Cutting into colour

I have an exhibition at the Bowery Gallery in Leeds - details can be seen on the flyer above.

The image to the left is a small portion of my 'contempory response' to Matisse.  I can appreciate that I'm a very good fit for this exhibition... my methods and techniques being similar to Matisse's even though my work is usually much more chaotic and over flowing whilst Matisse is very controlled. I'm not any sort of art historian and always hated contextualizing my work at university... often getting into quite intense arguments with lecturers about 'originality' and that I didn't want to 'copy' other artists.  I used to be much more idealistic.
Anyway my point was going to be that when I started collaging I didn't really know what Matisse did or really gave any of his images much thought until I saw a documentary about two years ago and realised in terms of technique he did what I do. So when I was selected to make an image directly on the wall next to lots of original Matisse work I found it really complimentary and apt.  The image I put together on Friday is different from my usual work in that it tries to utilise the negative space a little and also makes more use of flat colour rather than textures.  I did put some patterns and prints in there but simply because if I didn't it wouldn't feel like I'd done it - and that wouldn't be right.

The exhibition preview is on Friday this week at 6pm to 8pm.  Directions and more information can be found here www.thebowery.org

circular teeth notions piled geometry measure themselves as flat visual

Four more images on Ebay... auctions ending on Sunday 24 November at half past ten.  Click on the links below each image to place a bid - all of which started at 99p.

globdules of organic photocopies bleed fake wallpaperclick here

I have to make a wall mural type installation on Monday whilst exhibiting with some Matisse lithographs.  Was hoping to utilize the negative space of the wall in a way similar to what Matisse did with paper.  The final result could eventually look a little bit like the above - except the above has no negative space whatsoever.  Hoping the exhibition will teach me a little about making my art slightly less convoluted in certain areas - though is the fact that images like the above are big gestating textures make them more appealing - in the sense that there can be a lot of different interpretations read into them.

how did the chamber's dimensions measure themselves when the outer geometry invaded?click here

The above is made through using a photograph of my installation at the Bankley Gallery.  Think it gives it a good sense of depth - and like that I've been able to enhance the original image with collage over the top.  Perhaps this could be done in real life if I were to make the exhibition again.  There was a lot I would have added to it if I had the time - and I spent ages putting that installation up and my hand really hurt from so much staplegunning.  Think the title of the above image is really good.

heads piled flattened, inconsistent pool of flat visual

click here

Another example of convolution - though life is pretty convoluted too.

teeth clamp onto circular notion of up and downclick here

I spent an afternoon last weekend sorting all my colours and textures into an organised fashion and found some notebooks from years ago from when I was making animations.  Some nice sketches in them. One of the motivations for making all this work is to trim down on all the thousands of self generated materials I have and to make some money from them.  When I've got rid of all my materials I can print all the new images I've made and collage them into new patterns and ideas and integrate them together differently again.

15.10.12 - 4.10.12

15.10.12 - some images in this diary are best positioned as landscapes but due to the way I've presented them as one long strip I'm unsure this would work.  However you can see below that this one in particular looks much better the other way round. 

14.10.12 - the pages are very blurry in the middle when scanning them - this is due to the diary now being so think with collages - it's getting to the point where it fill's up most of my bag and is probably 10 times thicker than it was when I bought it.

13.10.12 - pin point pressed and pulled through non holes.  Bleeds through a reverberation and I end up stupider and emptier and something quiet and ignored is screaming in secret silence.  The mountain peak transmits uncertainty and jittering.

12.10.12 - the red peak transmissions from a distance - fear itself - lives and emits - it's tethered to the nowhere through a strand of empty.

11.10.12 - mechanized head trapped between the pinchers of pylons.  It's blurred by static and lack of contrast into some hollow blockwork.  My building where I work is empty and walking around it's building is like walking through an unfinished film set.

10.10.12 - so ingrained in my own style and methods that images are becoming like leafs falling off a tree - like all these copious images are predictable and simply like slivers of my own head falling out - and perhaps every image that fall's out is a braincell being infected with another pointless image of the same old abstraction.  Would I get to the point where everything is erased and replaced by slides of collage and if you drilled into my skull it'd just be full of glue and paper?

9.10.12 - another cell lined up for infection.

8.9.10 - the roundelled pattern wall breaks open and gleaming hell pours in.  Again.

7.10.12 - diagram of a bad evening.  

