Archives for category: mixed media

Star Chart Series 8

27/06/2020 //

Original drawing

Mixed media on black recycled card, A1

Digital manipulation:

I’ve been continuing this series of drawings that started in March as the Covid-19 lockdown began in Belfast. The process harks back to an earlier method of working, where marks are added and erased until a precarious, fragile balance is achieved. Lately I’ve felt the process becoming repetitive, the early excitement burning out. Digital manipulation or ‘remixing’ of the work presents a new avenue of possible development, extremely intricate and unexpected new configurations are possible. These may suggest organic growth, the infinite complexity inherent in nature from the structure of cells to galaxies. The next step may be to attempt to replicate these through drawing, or acquiring a plotter and learning how to program it to draw.

Tags digital, drawing, mixed media, space

Categories abstract, Art, belfast, constellation, digital art, digital work, drawing, experimental, geometric, Irish Art, mark making, mixed media, symmetry

Star Chart Series VII

03/06/2020 //

Mixed media on black recycled card

Continually trying to add depth and intensity to these drawings. Composing with forms, densely worked areas need sparsity. There is a constant play of revisions; ghostly marks remain, distant remnants.

Detail:

Tags Art, contemporarydrawing, drawing, process, space

Categories abstract, Art, belfast, constellation, drawing, geometric, Irish Art, mark making, mixed media

Star Chart Series V 2020

18/05/2020 //

Star Chart Series Drawing V

Mixed media on black recycled card

I’m moving between composed drawings and ones where a pre-determined process determines the outcome. This style is composed; working on it felt like the way I used to approach paintings and collages, where each part would effect the whole and many revisions take place before a fragile balance is achieved.

Tags abstract, Art, drawing, mixed media, space

Categories abstract, Art, black, constellation, drawing, experimental, geometric, Irish Art, mixed media, pencil, white

Drawing in lockdown: Night Sky III

18/04/2020 //

iii

I’m continuing this lockdown series, accumulating shapes in ordered and chaotic formations.

Mixed media on black recycled card.

Detail:

detail of burst

Tags abstract, Art, contemporarydrawing, geometry, lockdown, Pencil, processdrawing, repetition, space

Categories abstract, Art, belfast, black, circle, constellation, drawing, experimental, geometric, Irish Art, mark making, mixed media, pencil

Scratched landscape, 2010

16/08/2018 //

old pic

An old piece of work, from around 2010 when Robert Rauschenberg and Mark Bradford were my work’s biggest influences.

Detail 1

deet 2

Detail 2

deet 1

Tags Art, Collage, drawing, mixed media

Categories abstract, Art, Collage, drawing, experimental, mark making, mixed media, pencil

Intermission at Catalyst: Wall piece and drum performance

16/01/2016 //

Interlock1

I painted this wall piece for our second year MFA interim group show in Catalyst Arts gallery last week. The exhibition ran from the evening of Thursday the seventh of January to Saturday the ninth. The wall was repainted white on Sunday. The piece is composed of the ‘double E’ shape I have been using recently repeated in an interlocking pattern. One side is the colour inversion of the other side.

I performed a sonic art piece on the night, where I played live drums along to pre-recorded simple drum patterns. These had been recorded with a metronome and increased in speed by ten beats per minute with each pattern. Each of the nine sections was exactly one minute long.

I limited drums used in both recording and performance to bass drum, hi-hat and snare drum. This minimal approach was in keeping with the minimal palette used on the wall. I wrote a set of rules that loosely governed what I would play for each section:

1, 80BPM Bass drum/stick clicks

2, 90 BPM Bass drum/snare rims

3, 100 BPM Bass drum/hi-hats

4, 110BPM Bass drum/snare (snare off)/hi-hat accents

5, 120BPM Bass drum/snare (snare on)/ hi-hat 16th notes

6, 130 BPM Bass drum/snare/hi-hat/snare rims

7, 140BPM Bass drum/snare (ghost notes)/hi-hat

8,150 BPM Bass drum/snare (note every whole beat)/hi-hat

9, 160 BPM Bass drum/snare/hi hat.

