
It's been an interesting journey. Hopefully a little more predictable and even in the next 33 years.