6.10.12 - something in the sky/ether/above/heaven/somewhere is preying on everyone - forcing them into traps of themselves and boundaries of their hearts.  It steals everything and leaves everyone with no ideas, concepts, desires -just a void they fill with words. 

5.10.12 - hopping in their singular legs to from one point to the next they watch the maze in the centre of the sun and their heads glow with some deep ambivalence.   Like me they don't read any newspapers.

4.10.12 - pooling together of everything organic - the few conscious remains rear their heads and live in the agony of  'no more privacy' - they wish they could just go shopping again.  I've always liked shopping.

petrified bones zoomed in close positioned hell of self spire

Just spent this morning organizing my collage materials into the correct order.  So I now have 5 color coordinated plastic bags all of which are full of materials.  So likely to make a load more small images to sell on Ebay later on this evening - and they will likely be very well composed as now I know where to find all my colours.  Organisation is helpful for composition.

Anyway in the meantime here are three pictures selling on Ebay - all ending in the next 8 hours.... have a look at these small bits of affordable art work.

petrified bones living as structures over the cliche red of hell -click here

Hell.  Is it red?  I've always imagined it to be more grey but also that the hidden essence of hell is red and glowing. So if you were able to dig through the grey car park concrete and get into it's heart it would probably be all gloopy red... syrupy and far too sweet.  Also there must be a real sky in hell. As what would be the point in suffering if you couldn't try and fail to reach higher.

zoomed in close on a rain drop falling through white line measures - click here

I actually doubt this looks anything like a raindrop.  Not even on a molecular level.  But it is certainly falling, impacting but unlike a raindrop it's not breaking.  Pictures are so still and most only convey movement rather than achieve it.

blue circle skeletal rafters supporting unnecessary roof which stands far away from an unfeasibly positioned self spire - click here

This is too pictures at once superimposed above each other.  if you tilt it to the right it's a different image.  The self spire then becomes feasibly positioned whereas the blue circle skeletal rafters appears to be growing from the self spire but with no perceptual logic.

3.10.12 - 22.9.12

3.10.12 - text funnels of cut up details - data protection issues forbids the full strands... 

2.10.12 - flower wilts in an explosive confinement chamber.  A hidden biological countdown.

1.10.12 - imitations - vertigo - facing downwards - forever - even after dead.  no kind of continued - just a loop repeating itself until someone finds the void switch. 

30.9.12 - this the fact this picture has no colours on it seems to sum up the feeling of trawling through Leeds whilst it was full of drunks and normal people - I was pulling along a big cart full of wonky and unbalanced pictures and it was raining and it made me think that maybe I should produce much smaller work.   

29.9.12 - some images look much better when I've scanned them - the reality of this image is that it's just a load of scribble - suppose there's something quite automatic and appealing about that though.  Problem is that the patterns of myself just keep repeating it's like being in a hall of mirrors of my own head... the same images producing themselves slightly differently every time getting neither better or worse... though perhaps I'm not recognizing that there is a plan and a destination in mind... or perhaps that destination is completely blurred out by years of never getting there.

28.9.12 - an unusual house on the mountain breathes in and out in the clouds of nebulae.

27.9.12  - long necked creature tries out a selection of 5 lollipops - you can tell which one it dislikes the most.  The one on  our left.... and on it's right.

26.9.2012 - and it's popsicle is formed through a funnel of time sequences.

25.9.12 - my dream castle hurtles away into space away from the horrible drudgery of statistics and calls.

24.9.12 - sheet of timetables found on the floor at work and sneakily pasted into my diary.

23.9.12 - a few notes on how to promote artwork on twitter... in my case right bizarre associative sentences and make as many of them hashtagged as possible.

22.9.12 - trip to Bolton to pick up work that didn't get into a print prize.  Had a pretty good walk though by getting lost and managed to buy some birthday presents.

tangible measurements of undercurrent mind/brain bloodpaths

Yet more images on sale on EBay - click the title below each image to have a look and a bid.  All start out as being 99p.

tangible colour data in a straight loop of no end

watching measurements of undercurrent bloodpaths

a semblance of the mind/brain is bigger inside the dead

Will be adding images very frequently so if you'd like to bookmark this page to keep an eye out and bookmark this page http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/garth_simmons/m.html?item=140877256677&ViewItem&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

also feel free to share on your facebook pages and twitter.  Perhaps with more attention I may make a small fortune one day..... fingers crossed.