Favourite

This is one of my favourite ones, called purple city. Done on canvas and frame. The fame is part of the art work. Size is 34 * 33cm

Artist Satement

I create because I have to! There is this innate habit that makes humans what they are: the unexplainable need to create. We all create to some degree or another; some sculpture, paint, draw, design jewellery or invent meals. Some create with more passion and frequency than others, and I like to think of myself as one of those . I prefer to create using gold/silver leafed canvases as my foundation, with the addition of other objects attached to the canvas. This method of creating is commonly known as “Assemblage”. My preference of additional objects at the moment is electronic circuit boards. Each of them is an object of art in their own right, and an art object of another’s creation, therefore adding to the continuity of the work that I'm in the process of making. When I hold a “motherboard” in my hand, I can not help but marvel at the patterns created by the circuits, the way that the precious metals reflect off the surface and the placements of the chips. When holding the board, my mind begins to ask. “How can I use this gorgeous, but rather redundant piece? It is too fascinating just toss it out, without a second thought” After I have prepared the canvas with gold and silver leaf, and having antiqued and stressed the metal, the circuit boards or any other objects that suit me at the time, are added. There seems to be a never ending challenge to do/make/experiment with physical things. Constantly looking for something but never finding out what I’m looking for or what I’m trying to achieve. This reminds me of what a wise man once said: “There is nothing new under the sun”, so looking for new methods was not going to be “a walk in the park”. Man has used every imaginable item to create with: charcoal from fire, pigments from the soil, metal, vegetable and even animal substances. So, in my search I have used traditional as well as contemporary objects, and so my art was born. Gold and silver leaf paintings are the offspring of my fecundate creatively So with great pleasure and pride I present my oeuvre to you, and hope that in observing my art, you will experience the same joy that I had in its creation.

The Writing

I have been given the opportunity to have an exhibition at the "Banco Portugal" in Leiria. This has been a wonderful surprise and a responsibility to have everything in order for the inauguration. The event will take place on the 23 rd January and the exhibition will continue until the end of February 2016. I lot of artists would love to exhibit there, and I have been trying to do so, for the last 10 years. But, the paper work has to be done. The writing of the press releases, a revised "Artist Statement" (As my current one no longer suites the coming event, and invitation to be designed and posted out (This time via emails only). I have been working constantly for the last 2 weeks on the canvases, but the writing of the the mentioned essays have not been forthcoming. Procrastination with these seems to define the situation very well.

The History of Circuit Boards

So, the boards that we use to day took about 100 years to develop into a massive industry. Here is a short explanation of the history and the people that played an important role in the development. For some it might be a little too much information, but here it is: The circuit boards that we take for granted, started with technologies in the 20th century. In 1903, a German inventor, Albert Hanson, described flat foil conductors laminated to an insulating board, in multiple layers. Thomas Edison experimented with chemical methods of plating conductors onto linen paper in 1904. Arthur Berry in 1913 patented a print-and-etch method in Britain, and in the United States Max Schoop obtained a patent to flame-spray metal onto a board through a patterned mask. Charles Durcase in 1927 patented a method of electroplating circuit patterns. The Austrian engineer Paul Eisler invented the printed circuit as part of a radio set while working in England around 1936. Around 1943 the USA began to use the technology on a large scale to make proximity fuses for use in World War II. After the war, in 1948, the USA released the invention for commercial use. Printed circuits did not become commonplace in consumer electronics until the mid-1950s, after the Auto-Sembly process was developed by the United States Army. At around the same time in Britain work along similar lines was carried out by Geoffrey Dummer, then at the RRDE. NOW IT IS USED IN MY ART AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION - THE ART MOVEMENT IS CALLED ASSEMBLAGE.

Assemblage

This is another example of assemblage. In this time of history we are using digital equipment like no other time. I know that seems to be very obvious. Circuit boards are ubiquetes and are entwined into our lives to such an extent that we do not know that they are present. They seem to be part of almost everything - how long will it be before we all have a piece embedded into our body. There are already a few people (those that can afford it) that use circuit boards to help them with their sight and hearing. I have heard of clubers that have a chip inserted into their skin that they use to gain access to certain clubs and pay for drinks, then these charges are debited from their banking accounts.

