Art by Denise Walker

How about this extraordinary Woodcut by Denise Walker

THE ARTISTS ORG

the artist org - huge website with loads of info and some lovely works for sale by people like Clemente. I saw one of his which I was tempted to buy. It was just over five hundred pounds. If my finances were more like their usual healthy selves, as it were, I would seriously consider buying it.

This monotype which I then worked into using chalk pastel and pencil pastels began to reflect on that feeling of psychological zones. The red being the lifeblood or animalistic - the blue being the spiritual or intellectual and then the beige representing a more grounded aspect to the self. The main figure I suppose might be self-representational. But it certainly appears as if it is going on a journey. Within it’s parameters, are objects that it owns or that are important.
There is also a sense of there being another figure which perhaps is like a ‘guardian angel’ - this was a huge 'magical' concept in my evolving imagination as a child, who was reared in the Catholic Ireland.

I also feel that the little figure on the left (who has appeared in other artworks) is that child who was me - looking on and not having a clue as to what was going on. At the same time she is ‘awe struck’ and curious to know more, see more, touch more – to find my way into that 'special' place. That special place was/is the imagination. And really it was my own imagination - that is, which has kept me going……… all of my life. Without it I am nothing……there would be no point. I often refer to it pictorially, in various artworks where I depict a sense of a quest of searching and looking.

Here is an image from moleiro dot com where you can see all of the Liebana Beatus Manuscripts - very inspiring. Ranging, from about the mid seventh to mid twelfth century these works are highly animated, richly coloured and cosmilogical in their depictions of realms of good and evil. I think that that their difference or remarkability is most probably down to the fact that they were influenced by the Mozarabic, Islamic and Carolingian visual cultures.

After I came back from Spain following the completion of my masters degree, say by, about 1995 - I definitly was influenced by these manuscripts, in terms of my own output artistically.

Birna Matthiasdottir
Here is the only other image of Birna's which is viewable on the internet. Both pieces are monotypes.
A very talented artist is Birna and if you want to see some of her artwork in the flesh, in the UK, at the moment you can check out this show 'Looking out to Sea' which is an artists residency/exhibition project initiated by artist printmaker Sarah James.which is on at The University of Wales, Aberystwyth.until Dec 1st.

Update (25th January 2012) I have found another link to a site where you can see about eight of Birna's intaglio works ..............  http://www.thecoldpress.com/store/artist/birna-matthiasdottir

Phone Call from Iceland - this was a very pleasant surprise i.e., to hear from my very good friend Birna Matthiasdottir.

I met her originally in Barcelona, on the Masters Fine Art, course which was hosted there by Winchester School of Art. I believe the course is no longer running these days - a failed experiment perhaps !! I can not say that I thought it worked well, particularly where the socio-cultural integration was concerned. I would have thought that, that in itself would have been the most important objective of the course!!!......... but hey-------- what would I know ---------- I'm no pedagogue !!!
This work is from a couple of images, of Birna 's, on show at Galleria Fold's website , which is located in Reykjavik.

I included some teardrops in this one which I used from a screen-print that I made at London Print studio in June/ July of this year. I cannot remember if I was making it for any particular project ah yes now I remember I had done a course there last autumn. This being in an effort to improve my practice in that area. I used two stencils it was pink and navy blue. I will try to locate that edition (only about 7 in the end, were b.a.t.) after all that work and expense - it darn well nearly breaks your heart. Paul Dewis the technician there, was quite helpful but ultimately I am quite a desperado there, in that workshop - trying to manage to do stuff, what with the problems I have with my back and leg pain - but hey I gave it a go - I tried !!

Another calico print in development that again features the Russian collage text house (children’s story). This time I have included an image of a small toddler who was found in a displaced persons camp. Hence the label around his neck. I wonder whatever happened to that child? I also printed out onto silk some skeleton images of babies that I found from a site to do with an ossuary in Palermo Italy. These were then stitched onto the calico. Then I did some watercolor washes on watercolor paper that I scanned in and layered onto this calico ground. I was working to the theme of refugee, which was for a print portfolio for PNP based in Australia. I did not opt for any of these works in the end deciding instead to go with a new work I made, which became part of the 'Traces on Wood' series.

