Ritz of bits

As you may know, my jewellery and hair-wear is made from reused and recycled materials, but I try to follow this ethic as far as possible in my other artwork as well. So, when I found I has an old printer's drawer and all manner of other bits and pieces accumulated in my materials store, an idea started to form, and that idea was 'Hotel'...

'Hotel'

So, why hotel? Well, the most obvious reason is that it is made of rooms - as simple as that - but, it has a little more depth as it is, in part, highly personal, so although some of these rooms are primarily decorative,  many are actually 'memory rooms' containing little segments of autobiography. A boot from a childhood Action Man, a small volumetric flask from my PhD, the sketch that became a piece of silverwork, a Rainbow warrior badge, items from my travels, an empty pack of Citalopram. Of course, it's designed to be looked at closely, peered at, scrutinised and zoomed in on - so, let's go on a little tour...

The central third of Hotel - there's that flask (second room up, bottom right) and of course a magic fish held down by a spider (top left)

Zooming in a bit more, the moulted skin of a stick-insect (I am also an entomologist), chainsaw links and postage stamps under a celestial arch.

If you been here for example, you'll know about my liking for 'cyber' imagery using bits of electronic gubbins...

I like pubs, well good ones anyway - here's a tiiiiiny one complete with posters.

The only room I've ever wallpapered...

Words, I love them so... to the extent of wearing out a Scrabble set.

Luv 'im or hate 'im, a little homage to Damien Hirst

That's all for now - I hope you enjoyed the tour, and if current plans come to fruition, you may get the chance to see Hotel hung in a gallery at some point...

(Keep wearing) fascination

No, not an homage to the Human League (I make no apologies for punning) but an introduction to my recent foray into making hair-wear/fascinators. This may seem an odd addition to my jewellery range, but they are small pieces packed with detail, so more of a logical progression that they may initially appear. I'm also retaining (of course) the recycled/reused ethos, so apart from the bases and clips, they are constructed out of, well, all sorts of things and generally have an industrial/cyberpunk/steampunk feel - there won't be any sprays of dyed feathers... for more, have a look here - they are quite tricky and time-consuming to make but there are more in the pipeline...

Fascinators with mainsprings - wobbly!

'Cyberpump' fascinator - a wondrous device for your hair (and lighter than it looks).

The first one I sold - a tiny time machine - here being worn by its new owner at a Steampunky gig.

Cross-fertilisation

If you've been here before, you'll know that I like to explore scientific themes and imagery (if not, here's an example) and try to employ reused and recycled materials as much as possible. I also make jewellery under the name Rebejoo and it was only a matter of time before they started to inspire each other. So, having acquired a large bag of leather offcuts from the splendid Conkers Shoes in Totnes, I decided to see how they might be used to create jewellery - colourful but with the additional of the gold circuitry and patterning I've been adding to recent drawings and paintings. Here are the first few pieces which will be offered for sale as brooches, hairpieces and similar. I hope you like them - they'll all be posted on Rebejoo.

Synapse by stages

I've just finished 'Synapse', my latest science-inspired mixed-media piece - so, here's a brief insight into how it was created. Enjoy!

Stage 1: The baseboard is in the background - here some components from dead mobile phones...

Stage 2: Adding components to the baseboard - it could be a space-station, but it's not...

Stage 3: Adding more components.

Stage 4: Now the right way up - adding detail in gold ink - but the pen ran out and it's 10pm!

Stage 5: New gold pens bought, final details and white oil-paint highlights finish the piece, so here it is - 'Synapse' (40x50cm approx), £POA

Cortically speaking, I've just had an inkling

It's been a busy few weeks, hence the quiet in HubArtHub, but there has been much moving, and indeed shaking, in my developing artistic life. First up, I've embarked on the 'Creative Dave' plan which has been brewing for some time i.e. to link together my jewellery, painting/drawing (i.e. what's here on HubArtHub) and poetry. It's still a work in progress (look out for a dedicated website in 2014 if not before), but that's OK - it is progressing.Part of this has involved getting some pieces ready for sale - one of these is 'Cortex' - a mixed media piece on board which is inspired by the natural circuitry of the brain and works with my liking of intricacy and non-standard materials. It's for sale £POA so do let me know if you are interested...

'Cortex' in the middle of frame-choosing at Bridge Gallery.

'Cortex' - the finished piece (well worth the pro-framing IMO) - 30 x 40cm approx

'Cortex' (detail) showing the materials - tacks, gold paint and ink, electronic components - and many hours...