Assemblage

Assemblage is an artistic form or medium usually created on a defined substrate that consists of three-dimensional elements projecting out of or from the substrate. It is similar to collage, a two-dimensional medium. It is part of the visual arts, it typically uses found objects, but is not limited to these materials. The origin of the artform dates to the cubist constructions of Pablo Picasso c. 1912-1914. The origin of the word (in its artistic sense) can be traced back to the early 1950s, when Jean Dubuffet created a series of collages of butterfly wings, which he titled assemblages d'empreintes. However, both Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso and others had been working with found objects for many years prior to Dubuffet. Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin created his "counter-reliefs" in the mid 1910s. Alongside Tatlin, the earliest woman artist to try her hand at assemblage was Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, the Dada Baroness. In addition, one of the earliest and most prolific was Louise Nevelson, who began creating her sculptures from found pieces of wood in the late 1930s. In 1961, the exhibition "The Art of Assemblage" was featured at the New York Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition showcased the work of early 20th-century European artists such as Braque, Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Picasso, and Kurt Schwitters alongside Americans Man Ray, Joseph Cornell, Robert Mallary and Robert Rauschenberg, and also included less well known American West Coast assemblage artists such as George Herms, Bruce Conner and Edward Kienholz. William C Seitz, the curator of the exhibition, described assemblages as being made up of preformed natural or manufactured materials, objects, or fragments not intended as art materials. Hopefully you now know what I'm doing - maybe too much information.

Circuit Boards and wine making

I will not be doing any art work for about 10 days as I will be helping a friend with the grape harvest, Yes, wine making is what I will be doing for the next few days. Unfortunately it is not wine drinking, but the labour of picking the grapes off the vines, de-stemming them (thank goodness the de-stemming is done by a machine) and starting the fermentation. If you like wine from Portugal - lookout for "Quinta da Sapeira". The wine farm is run by Inês (a woman in a man's domian) and she has won gold and silver medals in Paris, Vienna and now Hong Kong

Vodafone

No matter where you go, who you are with, the time of day or night, you will inevitably see an advert for a mobile phone company. It is the pure definition of being ubiquetes. You can not escape it, it is like the panting woman that is about to give birth - there is no way that you can prevent it (well at least by natural means. Probably by shooting yourself you will no longer see these phone adverts. But if you blotch up the shooting, you may very well be seeing some more adds post recovery). Because circuit boards are a part of our lives, they exist in almost very item that you lay your hands on - so why not use then in our artwork as well. The phone that you are using, the watch that is on your arm, the remote control that opens the garage door and changes the canal on the TV - they all have one thing in common: the circuit board that makes them work. We have reached the stage where the circuit board is the modern day equivalent of the wheel. But just as you do not need to re-invent the wheel, just improve it, so it is with the circuit board. In all of the old appliances that I destroyed, the boards were large, the components were also very large and the space between the lines on the boards were very well spaced. Some of the newer boards, the soldered lines were very much more closer to each other, to the point that they were almost indistinguishable from each other. I suppose size does matter: less weight, space and raw materials.

The end of the week - a new painting.

The last post that I wrote mentioned the modern narcissistic attitude of most people, but I have to admit that most artists are a little inclined to be narcissistic. Have a look at some of the things that Salvador Dali said. But thank goodness, the artists that I know are only slightly narcissistic, but I'm inclined to think that being an artist forces one to be narcissistic to some extent. The reason that I say that, is that the artist needs to make some sales, and in order to convince the prospective buyer that he/she is making a worthwhile investment, the artist must "sell himself". Not all artists are good at this, but we try. The act of "selling oneself" relies on, at least pretending to be narcissistic to some extent. I have seen this carried to extreme, and have also seen very good artists not saying enough to promote themselves. Oh my goodness, will somebody please protect us artist from ourselves!

Narcissitic

I love my mobile phone and the internet, BUT I think that the digital world is turning the population into narcissistic self absorbed people. The amount of people that are taking "selfies" is alarming. We used to take photos of our loved ones, family and friends, but not of ourselves. But it might be argued that self-portraiture was the original "selfie". That might be so, but the whole population was not artistic - sitting in front of a mirrors, painting. What is more: the reason most artists painted self portraitures was because they needed the practice and could not afford a model, or one was not available at the appropriate time. As much as I love my electronic items, it pains me to say that it has resulted in a more lonely, depressed society. We are more connected to others thought the interment than actual speaking to them face to face. In some cases people are not even touching others. On a BBC program, (I do not remember which one though) it mentioned that people are even having less sex than before. Why? - because they more connected to others via the internet, than those in the room. Have you ever been lonely in a crowd - well this is the way of things now - a room full of people but they are all connected to some else at the other end of the world. I think that in terms of social health and inter-reaction, the world is very sick. Could this epidemic be one of the unforeseen deterrents of human population explosion that Malthusians could never have imagined?