Just thought I would load up some jpgs of printmaking work I have been doing over the past few months - these are all non-finalized. This batch is all based around the use of calico as a ground. I printed out a collage I made from Irish Gaelic biblical text and another from a Russian children’s story. This one in fact uses the Russian story. It also includes a collograph element I made a while ago and some tiny bird elements , that I did a drawing of, from my book about the Beatus manuscripts of Liebana, Catalonia, Spain. I went to see these manuscripts myself, well a facsimile of them, at the University Library in Barcelona. This was while I was doing my Masters degree there in 1994.

We are moving house - we move out on the 12 th of December !!!

Pussy cat Pussy cat I love you...yes I do...

Just came across this lovely website well its great for those of us who love cats http://www.themoggy.com

Various images of art objects including top left "Anonymosus Hero' which was made for the 6 " x 6 " for Ireland exhibition held at the 411 Galleries in China which was founded and is run by James Ryan. That was in 2005 - I am still waiting for James to send the catalogue to me.!!

Centre left: is "Dukka" which is a monoprint onto a large ceramic plate ( diameter is about 45 cm ) I used Lazertran to get the thing to work. By the way "Dukka" is Icelandic for doll

Lower left: "Give us this day our daily bread......." digital print and loaf of bread 10 x 22 x 6 cm. I first showed this in an exhibition jointly organised by the PM gallery ( Hosting Venue) and the Printmakers Council (UK) called "Lifesize" 2002.  Sad to say there is no documentation of this exhibition on their pages on Ealing Council's website.  Its not even listed as having taken place and it was an excellent exhibition with lots of great work to see.  There were people like Elizabeth Peer, for example this bookart piece:  See also her website , which is well worth a visit.  http://www.lizzieart.co.uk/
also

Getting back to the image sheet of my own artworks above -

Top right: "Queen of my House" photograph of a lovely model called Roma, with house made of human hair (her own) adorning her glorious crown. photo size: 20 x 29 cm

Lower right: "Heaven Scent" soap and digital print created for an exhibition in Germany on the theme of Soap. 2001

Motschmann Type Infant - Bookart

Motschman Type Infant bookart exhibited in 'Bankside Browser' 1999 Tate Gallery, exhibition project
This shows the outer casing of my bookart work for this project.

UPDATE

Here is a link to further info about that TATE Gallery project

This LINK may still be functional - its an album of images on the Other People Pixels website I used to have and that still appears to be on line.

I have mentioned BOOKART in the links section of this page and so I thought I would include some examples of bookart projects.
The image on the left, shows my entry on the tate gallery website database for a project called 'Bankside Browser'. curated by by Andrew Renton and Kitty Scott. It was a fantastic project which had all the artworks in archival drop down boxes of the same size. I will show a photo of it subsequent to this posting. There were some excellent artists in the project which was located in St Christophers house which is near to the Tate Modern on Bankside London.

This is a photo of Aine Scannell, the host of this blog.

Artist on Line
http://www.pnp.org.au

Using the internet means that one finds oneself darting all over the place like some deranged grasshopper. For example this morning I opened the computer (the downstairs one) to find an email from a fellow called Brian Sherwin who is a contributing editor to the My Art Space dot com/ blog which I came across through having put my own artwork onto my art space.
Note this website is slow to start up it has a long intro but there is a lot of good stuff on there and it's pretty cool if you can sit it through to past 'that gatepost.

Who would have thought that while on there (where I went after reading Brian's email) that I would end up, sort of defending, as it were, the honour of Damien Hirst ?! Well ,well ....you just never know where the spiders web will take you ha ha.

And whilst on the subject ( yes I can just about retain focus despite the tangled web about me ) of dots.....I thought It was high time that I post up another image to this blog. I knew it was a bad idea in a way, I mean having a blog) but I wanted to have a blog, at the same time. I mean...the thing with blogs is that they take time to develop and nourish and as can be seen ( it's the same with house plants) I'm a hopless 'waterer' so ho hum....all we can ever do in this world is to try to do better !!!

Getting back to the image I'm posting - its a recently finished print made for an international portfolio exchange project, with the theme of 'Refugee', organised by an artists organisation called PNP