elliespace

been lost for a while, but back again

2011-11-07T15:41:00.000-08:00

Hello, Again

initial sketch of swimming pool

Swimming Pool

Boy Band Member

Factory 1# (unfinished)

Veiw on Cornmarket

New thoughts

2011-07-13T12:16:00.001-07:00

Impressions of A Wedding (Acrylic on Canvas)

Man's Face 1# (Ink on Paper)
Drumming Noise by Florence and the Machein (Acrylic on Canvas)
Paper Planes Draft 1# (Ink/Black Paint on Paper)

Walking up St Aldates at noon I noticed ...

2011-03-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

Serengeti

Business men leap the road

Like gazelles on acid

Graceful, lubricated on their lunch break

Catching buses like bubbles in jelly, captured for them and waiting for them

To scoot them and slide them away from their grey sticks of peopled offices.

They meet and sniff each other and lollop into cafes where they have

Grass and espressos, and exchange

Bowler Hats (as pocket watches are now out of fashion).

War Paint

2011-02-20T17:47:00.000-08:00

Girl on the bus

With red war paint streaking down her face

Red war paint with finger marks imprinted still

Screaming from the cavern of her knock off England hoody

Giving it THE BIG I AM

On the way to something or other, unaware – oblivious –

To the years of pain that

These marks, these streaks, these trails

Trace what has fallen on the pitches.

more from that chair in that pub ,,,

2010-08-08T12:09:00.001-07:00

Second in the pub series 'Getting up to Order'; the finished series will be on display and for sale soon, tbc

And a draft for you ... paint sketch for 'Woman standing in the Wind', I will keep you updated on what it turns into...

Two questions:

1) Do you get more as an artist out of visiting a gallery if you go with another artist?

2) Is it possible to create a set first and then write a play out of this artistic process rather than, as convention dictates, the other way round?

New stuff and things ,,,

2010-07-19T02:44:00.000-07:00

Draft for 'Standing in front of a fan' (will be acrylic on canvas)

'Pint by the Window' (acrylic on cavas, first in a series of pub scenes)

Depiction of 'Oh Yeah' by Ash (acrylic on canvas)

Depiction on the Yeah Yeah Yeah song by The Flaming Lips (Acrylic on canvas)

More to come soon ... portraits and music paintings ....

words/images; images/words

2010-05-18T04:24:00.001-07:00

New Park, Old Faces Must Go

They cried out the day she was taken,

Despite the fact only the crows would sit by her and on her.

She was a hundred and one years old, wrapped in snakes, a proper Medusa,

Tendrils hung from her like grotesque, extra limbs, all grit and grease,

Warped and eaten by weather.

She pinned for better, summer days –

Lax by then in her hatred of the world, stony as maybe;

She was husked out like a beaten wasp or an airless sky;

She would sit and face the blast

Cradling herself against anything further,

And pitying the carver who killed herself over her.

Shop

Places in front of me

I enter a door

And drop my coat and remove my shoes

Skulls line the walls

And I search for the toys I want the most

I spot the boat at the bottom of the shelves of other things

And I have a moment just holding it,

Cradling it in the folds of my dress, my waist exposed,

I have no feeling in me other than this.

I go to the fish tank and push the ship out

And I laugh

As the little person in it smiles up at me.

I have been working on this week, and and am working on today, poetry and drawings. I draw and then I write, this really seems to work, the process makes the drawings and the poems fuller. I don't really plan what I am going to draw, I just draw and then the idea of what to write comes, and that in turn develops the images.

Something about the combination of art forms seems to make art a fuller experience; this is how I would like to exhibit and collaborate with other artists. Have just found out that I am going to be part of a working exhibiting space along with other artists in the Temple Cowley area of Oxford in the next couple of weeks ... my plan is to get collect words and poetry fragments from vistors, inviting them to draw them on the wall follwing on from each other, and then I'll respond and add to them visually until there is an end piece connecting audience and artist. I don't know what we'll end up with, but it will be a purely creative experiment in development and creative empowerment. Details to follow...

my feelings about my working practice at the moment ...

2010-05-16T03:55:00.000-07:00

observation through a window

2010-05-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

More images for a personal odyssey, and poem promised -

Ballerina

In the cold I light up,

Feeling bitter glow and stinging of warmth in the mouth,

Hands shaking slightly in the contrast of outside to in.

My shoulder blades bare lean into rough brick, a moment -

I can feel them grazing slightly as I breath deep

The scent of sweat and cigarette.

I am stretching my legs, just a moment -

But back through the door to the slowness

Of movement, purity and rousing sound,

To saying nothing at all.

work and words

2010-05-12T06:22:00.001-07:00

I have been working on a series of pieces inspired by songs this week - the piece at the top was inspired when I listen to 'Rolex' by Wiley; it has in it elements of the sounds visualised, like the squelchy and grinding baseline (red) and the patterns in lines of the drums and stream of battering sounds, with the yellow of the voice pacing through. Below this, on paper, is a straight depiction of 'People Are Strange' by The Doors, a song wich is chilling and beautiful and deeply unerving in a mind-bendingly simulatanous way. The visual idea is inspiring a piece I am working on called 'Falling'... to come.