Mobile phones

What would we do without them now? Who are them ? You know - mobile phones and the internet! Internet is just great, its what we are using right now, and it con be done on your phone (Old news, I know). Anything that you want to know, anything that you want to see (the good and the bad), it's all available, just a few key stokes away. Talk about an utopia. I can not imagine what life would be like if we no longer had internet. But all this depends on digital circuits - and they are beautiful in their own right. It is almost like abstract expressionism. Jackson would have been very impressed with a board if he had seen one.

Wired Ring

This is a new dawn for me, yes - I know it is an awful cliché, but it was the first that came into my mind - sorry. This new way of doing gold leaf has sparked off a creative intensity that I have not had for many a year. Serendipity is such a pleasing experience. The finding out of a thing by accident is truly invigorating. Having dismantled an old phone for pure fascination and anger, because it no longer was useful, I discovered how beautiful the digital board was. And what is more all these boards are hidden away from sight, almost as if they are to be unseen, unheard, the ugly ones. But, it is they that are most fascinating, captivating and enchanting. It seems almost sinfully to cover them up. A lot of old digital equipment has now been dismantled at home, and is being used in my art. Over the next few weeks, images will be uploaded showing the results.

Life with Phones

I have not been around for that long, a mere 55 years, but I have noticed one major change in our lives: The extent that we are now connected to our phones. When I was young, phones were only used to make phone calls (Wow, but that is absolutely true)and, you were not always lucky enough to have a phone installed in your house. I have memories of one of our neighbours, coming to use the our phone once in a while. It was not considered an object of entertainment, but rather a very important part of emergency communication. You did not call anyone for a social chat, it was used for short brief necessary conversations only. But today, it is used for a thousand and one uses and new ways of using this ubiquetes item are been invented daily, from social to business or even medical emergencies. You can even make phone calls free But, do you remember the economic principle: "There is no such thing as a free lunch". You might think that you have all these wonderful apps for free and phone calls to boot, but you ARE paying. Please don´t get me wrong, I love the modernity, but it comes at a price, some times not in the form of a direct cost, but a indirect cost, health and medical bills. Please use your phone with discretion.

Phone Art

It seems to me it's time for a change: I have a predilection at the moment to do more abstract art, and with the current, or should I say the "on-going preoccupation" with mobile phones being the theme. Have you ever given any consideration to what it would be like to have no mobile phones and the internet. Do you think your life would be better? I think in some ways it would be better: like spending more time with family and friends, and one might even be more productive. I knew an artist that would not have a TV in the house, because it prevented her from painting (Unfortunately, she had to give-in to buying because of the husband and children. Needless to say she is no where near as productive as she used to be) This painting that is displayed today, has been done on gold and silver leaf, and the frame is part of the creation. I have many more ideas about this type of creating.

The Blue Haired Lady

Have you every been "just-messing-around" and that piece of art seems to be the best that you have done in a long time? well this is what happened with this little canvas. It was lying in the studio and became a useful item on which to clean my paint brush. So, after a while it had accumulated a variety of coloures and textures. Then, looking at it, without any particular objective, using the brush that I was about to wipe clean on the canvas, started painting the outline of this woman that was balancing more on one leg than the other. The coloured seemed to morph into the body of the woman, it was a very visceral moment. The feeling was completely satisfying and a sensation that one tries to replicate again and again with each painting. Unfortunately it does not always raise to the occasion. It is very much like having a run a very fast 10km (or any other distance), and one is on a high for a while. The next time one goes out to run this distance again, one knows that to achieve this "state" a certain amount of discomfort must be invoked first: the lack of oxygen, the fatigued muscles and the wanting to stop, before the sensation of flying starts to happen. Sometimes I think painting is very much the same, one need discomfort to bring out the best in one. But it has to be self induced, and a want. There is a common way of mentioning this: "break out of your comfort zone"