They Think It's All Over (It Is Now)

Handing out day finally arrived yesterday.  I returned with the 4 unsold pictures, 1 that had sold (must find out who bought the other one), a pastel by Michael Frost that Maddy had bought, an oil landscape by Liz Graydon that Anna my Sister-In-Law bought, the whole of my 'tomb' installation and a very heavy sculpture by Jill Sim.  Thank goodness for the capacity of a Berlingo.

I also returned with a wet painting.  Up at 4am, easy drive to central London, park in a pre-booked slot at the Mall Galleries, 20 minute walk to Buck Palace and viola!  I shared the session with a succession of cyclists waiting for a rally to start.  Mostly from the East End, very black, very fit and a delight to talk to while dawbing.  They almost persuaded me to get my old road bike out and start pedalling again.  I tried a 14x10 but ran out of time after 2 hours as I had to get back to help with handing out. 

Victoria Monument, London 14x10



I am trying very hard to stick to the 4-tone scheme used by people like Ken Howard and Bob Rohm (USA) as it seems so logical and helps you keep the big shapes distinct.  You can probably see from the bits of ground showing through that I cheated and raised the tone of the sky (my light half-tone) when it would have been better to stick to the original value.  That would have helped express the lights on the gilded figures.  Ah well, there is always the next time!

The Figure 11 Concept

Since posting news of the AFAS contemporary show 'Out of Line', several friends have asked me about the conceptual basis of my piece 'Figure 11'. 

Briefly I have first tried to highlight the duality that exists in the modern use of anthropomorphic targets: they are both 'enemies' and 'friends'.  They represent real enemies but are also a means of ensuring safety through superior training.  I have also tried to underline the universality of this particular target form - used by so many forces throughout the world.  To enhance this aspect I have imagined that Figure 11 has a very ancient history (actually the image was first dsigned in about 1948).  To that end I have enjoyed making allusive references to elements of British myths and writings, particularly to Malory's Morte D'Arthur, the Gododdin, contemporary accounts of the Boudiccan (Iceni) revolt, the Mabinogion, etc.  I have also made use of various carved and written forms such as Etruscan, Early Roman Cursive and Ogham, to lend accuracy to some of the assertions. 

The term 'hostis humani generis' was originally established in the early days of the Roman empire to refer to pirates - effectively 'stateless persons' - and I believe the term is still used in legal circles today.  The other text (hic iacet instar undecim, hostis quondam hostisque futurus) is a straight lift from Malory but substituting 'hostis' for 'rex' and of course 'instar undecim' for 'Arthurus'. 

The 18 shot holes are 9mm in diameter - the calibre of a modern pistol and the thickness of a Roman auxiliary's arrow shaft.  Five of the shot holes are in the traditional position of Christ's wounds.  The Chi Rho symbol and other scratchings (eg Dux Brit) are all designed to add to the illusion.  I could not resist the quote from Aneirin (seinnyessit e gledyf vm penn mameu).  It appears on the title page of David Jones's In Parethesis, my favourite long prose poem and one of the greatest war poems ever written.  I also allude to Isaiah 53v5, not just to increase the sense of antiquity but also to heighten the importance of Figure 11's role in our lives.  'He was wounded for our transgressions' strikes a chord in the context of continuing strife around the world.  We should not need Figure 11 but we do. 

One thing I like about contemporary art is the use of words as 'signs' in many of the works.  This is discussed at length in the preface to David Jones's 'Anathemata' (1952).  Such signs are very personal but if one can find a common foreknowledge (the Germans have a special word for this but I can't remember what it is - vorausgesehen does not sound right) then there is the possibility of communicating through commonly recognised signs.  This is partly what I have tried to do but as Geoffrey Hill has pointed out in many of his poems, words are very  'slippery', whereas marks on the canvas are all too permanent.  Maybe the ambiguity inherent in language actually increases the chance of a meaningful relationship between the work of art and its public?

I hope that helps but part of the purpose of the piece was to invite thought - so I did not want anything to be too clearly said.

I have enjoyed the technical challenges immensely and was gratified at the PV night to be asked how such a large tomb brass could be cast.  I eventually admitted that these days one can do wonders with mdf, gilding wax, acrylic and marble dust!

Windrush and Westonbirt

Despite the huge burden of AFAS show preparations I have managed to get out a few times in the past month.  I went to Sandford Lock in late July and did this 8x10 with the light behind me:

Sandford Lock 8x10

Michael Worthington and I then had a day stooging around the Windrush Valley and Burford before returning via Minster Lovell.  The Windrush painting was not very happy but after a long lay-off it was nice to do something:

The River Windrush near Burford 8x10

Minster Lovell proved to have lots of potential with both the river and the ruins available but we were running out of time and light:

The Minster Ruins 10x8

Each year we take my severely disabled brother-in-law Charlie away on a house-party-type holiday to Westonbirt School, originally the seat of Robert Holford, founder of the Arboretum.  I love painting there.
This year I tried to avoid the pull of the Italian Garden and concentrate more on the house:

Late Afternoon, Westonbirt 10x8

Before Breakfast, Westonbirt 10x8

The window with the shutters closed was our bedroom.

