art on the bedroom floor (best light!) Since the drawing class with Stuart Geddes at the RWA Bristol it's been a self review on mark making. Fun!
2018 in the UK
It's March, it's chilly, as most of the trees in the landscape are deciduous, it's visually Wintery.
That is the beauty of the promise of the transformation to come. Spring! Not only is the landscape a mass of brilliant greens, the birds burst out with a dawn chorus and life teems with palpable energy, vibrating the new season into the life stream.
Bristol in West England a university city and a creative hub, is where I'm starting this "adventure" of living back "home" for a year. Raising a family in California has rendered me of "trans-Atlantic" species. Now it is a journey of exploring my deep-rooted sense of belonging, discovering those influences in my art work while reconciling my dual citizenship.
Pollard tree 1st drawing session Bristol Graffiti
Back to LA.
Hauser & Wirth opens for Mark Bradford
Studio works unfolding
One month of a residence in Iceland was entirely compatible, calm relatively uneventful. Primordial rhythms merged me with a landscape. No driving, no chores beyond cooking and clean up, just observation of weather, horizons, sky, volcanoes with minimal touring. I want to return and explore more the land; another kind of visit (resort to be a tourist!).
With an overwhelming collection of inner inspirational charge, the challenge is about how to proceed, post the experience of immersion at a residence.
It appears not to be about replicating my contact with place and time but rather a directional guide and affirmation about what motivates me visually and emotionally without influences of cultural trends. I'm interested in the gaze over landscapes of grandeur; mixing the angles of the gaze; experimenting with materials that evoke mood and/or cross sections of agates and minerals that make up the geology. I am fascinated while being alarmed by ice melt and what is revealed by it's absence. I aim to convey a stillness that is deeply alive, almighty and mysteriously active.
That is always the challenge and occasionally i touch on it.
Leaving Iceland
A rich and spacious experience in wild natural land has been life affirming and momentous.
The people of Iceland are as special as the landscape and suddenly the country is faced with an onslaught of tourists from many parts of the world, curious about this extraordinary land. Another way to live, far from the overpopulated metropolis we mostly inhabit.
Now back in London, temps are high and mills of tourists flood the streets and tube trains. In two weeks I'll be california, tons of cars and extremes of temps; cold AC and hot outside! Ah weather!
Farewell dinner at studio Gullkistan
Edges and Falls last miniute sketches