I know I said I would bring you the finished piece based on The Big Pink song 'Velvet', but talking to a creative friend whoes opinion I respect as much if not more than all others, I have decided the idea - despite having made its way onto canvas, needs a rebirth. Back to blank on this one, back to the draft, lets see what happens.

The last image is a draft paint on paper idea for a piece I want to submit for the Oxford Pride Exhibiton in the Jam Factory in June, the theme being 'Personal Odyssey'; it has given me a strong idea which I think I am going to take straight onto canvas, the colours are right from the draft but the image has gone through a new genesis - watch this space.

Poem and a sketch to follow ...

the female enigma

2010-04-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

Young Girl

The Marrying Kind

Outside the Club

On the Bus

In the Boudoir

Asleep

I have been doing some art work sketching out ideas about how we see women in so many different ways -

single mother
house wife
career woman
virgin
call girl
feminist ....

It was inspired by a scene in the production of Homer's 'The Odyssey', for which I have been designer and which will be hitting the stage next week:

http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/show/?eventid=1409

The director (Rafaella Marcus) and her cast have taken the scene where Odysseus encounters the Sirens, as written in this adaptation by Mary Zimmerman, and produced a striking piece of physical theatre, painting through voice and movement the many faces of women, intertwining them to create one of mythology's most dangerous femme fatal symbols.

It got me thinking, is there a bit of femme fatal in every woman/is there a bit of every woman in the femme fatal? I would like to do a big visual project about the different faces of women, and women's perceptions of each other and their own identities, with other creative females ... more on this later (and ideas, comments, potential suggestions for collaberation are most welcome!), but in the meantime some of the sketches I came up with ...

I have been working on some music response stuff too, coming soon...

A bit more

2010-04-21T09:17:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to give a bit more today, show you two new things I have been working on ... one is a draft proposal for a piece called 'party' (second image)

the other also above (first image) is a response/combination piece for a poem I am working on :

It was dark and I was walking

It was dark and I was walking, cigarette in hand, along the street.

Shops hummed in sleep, street lights streamed and beamed above.

It wasn’t cloudy, the night was smooth, and the smoke rose

To mingle with the air.

I pulled up my hood and wiped my nose on the back of my hand, and then saw

Red and wet and raw,

The blood that had flooded my nostrils and had started to stream

Steadily down between my

Fingers, to pool on the floor.

people in paint

2010-04-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

I have been painting away the last couple of days, doing a piece for my grandad, a portrait of him with his best friend - our dog, maggie. At the moment this piece is simply paint on paper, which is usually what I use in draft stage, so if he is happy with is it should make its way onto canvas now. I wanted to demonstrate the importance of line my composition process; especially with portraits, my main aim always is too try and capture the essence of the person through shape, which forces me to break down the image and make visually the association between a person's appearance and a person's personality, combining the two things that make them recognisable. I then try and continue this process in colour; colours are usually a continuation of this exploration rather than an actual portrayal of enviroment.

Doing this made me think about artistic process in general, and the way young artist explore their individual development. I have been watching : 'Goldsmiths: But is it Art?' on the BBC (it is still on i player) and it made me revisit the issues I have with going to art college. What do other people think? What does art college teach you, is it a pre requisit to launching yourself as a young artist? What does it proove - if it is about exploring artistic process, meeting people and getting you work out there, being inspired and learning from other artists and working collaberatively, I feel like I am embarking on this already and know other artists who are not at college who are doing the same. To be honest, a lot of the work displayed by young artists on the programme I found hard to understand; art for arts sake seemed to be the message, art without a purpose other than itself, and despite this a direct quote from one of the tutors was that modern art must have a clear motivation, it must be an 'act of communication'. The act of communication in my work is literally communicating who the person is, from them to paper to canvas to the viewer, a process of communication. This line of communication - presenting an interpretation of what things are to show a perspective that that the veiwer can connect with and interpreate themselves - is what informs most of what I do, and asks the question - 'How do we recognise objects/envrioments/ideas/sensory experiences/each other? How do we interprate them? How does our imagination inform this interpretation? How far can our imagination warp these things so we can still recognise them as well as others?' I don't know what artists think of my work but other people have always seen something in it and understand what I am doing through the images I produce; maybe other artists would see it is as too simplistic, under developed. But then should art really at a base level be for other artists, who validates work, the veiwer alone? Lots of questions.....

2010-04-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

My latest painting, for the series I am working on based around the theme 'Us, Watching'. I wanted to do a piece based around Jeremy Kyle, because one of the most fascinating aspects of us as a watching society is how we are obsessed with watching each in situations that are usually preety groteque. Its the age old theory of shadenfroida put on a modern age media pedastal. I wanted to do a scene which had the elements and dimensions of an illustration plate in a childrens book, to ask a question about how innocent this example of us watching is.

new space

2010-04-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

new space, to show you work and the things I am working on ....