The Orangery End, Westonbirt 10x8

 I went into Tebury once but wished I hadn't because while I was there I was the victim of a minor accident.  A very old lady wanted to park her car in front of me (I was in the gutter on some double yellow lines)  I carefully moved all my kit back 10 feet so that she could drive in easily and she promptly ran over it!  I now have a crushed digital camera covered in the contents of a large Titanium White tube! The joys of plein air painting - but I bet nobody does that to Peter Brown.

Tetbury 10x8

I finally succumbed to the Italian Garden, repeating an exercise I did last year:

Arch in the Italian Garden 10x8

On my last afternoon I just had time for a 6x8 and was half way through this when a wedding party arrived to liven things up:

Wedding Reception Westonbirt 6x8

On the trips up to London to hang the AFAS show I invariably started early so had time to do a couple of sketches.  The second one was in front of Buckingham Palace:

Victoria Monument 10x7

I hope that I shall be able to get out more in the next 2 months and then we will be running rapidly towards the Venice trip in November.  In between are the ROI submission target, the Woodstock Art Festival and the Army Arts Soc show in Salisbury.

AFAS Summer Show - The Regular One

I am the publicity officer for the Society and also on the hanging team so this is a very busy time.  However I did manage to get my 6 paintings ready and mercifully all were selected.  Two have sold so far, one of which is another, much larger version of Old Harry Rocks, shown here with 'Crown Mines, Botallack', painted alongside David Pilgrim in May:

A little 'Sennen Against The Light', also painted on the Cornwall trip in May, was also sold.

Some more of the contemporary stuff included Francesca Bex's Butterfly Bomb series:

and Karl Hamilton-Cox's 'Skin Deep':

Karl's is acrylic on leather and very gothic!

The team has worked tirelessly and here are some shots of the weary bunch:

plus one of the hanging being done in the main gallery:

Next time I will report on the few excursions I have made with the pochade box in the past month, including a productive week at Westonbirt School.

Armed Forces Art Society Summer Show

I should say 'shows' because for the first time this year we are running a contemporary show - Out of Line - alongside our regular one in the Mall Galleries.  Everyone who uses the new Threadneedle Space is meant to put only really contemporary work in there.  We in AFAS have risen to the challenge (others, sadly, have failed) so I am really proud of our members, many of whom have worked well outside their normal zone to produce interesting and thought-provoking work. Katie Tunn, John Ashton and I have curated the new show.  It has consumed vast amounts of time and energy but we feel that it has been worth it.  It has expanded our range of media, styles and subject matter and encouraged our younger members to pursue their own artistic goals rather than 'fitting in'' with the perceived club requirements.

We had to plan the new show more carefully than our regular show, so that members did not waste time on concepts that were not going to be accepted.  We wanted a very spare look to the show and you can see that in this photo, which shows my mini-installation 'Figure Eleven' as well as John Ashton's 'Khe San Approach and Richard Salter's 'Tree of my Conscience'.

My piece has earned the epithet 'Tim's Tomb' and as it took me 25 working hours to make it certainly buried everything else.  It is a C4th limestone tomb lid with Victorian cast brass 'knight in repose' mounted in place of the original carved Ogham script (C4th Irish).  The face is that of the classic Figure 11 Target - used by armed forces worldwide.  I think I have posted more details elsewhere.
My favourite piece is probably Anna Poole's 'bleeding boot' video  actually called Footprint of War, with a soundtrack of Queen that we can't play because of performing rights issues.  I like it better with no sound actually.

It starts quite innocently like this:

There is blood everywhere at the end.

Katie's 'Fin' series is also very interesting as she is better known for her 'beautiful boys' but is now concentrating on marine conservation issues:

John's 'Khe San' is the most popular of all the Out of Line pieces - and at 16 feet high the largest!

In the next post I will include some pictures of the regular show.  Both finish tomorrow at 4pm.

Recent Excursions

Rather than bore everyone with endless descriptions of the tomb project I thought I would put up some of the plein air sketches that I have done recently - in reverse order.

Yesterday was my birthday and as I has spent the day before, which is Maddy's birthday and our wedding anniversary, treating her to a special lunch followed by a visit to West Wickham House, I was let off to paint for the whole day.  Knowing that David Pilgrim had had a good day there on Sunday I thought I would try Marlow.

