Saturday 23 July 2011

A classic

This is one of my favourite books about an artist, the Horse's mouth ,written by Joyce Carey in 1944. It is about Gulley Jimson, an old, skint ,randy artist in post war London living in house boats and run down studios along the Thames. He's in the stage of an artist's life between early success and the late recognition that an artist too often gets after they die, but he always tries to make the most of a bad situation, including stealing paint from shops and sponging off his friends and a couple of millionaire collectors. Its a gritty, funny, but also quite sad story with some beautiful descriptions about how an obsessive artist's mind works.
It was made into a film too which has some good bits with Alec Guiness great as Gulley, but it has a bit of 50s slapstick which I guess was to bring it to the mass audience. As usual the book is better.

Thursday 14 July 2011

new gallery

Towards the beach , acrylic on board.





Pontoon no.3, acrylic on board.







Fishing boat, acrylic on board.









Harbour with yachts, mixed media on board.


I have just joined a gallery in Bath, a city which I have never been to before - beats me why, I was very impressed with it. The gallery is called Edgar Modern and it has some very good south - west artists, http://www.edgarmodern.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=289








Thursday 7 July 2011

new exhibition

A couple of shots of me yesterday hard at work putting the finishing touches on for a new show which starts tomorrow , at Beside the wave gallery in Falmouth, opening view 6-8 pm. I always work on the paintings right until the last minute, getting different ideas as I go along. As you can see I've even been too busy to have a shave. I heard a famous artist once say - 'the painting is only finished once its sold' and I'd be inclined to agree with them. http://www.beside-the-wave.co.uk/