otro mundo es posible

Click to view my n ew photobook It's a mixture of shots from Lanzarote that have informed my work over the past few years, along with some more recent images from Berlin and Crete. Best to view the slide show in full screen mode and please ignore the sales pitch incorporated by Photobox

Some photos from our amazing trip to Berlin where the art spills out onto the streets from the galleries in the form of intense graffiti. The sense of release is palpable. The iconic Berlin Wall meanders all over the city, a constant reminder of the significance of the land being traversed. One of my Lebanese friends notes the similarities Berlin has with Beirut and her hope for how Beirut could be in 20 years time. Authorities in Beirut seem to have other plans however, judging by recent reports by NOW LEBANON reporter, Alex Rowell of the acclaimed graffiti artist, Yazan Halwani being detained by gunmen. I have reposted the article here so you can read it in full.

thedisgraceofgod: Yazan Halwani, Beirut graffiti virtuoso, detained ... : [Originally posted at NOW ] It hasn’t been an easy few weeks for Yazan Halwani, the artist who has, at the astonishing age of just 20, dist...

Really useful exercise to hang my work in the project space and gain valuable feedback from peers and tutors. Although these drawings with freestyle machine stitch and stenciled spray paint on flour bags are only in the early stages it has helped me to know how best to proceed with them. These were developed to hang together and I was pleased with the way they worked, although due to poor lighting, I wasn't able to get a better quality photo. There's more to be added to this installation but I'm keeping that as a surprise for the degree show! These digital images printed on aluminium also sat well with the rest of the installation and Ruth's work (not shown). 

The mid session review is a great way to crystalize ideas and sort out where I am in my work. On one side of my studio 'booth' I had displayed digital images from Chania reworked on aluminium and transfer sheets beside a large painting of a Chania wall where I was experimenting with layering oil paint over acrylic. I want to experiment with the idea of mixing up digital imagery with paintings:  On the other side I had a large mixed media painting of a Guanche cave wall alongside sketches of cave art: and the 'otro mundo es posible ' photobook: After very useful discussions with Gordon Brennan and Joan Smith, my next step is to bring the key elements together in my work - graffiti/cave art, posters/layers. Gordon suggested I should introduce a motif, and as it happens I already have one, with my collection of Guanche symbol graffiti. This 'Guanche icon' could be added to my work after installation. Meanwhile, Alex Rowell has been bac...

I can't allow myself to get carried away with the glorification of suppression, war and suffering in the name of art. These are all too real and harrowing experiences in the world today. What do the walls of war look like for an adolescent in the 21st century? Almost 100 years on from Tapies' experience of the Spanish Civil War, refugees escaping the atrocities in Syria today are faced with a rather more flimsy affair, as described this week by NOW  reporter, Alex Rowell, on his visit to an 'informal tented settlement' in Nahiriyeh, Lebanon: 'Invited inside the home of Umm Ahmad, a warm-spirited grandmother from Qusayr, NOW saw few means by which the family of eight would be able to escape the rain and snow. The roof comprised cardboard box panels supported by wooden beams. The walls were carpets held in place with nails. The floor was a mat thrown over an uneven, cracked layer of concrete; ' Read the full report with photos of Umm Ahmad's makeshift home...

Antoni Tapies describes the walls in his paintings as 'fundamentally a form of artistic organization.' (Tapies, 1970). He traces the source of his awareness of walls and their evocative power to his adolescence spent mainly shut in within walls during the Spanish Civil War, and recognises that his early works of 1945 'have an air of street graffiti and of an entire world of protest - repressed, clandestine, but also full of life.' (Tapies, 1970) 'How many suggestions can be derived from the image of the wall and all its possible permutations! Separation, cloistering, the wailing wall, prison, witness to the passing of time: smooth surfaces, serene and white; tortured surfaces, old and decrepit; signs of human imprints, objects, natural elements; a sense of struggle, of effort; of destruction, cataclysm; or of construction, reemergence, equilibrium; traces of love, pain, disgust, disorder; the romantic prestige of ruins; the contribution of organic elements, forms...