I found the river bank below Marlow Lock and after brief introductions I was kindly invited on board Jonathan Kipps' canal boat - a beautifully fitted out craft with 11 foot beam - while it waited to go through the lock.  I met those of his family and friends on board and off we went.  This was obviously going to be my birthday treat!  We negotiated the lock, went on past the town a little way and they dropped me on the North bank at a great spot for painting the bridge.  How kind some people are.  They reminded me of the time when we lived in Nepal and everybody helped everybody else.  Anyway here is the sketch:

I then moved down river, looking for a shady spot as I had fried in the first one.  No luck, so I pitched up at the lock and painted looking back from there.  This one is a bit bigger than I can normally manage - and you might say it shows! - but it is a lovely subject.  It has quite a few dark passages and I think if I tried it again it would be early on a sunny morning, working with the light rather than contre jour.

On 20th July I drove over to Waterperry and spent half a day at Art In Action.  I saw Tony Merrick, who was one of the demonstrating artists, but could not get near Paul Antonio.  I had not realised what a prolific and accomplished pastellist Tony is.  Anyway, towards the end of the afternoon I started an 8x10 of people going home:

On 14th July David Pilgrim drove us down to Bath where we met up with Valerie Pirlot and had a lovely wet day, first painting in the square across Pulteney Bridge and then at the Circus:

Rain!  Bath

Gay Street from the Circus, Bath

I am still knocking out the odd 'postcard' when I have no time for anything else.  Really they are just studies of the big shapes and tones in a scene but at least they keep me looking.

Belted Galloways below Beckley 4x6 inches

Having finally finished the 'tomb' I now have much more time to get out painting so I hope to be posting some more sketches soon.

Figure 11 - The Tomb

It is ages since I posted anything myself but I have been following the blogs of my favourite sites - like those of David, Haidee-Jo and Valerie - through the summer.

The reason I have not blogged a lot is because I have been building a mini installation for the Armed Forces Art Soc's new contemporary show in London at the Mall Galleries this August.  It will be run alongside our regular show and three of us are organising and running it, so it has been a lot of work. 

I think it will be worth it as we are now able to include many of our artists who find it difficult to get their work into our normal show, either because they are working in 'forbidden' media (photography for instance) or because the style and content of their work is difficult to place in our regular show.

When we looked at what might be submitted we found that there was a shortage of 3-D work so muggins here volunteered to come up with something based on Figure 11 (I will explain that later!).  From 8 basic concepts I chose the tomb idea as being the most practical.  It has taken me nearly 23 hours of work (so about plein air 12 paintings worth!) to finish it, stretched my carpentry skills to the limit and forced me to remember some of the skills I had in scene-painting for amateur plays years ago.

Here is Figure 11:

He is about 5 feet high and is used all over the world as a military target.  Anyone in the Western Hemisphere who has served in their armed forces will recognise him instantly because we have all shot at him.

My concept involved the idea that the ubiquitous Figure 11 represents some sort of universal enemy and that this status is not only undeserved but has a long history.  The image was created soon after WWII and I would like to be able to acknowledge the copyright but it is claimed by more than one agency including the Crown. 

I imagine that the essence of the image is in fact 4th Century and that the concept of Figure 11 'hostis humani generis' goes back at least as far as the end of the Etruscan era in central Italy (circa 300BC).

The main piece is a limestone tomb lid, largely intact, with a C4th inscription in Latin but using the Ogham alphabet (C4th Irish).  This image is supposedly underneath the Victorian tomb brass that is in the 'knight's pose' but is very definitely Figure 11. 

The lid also carries a quote from Aneirin's "Y Gododdin''  of C6th in old Brythonic language but using New Roman Cursive with the addition of a 'y' (for which there is no latin symbol). 

Separate artefacts include a supposedly 300BC stone plaque inscribed on boustrophedon form with 'hic iacet instar undecim hostis quondam hostisque futurus', which is a sort of forerunner of the better-known inscription that is supposedly on Arthur's grave - ie 'here lies Arthur the once and future king'.  Also, I have produced a separate replica of the Ogham inscription, now supposedly covered by the Victorian tomb brass.  Various other bits and pieces contribute to the 'archaeological museum' feel.

The tomb brass contains shot holes, lit from within the space below the lid by orange-red LED lights.  We have tried arrows, rods, even red roses in the shot holes but they spoil the continuity of the image.

In the next posts about Figure 11 I will include some pictures of the construction.

Meanwhile a plug for the show.  It is on from Tue 28 Aug until Sat 1 Sep 10am to 5pm and entrance is FREE.  From Trafalgar Square walk through Admiralty Arch (no cars because of the Para Olympics), past the Marines memorial and it is the next large building on your right.