This piece is now finished and is 24 x 24″, 60 x 60cm, oil on deep cotton canvas. Like a lot of people, I think we are all obsessed with social media, and our smartphones in particular. I would like to say it is only the young who are so obsessed, but it is definitely crossing over into my generation, the older market. Sometimes this is a good thing, as we can, as artists, get our work seen across the world at a touch of a button without having to pay for an expensive marketing campaign. Sometimes not so good, when we spend more time looking at our phones than at each other. Hence this painting. Upfest (Urban Paint Festival) takes place on the street where I live in Bristol each year and this particular artist’s work struck a chord with me. He’s on Instagram as stefano_chies and his ad logo is ‘Sign’, as in my work. I have placed my trademark woman in front of the hoarding, completely oblivious of this wonderful art, as she is of course, totally engrossed on her phone. I am interested in preserving street art and graffiti in my paintings as they…
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Something a bit different. I am very interested in street art and graffiti and here in Bristol I am surrounded by a wealth of talent in that field. I live on North Street in Bedminster and every year my street plays host to Upfest. Upfest is an urban art festival and artists from all over the world descend on North Street and cover buildings, walls and hoardings with superb streetart and graffiti. I love watching their progression and always feel a little sad that these wonderful works get painted over in time. That is the ephemeral nature of streetart. So what I am aiming to do is to preserve some of these works in my paintings for history. I am starting with Bristol, but I have in mind other cities such as Cape Town where I used to live, London with the vibrant art of Camden Town and Brick Lane. I could paint in any city in the world and am open to offers of artist residencies… This particular hoarding was a temporary structure featuring the work of the artist ‘Sign’. I shall be putting his signature onto the phone under the red mouth as it features in…
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This title came to mind from the Black Eye Pease cd, Elephunk, but I had to be careful of copyright! Once finished, this piece will be available through Cape Town gallery State Of The Art at their new premises at 50, Buitenkant. (Http://stateoftheart-gallery.com) I saw this wonderful street art in Woodstock and is listed as being by Falko One and called ‘I can’t live without my radio’. I know nothing about his work yet, but see on Instagram he is listed as #falkoone, so I salute you Falko. He seems to like painting elephants so look up his wonderful work. I am incorporating Streetart and graffiti into my paintings to preserve them for the future. I think it is such a shame they get painted over, but that is the nature of street art I suppose. I would like to paint work in other cities, London, Amsterdam, the possibilities are endless. When I paint street art paintings for Bristol gallery Great White Art (http://greatwhiteart.com) I more often than not have my lady in red sliding past the colourful background. As a result, I have come up with the generic title ‘Bristol City Rover’ for these works. What could I call…
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