Paintings for ARCO 2009

Here are some of the new works for ARCO. You you will find them in the stand of Rubicon Gallery, HALL 10 Stand Number 10A40 - 02.




Beach, 2008, oil, varnish and coloured pencil on wood panel, 75.5x60cm






Territories X, 2008, oil & spray paint on linen, 61x50cm





Carnival, 2008, oil on linen, 46.5x36cm

Esta mañana...

Early Saturday morning I was awoken at about 6.00am by a horrific howling noise. It was the wind of course...I peeped out of the window and saw what looked like the end of the world! Objects of all kinds flying past, destruction everywhere, strange light in the sky...and for most of Sunday there was no electricity. All back to normal now though, and I was thinking in the studio this morning that every painting has its own kind of weather system, with clear days or storms. And a curious fact; in Spanish the word "tiempo" can be used to mean "weather" or "time" which gives it a special poetic force.

Cyclone

One of the worst weather events in recent years is about to hit Northern Spain. The authorities have issued maximum alerts as a rare cyclone phenomenon is expected to reach its greatest intensity at midnight. Here is a satellite image issued by the AEMET the spanish state meteorological agency. It's 20.10 now so just a few hours to go....

Completed

I'm delighted with this...

In process - storage

Well under way...(and well overdue) my new studio storage. It looks like it will be finished today!

Storage

Back from London. Work will start tomorrow on a new storage area in my studio. Here is an image of the area of the studio where racks/shelves will be built. They will look rather like bookshelves when finished. Currently the space is not being used very efficiently at all...

Londinium - wedding - drawings

Off to London for a long weekend for my younger brother's wedding. I treated myself to a decent pair of shoes for the occasion in Bilbao this morning and picked up scans of new drawings that will be on view at forthcoming art fairs. Scanning is so much better than using a camera. I'm astonished at just how good the quality is: colour, detail etc. Here are two of them:





Collecting, 2008, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5x25cm





Crows, 2008, coloured pencil & holes on paper, 29x23cm

Things seen - de keyser, Newman

Barnett Newman,“The Blessing,” 1944, oil crayon and wax crayon on paper.





Raoul de keyser, Untitled, 2005





Raoul de Keyser, Detail, 2005

Steady as she goes...

Bit less time for blogging in the last few days, I've been Preparing works for art fairs: Art Brussels & ARCO - Watch this space for images of works that will be on view at the fairs. I will also be changing my main website soon...a new look and hopefully more user friendly as the archive of images and texts grows. Until my next post here are two drawings I made in 2007 from a series titled "Sonbou" both are coloured pencil on paper (with elements of collage) 32.5x25cm:

Chris Ashley at Room for painting Room for drawing

Chris Ashley has just opened a show at room for painting room for drawing in San Francisco. He is showing a beautiful group of paintings called the "blue and green paintings" Here is an installation view and the invite with press text..

For our third installation at the gallery we are showing Chris Ashley's blue and green paintings in the room for painting and Scott MacLeod's pencil drawings from 1960/62 in the room for paper. The exhibitions open on Thursday, January 8th with a reception for the artists from 5:30 to 7:30, and run through Saturday, February 7th.

Oakland based artist Chris Ashley has gained respect from art world insiders over the last few years for a unique series of HTML coded drawings he posts daily on his blog. A year's worth of prints from this online body of work was recently exhibited at David Cunningham Gallery in San Francisco. Parallel to this effort, Ashley has maintained a disciplined studio practice as an accomplished painter. Over the last three years he has been working on a formally related group of small canvases, oil and industrial metalic paint on linen, which he refers to simply as the Blue & Green Paintings. We are pleased to be able to present a representative selection from this series. A catalog of the exhibition with an essay by James Harris will be available from the gallery.

Corrections - in process

A few images of things that are occupying my attention over the last few days. Painting can be so slow no matter how much time you invest, it's not all physical intervention either...a lot of time is spent just being around the paintings, looking and looking...but that's good, all part of the process.