Wednesday 2 December 2015

I Come From the Mountain

The last few months.. 

I've been to lots of art exhibitions, most notably Goya at The National Gallery, where the Spanish painter's striking portraits appear to stare at you round the room with the same deep black eyes. Also  The Wellcome Collection's yellowbluepink, a saturated room of humming-coloured-light that swirls your vision as you grope your way around the room.

I saw The Wytches at a Garage gig on Thursday, which was so good, and I bumped into the lovely Mona, who was also at Thee Oh Sees and Total Control at The Forum on Monday (which was even better). 

I am listening to Jarvis Cocker's Radio 4 Wireless Nights and Sunday Services every night - it feels like a surreal underwater sleepover club for everyone who has trouble sleeping. 

I'm thinking about Dance and keeping a separate sketchbook for how dancing makes people feel and I'm going to draw people at parties dancing and it's all exciting.

 I Come From The Mountain (Autumn Playlist)

Lupine Ossuary / Thee Oh Sees

Rock Bottom / King Krule

Song for Woody / Bob Dylan

No Werewolf / Allah Las

Damaged / Primal Scream
















Listen to this if you ever feel sad and don't let winter get to you.

Sunday 27 September 2015

Rock Bottom

I want to curl up under a pile of dead leaves with woodland vibes away from the harsh autumn winds and horror of it all. 

School has begun again and Autumn is coming and the nights are getting longer. I have been listening to Real Lies, the new Hot Chip Album Why Make Sense? (and am seeing them live in October which will be so good), Sonic Youth, Zoo Kid and Grateful Dead; I also made an Autumnal playlist on Spotify/

It's all getting v stressful having to send off art school and uni applications and getting my portfolio together, but Im really excited about my new art project which is focusing on the body and I've been making cropped oil paintings of hands and faces and looking at Anthony Van Dyck and Rembrandt. Soon ish I'm going to introduce more colour and merge into more expressive brushstrokes with interesting colours and maybe look at some Willem de Kooning painting.

Outside my course I'm doing fast line drawings and gestural small paintings about dance too, which is coming soon!!

In the last month I've also been on a trip to Margate which was so sweet; the sun shone forever and spent the whole day there, swimming and playing arcade games. English Seaside towns are my favourite places; I want to go back to Margate again soon when the theme park in which Tracey Emin spent most of her childhood: Dreamland will be officially reopening soon and I want to take a pilgrimage there.

I went to the British Museum recently too and saw the exhibition on metalpoint drawings, from Leonardo to Jasper Johns which was lovely- I thought that the comparisons between studies of hands by Bruce Nauman and Leonardo were particularly flowing and coherent, whilst the choice to focus on one medium covering a range of dates, from 15th century Netherlands to.contemporary America, was interesting,

Sketchbook scans inc. as always of course:














Creds to Jessie my dearest for papping me

And we would count the evening stars

As the day grew dark in Beechwood Park


Oh, roads in my mind take me back in my mind

And I can't forget you, won't forget you
Won't forget those days and Beechwood Park.


Saturday 29 August 2015

Look At Where We Are


Summer's almost gone -  rainy afternoons, weird twilight sky and cold nights sitting in the park or on my roof. It feels very strange thinking about going back to a routine with responsibility, and I won;t be able to spend as much time on my sketchbooks which makes me sad. 
I've recently been in Cornwall again which was lovely and there was so much sun, but mostly I have just been moping around London. Going back to school is all sad but there's a new sketchbook to fill, and big coats and cosy winter things to look forward to as well. I bought a ticket to see Hot Chip in Autumn and I'm seeing Peace later in London too which will be lovely. 

Moping in London includes watching lots of films- I saw two Harmony Korine films: Kids and Gummo which were both so so weird but great and I definitely recommend them both for strange portrayals of American dysfunction in the 90s. There's once scene in Gummo where the weirdness all halts and the background music ramps up, playing Roy Orbison's Crying while the screen turns away from the mute child called Bunny Boy and focuses on old home-video footage of a tornado against a sunset and it's so beautiful. Chloe Sevigny's wardrobe styling for Bunny Boy and her appearance in Kids is also wonderful.
(Also Mathilda from Leon: The Professional will govern the winter aesthetic this year.)

Mathilda
Kids
Gummo
Ellie and I went to Covent Garden and the Royal Academy to go and see the Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust exhibition too.  Cornell makes the most beautiful treasure pieces out of old collage materials and vintage wooden boxes, it was lovely. We then wandered around London and sat in a pretty church yard in the sun and just talked for a while~

I also spent three full days drawing sculptures at the British Museum and V&A which I am trying to develop into oil paintings. I'm not sure quite what they look like because there isn't much of a planning process but please if they remind you of anything at all please comment because I have to write about them for a project and I have no idea what to say just now. I was looking at Francis Bacon and other portrait artists in the 50s and 60s to reference. I also went on a three day painting course at the National Portrait Gallery which was fun.







I also have Depop because I am a bit broke after summer for please have a look and maybe buy something, I'm selling clothes and some old cameras @hockneybabe 
(Im also thinking of selling this vintage summer dress above too so email/comment if youd be interested)






That's all for now, have fun at school kids xx

SEPTEMBER PLAYLIST

Box of Rain / Grateful Dead
My Friend Goo / Sonic Youth
Champagne Coast / Blood Orange
Purity of Heart / Krill
Summer Again / Wytches
Look at Where We Are / Hot Chip
Beechwood Park / The Zombies
Crying / Roy Orbison


Monday 27 July 2015

The Bay


BLUE // DEREK JARMAN

Blue of my heart
Blue of my dreams
Slow blue love
Of delphinium days
Blue is the universal love in which man bathes - it is the terrestrial paradise.
I'm walking along the beach in a howling gale -
Another year is passing
In the roaring waters
I hear the voices of dead friends
Love is life that lasts forever.
My hearts memory turns to you.

Impatient youths of the sun
Burning with many colours
Flick combs through hair
In bathroom mirrors
Fucking with fusion and fashion
Dance in the beams of emerald lasers
Mating on suburban duvets

Summer sun and it's finally hot and I'm free from school. I've had strange saturated decadent dreams from reading Huysmans' Against Nature and swimming in the sea in Cornwall every day.
Freckles and tarot cards and sunburn and salty hair and grass stains and smoke and night swimming and Mac Demarco and dancing in the dark. Beach Rats. We went skinny dipping and told bad ghost stories at night, found a house party with a snake, explored beaches and lay on rocks till our skin was pink.

I have many sketchbook pages to upload from long beach days, train journeys and boat trips. I started an oil painting which I'm not sure about but it's all practice, and I listen to Metronomy and The Growlers' sweet tones to bask in the sun's rays. I watched Derek Jarman's hour-long art film Blue which was vv important. I'm also reading Gombrich's Story of Art which is super thick but  a really good read to find a bearing on the history of art before next year.

I just got back from Secret Garden Party festival too which was so so soaking wet but so good and I can't bear to look at my feet for all the mud so all I am going to do now is sleep and listen to Jungle and Temples who played the festival.

I don't know what's next this summer but it's all going by in such a blur I can float along. That's all for now, here is some work:






















   


          have a good summer kids xoxo