"You can let Miep out of the cage", 2008

mixed media

+/-340mm

This is one of two new sculptures I've recently finished. You can indeed let poor little Miep out of the cage. Depends if you want to or not. Would Miep like being out of the cage?

My new work has me thinking about modern life, money, fear, conflict, and power amongst other things. Basically what goes on outside of the garden. (most of my work from the previous year or so has been playing with the idea of peace, or the initial state that is found in many stories. from Genesis to Sonic the Hedgehog and beyond)

Here we have, in front, Pollen featuring Peach, and in the back, Pop go the Clouds 1

First on view when coming up the stairs - Desire, featuring Sheepish on the right and the three screen-prints, TSHTSHTT, Where there's Smoke, and Evolution.

In the background is Pop go the Clouds 2

several images of my show, In Visible Friends, will follow. This image in is of Reflex, featuring Dash.

In the background is Sunspot, left, and A Way Down, right.

Bubbles, featuring Skratchet. This was pretty much where this collection all began back in 2003 with my installation at Spier Wine Estates. The installation was then reworked for interior display and I revisited it again thsi year, finally resolving the sculptures beneath the bubbles.

My exhibition In Visible Friends opened last night. Here is a selection of images from the event. I'll put up images of the individual pieces later, when I have some time. Thanks to everyone who was there, it was a really great evening.

Like Me, 2007
acrylic on canvas, 1000x600mm


featuring Peach

A prelim design for a new painting, possibly to be called Pop go the cloauds 1. Its going ot be 1,8x1,5m. Htis and the number two in the series will be the biggest canvases I've painted. They're fun. The colours in this design are nothing like the final version. I thought that thsi colours scheme would be far too heavy on a large scale, or rather that such a dark painting would distract from the other works that will be n my exhibition.

i did a lot of work on different versions in different colours of this design. This was one that I especially liked, although I chose not to produce it. The one I chose was a bitmore subtle, an I thought would make a better large scale work. the 1x1m square canvas should be finished in a couple of days.

these are two characters that I made as the start of a sort of pop-spiritual iconography that I wanted to develop in my paintings. the one that's a pencil sketch made it into a painting in very pastel shades that are so light that its impossible to photograph nicely, so I won't post it. I've had to leave this theme behind for the moment, as the work I'm producing for my up-coming exhibition has taken a different, and I think simpler direction. I'll get back to this in November. It's one of the elements that I was working on that I've been very sad to leave behind.

I finished painting The sculpture of Dash a couple of days ago. It gave me way more trouble than I'd counted on, but its done now. So now I need to get stuck into my painting again. Boy am I tired.