Another Day

Haven't  posted any blogs for far too long. Everyone has migrated to Facebook these days. Does anyone still read blogs?  I posted this rant on FB last night and someone suggested posting it on my blog. So here it is in it's alcohol fueled verbatim:   The visual arts got hijacked by the pretentious pseudo intellectual elite in a way that none of the other arts have. Im not quite sure why. As a working painter, i have come to realise that i possibly have just had the ill luck to experience my formati ve years in the worst possible climate as far as painting goes. The demise of modernism and the rise of the institutionalised museum and gallery system. The big names in the nz art world now, are largely the ones who broke into the scene when it was relatively easy to get work shown inthe, then newly burgeoning dealer galleries, and get work acquired in the important collections, and written into the art history books. Its quite a different story now adays. But things are ch...

This is the view looking towards the sea on Komene Road. I drive this road mist mornings to walk my dog on the beach.

This is Adam and Alex Scott, two brothers, and sons of my cousin Mark Scott. I have met them a couple of times whilst they were visiting Taranaki with their father. Alex, I believe is now working in IT, and Adam is still at school.  Adam was recently in the news, when he stepped in to save his friend from a schoolyard bully. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3459821/Sickening-video-shows-playground-bully-swinging-punches-disabled-boy-t-fight-crowd-boys-cheer-action.html I was pleased with the way this painting turned out. I have discovered that I like the dynamics inherent when you have more than one person in the picture. I believe that this original selfie was taken on their last visit to NZ. It looks like they were at the top of the Auckland Skytower.

This is my cousin Chris Scott. Younger brother of  Mark and son of Valerie and Malcolm Scott. This was an odd picture to paint. It seems to be an old photo taken some years ago, which has then been rephotographed, and now turned into a painting. I kind of like all these transitions of the original information. Each layer of transformation contains it's own distortions and artifacts, such as the flash of the camera on the righthand corner of the photo, and the key-holing effect of the original perspective. These all add up to give the image a kind of hallucinatory, or dreamlike quality. And it is kind of like how our minds skew and distort our past memories, I think. 

This is my cousin Mark, again, on my father's side. The son of my father's sister, Valerie, and Malcolm Scott. When I was still living in England in the early seventies, Mark was still a little boy, and I have memories of a large and exuberant child, who would leave our Nana Hutch rather exasperated, in spite of which she always had a soft spot for him!  Much later, I got to know Mark a little bit as an adult, on his several visits to New Zealand with his two eldest sons, Alex, and Adam. He works in IT and seems to travel the world quite a bit. He still has a bit of the childlike about him, as his profile pic with a lemon snowfreeze, or something, indicates! I had a bit of difficulty getting this one right and had to have two goes at it.

This is my cousin, Lesley. She is the daughter of my father's brother, my uncle Malcolm, and Auntie Margaret. Lesley is about the same age as me, I think, and she also has a younger brother, Michael, who is not on Facebook. They all still live in the North of England. During the years I was back living in England, I saw quite a bit of Lesley and Michael, and I went on several holidays with them to Scotland and Wales. My uncle Mac, was a very active outdoors kind of man, and he took us hiking and climbing. I have very fond memories of that time. Living on the other side of the world, I havn't seen much of my cousins since that time, although I have made a couple of short visits back.  Through Facebook I see that Lesley is still very fond of animals and nature, and seems to be interested in spiritual self awareness and personal growth.

This is my niece Georgina, daughter of Valerie and Trevor and sister to Jessica. In her Facebook profile she is in the arms of her boyfriend Dylan, outdoors in a woodland scene. I think it must be Lucy's Gully, judging by the Redwood trees.  The image appeals to me as it kind of has a fairytale "babes in the wood" feel to it! This is one of those images where I regret choosing such a small size to work on. At only 100mm, or about 4 inch square, it is just too tiny to effectively capture likeness in the faces, with the impasto oil paint I use. However, I have been considering developing some of these little sketches further in larger paintings. We will see.