41*

Last week I had a meeting with the art director for the YMCA in Earls Court, and had a brief chat about a project happening next year. The show is open for one evening only for the art exhibition,which is a collective response to the Olympics. My contribution is a piece of work to relate to India,which should be interesting as they are not competing.
I am thinking along the lines of constructing something with Indian flowers,which are used in celebrations,weddings,funerals,so it will be a very culturally charged material,so I want to do it justice. I will be posting more on the piece closer to the time,but for the time being here's an image of the space in chelsea,and below is a link to the projects homepage.

http://nicolaforyouth.org/

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40*

This photograph is of a sculpture I am currently putting together entitled Shoot.

The work is abstract,but features images cut from a handful of duplicate fieldsports magazines.

The idea of the work is to relate to some kind of fur and skin,with the paper being the fur and the crimson satin representing a skin.

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39.5*

This is a closeup shot of my progress on a new piece of work called shoot. This specific image was requested by Andor Merks,who is an interactive VJ that's showing some work at the same exhibition as me on the 23rd at the Queen of Hoxton. more details on the exhibition can be seen here. Andor is also using this image in a piece of work being shown at a gallery space near brick lane.

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39*

Above is my proposal for a wall based piece at Hammerson, they were looking to replace an existing piece of work in their London office, so I approached them with this idea,which would be a large printed vector graphic on paper or vinyl. I took inspiration from artwork featuring on numerous kitsune maison music compilations. I think the work fits their brief of showing their employees as as a community,but it delivers the idea with a contemporary twist.

38*

Zebragraph - jpeg / collage

37*

Alongside my abstract body of work I am in the middle of developing, I am also building on a more commercialy directed series of image based collages and digital constructions. The work featured is intended for adaptation into promo-material, fly posters and original prints and for later use in association music,art and design events.

36*

Scatter pattern

This piece of collage is a shattering of paper based adverts, and was done using a tesselating shape to build up what I see as a sprawling organic mass. The work felt very intuitive to construct as I amassed lots of paper based advertising and built up blocks of form and colour as I cut and applied the work to the board.

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35*

Pink Thumb Circle - This piece was done in collaboration with my brother James Mitchell, his work deals with identity and mark making, and this sickly pink is a colour that I seem to keep returning to. using pigment inks we applied hundreds of fingerprints to a wall to create this piece,it was really interesting applying such a personal thing to a found object.

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34*

Saw this Wallpaper* feature the other day, really nice technique called Ombro Cinema, and could be something to experiment with in some of my cut and paste images I put together.

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33*

Recent posts (this one included) have been posted featuring more images than text, this is more because I am currently focusing my efforts on rapidly making images and visuals from existing photographs and posters.

I am trying to keep my work thinking more about the visual outcome at the moment, instead of falling into my usual trap of getting caught up in concepts and theory; which in my case seems to slightly hinder art production and my work rate.  This is not to say there is no idea behind the work to begin with, but I find it more exciting when threads of concepts and ideas reveal themselves through the process of designed image placement and art making.   

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32*

White Horse - Jpeg

2010

Al - Jpeg

2010

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31*

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30*

 

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29*

4.Wood effect vinyl, paper.

5.Marker on newsprint

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28*

1.

2.

3.

These are a small selection of images freshly cut from my book of ideas.

All three images are appropriated from magazines and adverts. Image 1 is a tongue in cheek statement as the only digital enhancement would be the text stating as such, also relating to the ongoing outcry for airbrushing in fashion images to be honestly represented.

Image 2 & 3 are both working with the idea of subtracting parts of each image to present them in a disected state, image 2 has been altered in a way to make it appear more like a hairy creature than the golden hair of a model, this idea could be broadened to creating other amorphous cut and pasted characters.

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27*

Defacing glossy photos

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26*

Images removed from billboards.

This piece is intended on being an image pasted onto 3 ply, with rough cut edges splintered as if it were taken directly from a billboard itself, leaving an advert model mouthless.

Mouthy, Idea. 2010

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25*

Books & Collage.

When I first started making collaged artwork, I bought second hand books and collected magazine images and text I thought had potential. 

The images and text had this exciting potential to construct situations and structures that would otherwise never happen; Introducing Nuclear explosions to photos of glamorous models, and splicing cavemen into 80's sputnik-esque scenes. 

My early collaged pieces have always felt quite seperate to that of my more recent work, but the adaptation of the concept of collage has made me aware that my practice always returns to the layering of objects, ideas and images, and are borrowed from a limitless variety of sources.

I like being freed when it comes to justifying why I make what I make, although I know it is important to understand why I'm making artwork, I think it is equally important not to tie your ideas to a theoretical lead weight.

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24*

Konx-Om-Pax 

I was reading today about an artist I wasn't familiar with, A guy calling himself Konx-Om-Pax. I really enjoyed watching these couple of videos up on his site, it reminded me of a previous post with images from an artist I'm a big fan of; John Russell (ex BANK collective founder)

Twin Portal from Konx-om-Pax on Vimeo.

