Sketches and paintings from August 2019 to the present.

The works below represent the work that will go into my Exhibition Proposal document.

A preliminary painting of theCuckmere bunker underway in my studio space in my flat, in early May 2020 

A picture of the small Martello tower painting in progress in November 2019

A sketch of Cuckmere Haven from last year.

A sketch of Pevensey Castle from September last year

Featured below are some photos from the 1950's that I found interesting and my drawn response to them.

The three photographs were taken in Las Vegas during the series of nuclear weapons tests in the 50's my response was to do the sketch, pictured above. The burned or burning figures were an attempt (that didn't work) to juxtapose the reality of nuclear weapons, that is that what they mainly do to people or living things nearby is burn them and the bizarre glamour of the black and white photos.

Source photos for the Degree show

Featured below are the primary source photos I took in August and September last year that are the basis of my final pieces of work for this Degree.

This is Flak Battery Fiemel, near the village of Termunten in the Netherlands, I took this in August 2019

This is the shot I worked on as a final piece.

This is the Flak stand and ammunition bunker seen from the top of the sea Dyke.

This is Cuckmere Haven on the South Coast of the UK. My Maternal Grandparents lived near here until 2000, when my Grandmother moved to a home in Kew near my Mum's flat.

Tank stoppers at Cuckmere, I used a cropped version of this picture as a basis for one of my first paintings in October.

All of the above pictures were taken in September at Cuckmere Haven.

The following Pictures were all (with one exception) taken at Pevensey Castle in September last year. 

The photos featured above were all referenced in some way in my subsequent paintings, that are featured below.

Covid19

Since the beginning of the UK lockdown I have been taking pictures and looking at some of the news, although I find the often stupid, short sighted and panicky reporting I see in the media unhelpful and often alarmist, although there are some very good pieces of analysis.
We are living through an important moment in history and so it is important to document and discuss it, A pandemic has been discussed as both real threat and a dystopian premise in science fiction since the late 1960s, TV and cinema have also shown a great interest, for example in 1975 we had the first version of Terry Nation's Survivors, that was remade in 2008. But visually I thought the opening walk through post infection London in the film 28 Days Later was much more effective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCdRFMp8Xwo
My own photographs were an attempt to capture that same feeling of unnatural emptiness in urban settings that intuitively one feels should have people and cars and movement.

The A316 at rush hour in April, usually a traffic jam at this time

Twickenham Town centre on 24th March at 6pm, again usually a mass of people leaving twickenham station and cars.

The newly opened drive through testing facility

Another shot of the Testing facility in the Car park at Twickenham Stadium

Finally a shot of the socially distanced street party my neighbours had for VE day.
I include this last picture to illustrate the amazing outpouring of kindness that has occurred in my area and certainly across the country during this Pandemic.

Landscape, patriotism and the spectre of nationalism

Over  the years I have shared alot of my paintings on Facebook and many people have commented on how much they like them. However I have noticed that those people I know who hold extreme views about subjects like immigration tend to be drawn to the more sentimental works. This caused me some confusion, why did people who seemed to be defined, at least in part by what or who they hate feel so drawn to sentimentality? This question was at least in part why I chose to discuss Nazi art in two of my written reports.
The key to answering this question is in understanding nationalism, which is at its heart a sentimental often delusional understanding of history, what I mean by this is that in the Nationalists mind there was always a golden age. A time where everything was perfect, and happy. This latter half of the Nationalist narrative goes some way to explaining why people who sympathize with Nationalism's racist framing of immigration might enjoy pretty pictures of lovely landscapes that they can identify as home. Many impressionist works feature only white people in pastoral scenes so the nationalist narrative of a racially homogeneous past can be supported by such images.
There is nothing in representational art that challenges them or that could promote disquiet as there often is in expressionist works. Many Expressionists were trying to explore the subconscious and that is not an area where many nationalists want to go. Sentimental art is safe, it demands nothing and can be interpreted in a way as to reinforce prejudices and that I think is why many of those who sympathise with a nationalist agenda are drawn to it. Equally, expressionism, particularly abstract expressionism threatens them because it asks them to think about their responses.
Conceptual works also often provoke extreme anger among conservatives, again I would argue that this is because it often is intended to provoke or challenge the viewers subconscious mind.
For many conservatives this is a problem because their subconscious minds are often unsafe frightening places to be. The people I know who hold extreme nationalist views all have some sort of underlying mental health issue, their common denominator is fear.
Fearful people do and support stupid things.

Landscapes that change over time.

Since 2010 I have been visiting my Aunt and Uncle every August with the exception of 2011 and almost certainly 2020 due to Covid 19.  My aunt and uncle live in the far north of the Netherlands, and because of the regular nature of visits I have been able to document the changing nature of one particular landscape. The photographs below were taken from the same place on foot bridge over a canal.

The image above was taken in 2010

This image was taken in 2018, and the short rotation wood on the left has been entirely removed and the wood on the right has been substantially denuded and although it is difficult to see a lock gate has been added at the end of the concrete track on the right.
This interests me because landscape is often spoken about in terms of its immutable qualities and actually it is very often dynamic.
Another example of this is a stretch of coast near Eastbourne that I painted last year. Called Birling Gap.

The two cottages seen here are all that's left of a terrace of eight that have over the past 50 years disappeared into the sea.

Blocked off landscapes and gunships over isleworth

During my year's of heavy drinking, I like many alcoholics spent most of my time outside.
Because the bedsit I was living in was filled with some fairly maladjusted people I preferred to sit and drink by the river and one of my favorite spots was by the river in Brentford, this was at least in part due to the illegally moored houseboats that lined the waterfront in Watermans Park. I got to know some of the people who lived on these boats and they, like me were existing on the fringes of mainstream society and like me frequently got harassed by the authorities. So there was a shared experience there.
Last January I returned to Watermans Park and the local authority had lined the whole waterfront with 8 foot Heras fencing, effectively closing the access to these boats. Many of them had been removed. But the image had a profound effect on me.

After moving into my new flat in December 2019 I noticed that military helicopters would land and takeoff rapidly on the sports ground of the Army school of music at Kneller House that sits directly behind my house. Usually these are Chinook transport helicopters but occasionally an armed AH 64   Attack Helicopter lands which is an odd discordant sight in suburban London, below are some photographs that I took with a view to making something of them in my studio practice.

 

A strange sight and the noise was tremendous 

Other artists who use bunkers and a series of shots from the Netherlands, that involved trespassing

This is a photograph by an artist named Jonathon Andrew, I like his work because he seems to capture both the menace and the strange melancholic feeling of these structures. While doing online research about Cuckmere haven during World War 2 I found an entire online culture dedicated to exploring and photographing these structures.
Because many of these structure are on private land,  in order to get close to them abit of trespassing is sometimes involved this was the case for me in the Netherlands in August last year when I took these pictures. The blue sign on the far left says No Entry in Dutch, while I broke the letter of the law by climbing over some rusted barbed wire I did damage the structures which ultimately is what regulations about trespass refer to.