Getting in touch with my cyber-side

Halloween's coming (yup, it really is) - pumpkins, trick-or-treaters and of course masks. Being a wearer-of-glasses, masks can be a bit of a pain, but they do offer interesting opportunies for some not-flat artistic expression. Given that I like a bit of detailed pen-and-ink work, including some sci-fi cyber-style gold-on-black, you might not be too surprised at the route I went down to produce these. Better still, the add-ons are all recused bits and pieces (the red eye is from an old cycle lamp), and the blank masks can be acquired very cheaply from fancy-dress shops like this splendid independent one (my personal fave, hence the plug). Anyhow, here's what I came up with...

Cybermask I - an electronic pharaoh inspired by Stargate/Fifth Element.

Cybermask II - a head full of words and numbers...

Some artists don't 'alf pen-and-ink

Some months back, I saw exhibitions of Tom Joyce's ink drawings at The Art House and City Gallery in Southampton. I loved the cartoon style and mosaic/space-filling approach of many of them - to the extent that I was compelled to buy a couple of prints ('The Beetles' and 'Viking Village' which are still available here). More recently, I got round to sketching/doodling in ink following on from a taking-a-line-for-a-walk exrecise in one of Jani Franck's online workshop sessions. A bit of TomJoyceishness must have been floating around in my pen-hand (and maybe just the merest whiff of H.R.Giger) as the following started to take shape... more on the way!

Biomechanical I

Biomechanical spaceport

This is not a homage to Magritte

My painting's been fairly eclectic so far, but does seem to be coalescing into a couple of core styles (for now) - 'cyber' and 'thick oils'. The Quantum Triptych is of the first type, so here's one of the others, entitled 'This is not a portrait (storm)'.
 

'This is not a portrait (storm)' - oil and acrylic on canvas, 80 x 100cm

As the title rather strongly suggests it ain't a portrait in that it is not of anyone in particular. It is also, for me, unusual in that it is more-or-less representational rather than abstracted. It is however textural (I like to get through a lot of that costly goop-in-tubes) so here's a bit of detail:

'This is not a portrait (storm)' - detail

'This is not a portrait (storm)' - detail - trying to access just a tiny bit of my inner Frank Auerbach maybe!

So, why the title? Well it sounds like it's a play on Rene Magritte's famous 'pipe' painting The Treachery of Images, but it isn't - at least not consciously so. Instead, please feel free to make of it, and the storm subtext, what you will - and more importantly, enjoy!

Introducing the Quantum Triptych

OK, here goes - the first proper 'look what I did' post on HubArtHub. To start, there's a few themes and about-me things that you need to know. The main one that's relevant here is that I am an unashamed nerd - in my non-artistic life (though that's being rapidly absorbed by the artistic one), I am a professional academic/ecologist with a penchant for physicsy/mathsy/sci-fi stuff. This informs at least some of my art. I also like to use recycled/repurposed materials (as in my jewellery), and this sometimes drives what I make my art from. So, what's the Quantum Triptych?

Well, I wanted to explore the aesthetic of very-big-and-very-small physics - you know, the interesting stuff that Brian Cox talks about on TV - fundamental particles, quantum-weirdness, cosmology and so on. I also wanted to look at this like a story with a beginning, middle and end. Actually, not the end - I chose 'now' as the end point, but the idea stays the same. Anyhow, I could babble on, but won't - here's the triptych, all 'mixed media on board' - I hope you like it.

Triptych part 1: '1.616 x 10^-35m'- this is the Planck length, measurement used in quantum physics, and the smallest unit of distance that has any real-world meaning - it is the realm of 'quantum foam', particles popping in and out of existence and so on.

Triptych part 2: 'The first three minutes' - after the Big Bang, the period when the Universe rapidly expanded and created matter as we know it. A lot happened in this short period of time, which also approximates to the length of many a song. This is a time of major transition, hence the loss of structure seen in parts 1 & 3.

Triptych part 3: 'Virgo Supercluster' - our corner of the Universe as it is now - a cluster of clusters of galaxies, and a structure that's actually large enough to be significant in what is a very grand scheme of things.

As yet unframed, but here's the triptych as it is intended to be displayed.

HubArtHub is open!

A quick image-free message to welcome you to this new enterprise - I'll be adding images of my works, and the works of others shortly, so please do watch this space.