Here is a video clip of the last 3 sections of the performance. It goes out of time with what is played through the amp towards the end. I like the intense, polyrhythmic feel this creates.

The bass drum in front of the work: I tried documenting the piece in various configurations.

intermission 2

The piece with bass drum and amplifier.

intermission3

Categories abstract, Art, belfast, experimental, geometric, MFA, mixed media, painting, performance, rules, sonic art, sound art, wall piece

End of year show installed

07/07/2015 //

Here are some photographs of the three drawings I created for the end of year exhibition at the Belfast School of Art. I realised I need to include more ones of the room to achieve a sense of scale.

Tags Art, arts, Belfast, Belfast school of Art, drawing, emulsion paint, Irish Art, John Macormac, Mark Making, Master of Fine Art, monochrome, paint, wall drawing

Categories abstract, Art, art college, belfast, black, chalk, drawing, geometric, Irish Art, john macormac, mark making, MFA, mixed media

Wall drawing using overhead projector: 6-17 February 2015

23/02/2015 //

I cut out the traced blob indentation shape that keeps recurring in this work and projected it using this antiquated overhead projector; the reliable, clunky type I remember from school.

I moved the projector across the floor. The shadow shape was repeated at intervals across the wall five times.

layer blob

The projector was moved progressively closer to the wall, and the resultant shadows drawn around. This made these concentric blob shapes.

bloblayered

I continued to work using this process at at intervals until the day of our group critique, the predetermined finish point.

blobangle

The piece was accompanied by a fifty second tape recording I made by digitally slowing a ten second recording of me playing bass drum and hi-hat down. I shifted the pitch down and added a series of effects using a program called Wavepad sound editor. I chose analogue audio tape because of its warm hiss, it’s imperfection. The piece was interpreted as the sound of marching boots, or of an industrial process involving heavy machinery.

Fellow students and teaching staff thought that the sound and the drawing seemed to coalesce to a greater extent than before.

Tags Art, arts, Belfast, Belfast school of Art, drawing, emulsion paint, Irish Art, John Macormac, Mark Making, paint, sound art, tape

Categories Art, art college, atmospheric, belfast, black, chalk, concentric, darkness, digital art, digital work, drawing, experimental, geometric, Irish Art, mark making, mixed media, sonic art, sound art, wall piece

Mid year Show in progress

18/01/2015 //

Our mid year show opened on Thursday night at the Belfast School of Art. Thanks are due to to all who attended. The area I share with the other part time MFA students looked like this

I’ve added a black band to the top and bottom of the main wall piece. I like it as a frame, but I’m aware the lines aren’t completely straight- I spent a couple of hours on Thursday trying, and failing, to get this right, it is probably time to invest in a spirit level. Fellow student Damien Magee has been painting the pipework in the space different colours since September. I like that some of the pipes are now interacting with my drawing, establishing a conversation.

I brought my drum kit in and performed some improvisation with my friend Michael O’Halloran playing guitar. He used a loopstation to repeat ideas, and then layered dischordant notes. Heartfelt thanks are due to him.

I think our course director took the above picture. I also included a small projection of a video I have made of my working on the wall from the early, tentative stages. It has been deliberately projected low down and at a small size, separate from the work. The idea is to have several pieces of stimuli that can openly question the relationship between the rhythms people have percieved in the drawings and the act of making, as well as the time based rhythms created by the guitar and drums. The noise we made reverberated around the space. I think Damian took some video of us playing, I will hopefully be able to upload some of this in future posts.

The show is open to public

11am-3pm on Monday 19th January

Tuesday 20th: closed

Wednesday 21st: 11am-3pm

Thursday 22nd 11am-3pm

I will be performing noise improvisations with special guests at the following times, all are welcome to attend these.

Tuesday 20th 10am

Wednesday 21st 11am

Thursday 22nd 12noon

The hope is that musical improvisation can stimulate further wall improvisation. I will not seek to create finished work, only to push further what already exists.