Reading about this Advanced Beauty video, I found the project is inspired by synasthesia,
the rare, sensory experience of seeing sound or tasting colours, and the videos created are physical manifestations of sound, sculpted by volume, pitch or structure of the soundtrack.

Read more: http://www.myspace.com/konxompax#ixzz0uRT3MyEr

Advanced Beauty from Konx-om-Pax on Vimeo.

 John Russels work definately ties into the same visual string as K-O-P, but seems more attune in subverting   (in earlier work) posters and media images, and more recently taking on a slightly more acid-soaked computer game graphic appeal.

 

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23*

Mr Pendz

As mentioned in yesterdays post, my new direction of work is definitely a product of a conversation with an old friend, namely an artist working under the nom de plume Mr Pendz.

I thought it would be worth sharing a small a selection of Mr Pendz' more hard-edge graffitti, as opposed to my more 'flouncy' artwork that takes part of its form from being linked with illegal artwork, and intervention.

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22*

NEW WORK

Over the last 10 months I have been working full time, in a totaly art-unrelated job, which has seriously stunted my artistic output.
I now think I can see why so many artists end up slowing down with their art, or outright stopping art production altogether.


 My new branch of 2D work has really sparked a new interest in me, as pretty much all my university work was sculptural, this alteration of creative approach is really making working new and exciting again.


Another reason I have started with the image based work was after a long chat with an old friend that I used to produce graffitti lettering and characters with, and it made me see that I am more of an image maker, despite having a sculptural view on things, it means I can apply this sensibility to image work.


Although there is (as of yet) no definitive reasoning or statement behind each work, there are ties that are forming that are becoming more obvious as I get more into art making again.

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21*

100% 0% Critical Content?

Grammar of Ornament (posters)

Simon Bedwell, 2009

 

 John Russell -The Collagist (installation shot)

2002

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20*

Free handmade Artist / Curator / Critic glasses with the 2nd issue of Varied Thoughts, Potentialities & Ideas!

Style yourself as one of your contemporary art heroes!

Wear your glasses to exhibition openings, during lectures or around town, wherever you are mkae sure you bring that touch of pretention to your wardrobe. 

Important Note!: Image above is not representational of actual glasses.

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19*

Release of the 1st (of 3) limited editions of Varied Thoughts, Potentialities & Ideas - available free upon request, or through Northampton Gallery , The Fishmarket.

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18*

Bassalt Rock

Collage

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17*

Some bad, some not so bad.

Below are some scans of pages from my notebook, showing some new ideas I want to push further, and others I dont think I will be seeing again.

(click images to enlarge )

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16*

Varied thoughts, potentialities & ideas.

This image is taken from the front of an upcoming zine I will be putting together, releasing all my most personal Ideas into the public sphere. The zine will be an ongoing project, that I want to use as a form of exposure to the good and bad artistic ideas I get stuck in my head.

The project has also made me reach the decision to use scans of my sketchbook on here, as opposed to presenting images of work, but more to future ideas and thoughts in flux

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15*

From the landscape to my eye.

Collage, digitally coloured

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14*

Fig.1: A Group of plinth's

Fig.2: Biopsy, 2008 - A past piece of  my work

Biopsy was the first time I used the gallery space as an object for re-interpretation, and I still find this idea something that is not expolred readily and fully in current art trends. There are some artists who's work works in this direction, but I am very interested in creating new ideas together that fall between both site specific intervention, and restructuring existing architectural features.

New work I am developing, such as the cut plinthe piece Nice Little Slice is extending ideas I began with Biopsy.  The playful approach to make the viewer question their own perception of material characteristics is continued, left questioning if this work is a meticulously orchestrated reproduction, or the actual material it represents.

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13*

After beginning thinking about new work, I have learnt a little about Gaia theory. I am finding the nostalgia of crackpot british science, especially that which is pioneered by Dr James Lovelock in the 1960's a real influence, in terms of the way an idea seen as ridiculous can represent something valid.

James Lovelock argues that such things as the level of oxygen, the formation of clouds, and the saltiness of the oceans may be controlled by interacting physical, chemical and biological processes. He believes that "the self-regulation of climate and chemical composition is a process that emerges from the rightly coupled evolution of rocks, air and the ocean - in addition to that of organisms. Such interlocking self-regulation, while rarely optimal - consider the cold and hot places of the earth, the wet and the dry - nevertheless keeps the Earth a place fit for life.

(Cited from text by Bruno Comby, independant researcher, president of EFN, friend of James Lovelock)

In this project Lovelock's text is something I intend on revisiting in different conceptual realisations, and reinterpreting its ever increasing relevance in the current societal awareness of our changing climate.
Lovelock's scientific practice was ignored when he presented his ideas, but Gaia has now become a respected idea.

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12*

Above is a screenshot of my website (featuring the work "flight pattern #1")*, which features past and present work, as well work which isnt on here just yet, but should be on my blog very soon!

* Flight Pattern #1 is from a recent series of digitally altered photographs, all of which play with existing happenings, re-presenting them in obscure constructed events.

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