This ‘difficult’ work was one of those that I gave up on and turned around to face the wall for about a month. When I came to look at it again I found I was more favourably disposed to it. The central image is a battleship. The dinosaur skulls were added later.
I’m pleased to have reached my 100th blog post. Here is another large scale drawing from a long time ago. Layers of compressed charcoal build up the tones. I washed over them with a brush, which formed the drips. the perspective is off but the piece was more concerned with creating an atmosphere. It’s based on the Belfast Telegraph building on York Street.
I glued sand to the top part of this piece, it was inspired by decaying flowers.
Translates as “the city lies in dust.” This is a large piece on wood currently on show as part of Cathedral Studios ten year anniversary exhibition at the Water front hall in Belfast. This image Contains a reworking of 3 Black Flags, an earlier piece. The exhibition runs until the 30th of August.
This piece was inspired looking at an earlier one: https://johnmacormacart.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/smoke-rising-in-the-distance-mixed-media-on-card-2009/. The resource card it is made on is of little value. I find this frees me up, I become less precious. The red flag shape appears over and over in works around this time. The line at the top resembles the curvature of an imagined mountain.
Translates as “life in the grey city”
This work is from 2010. A friend recently observed that work from this time has a more chaotic, turbulent feel than many of my more recent pieces where the elements are contained and tamed within structures and ruled lines.
As is habitual, this work contains various pieces of detritus from my life at the time. The cover of a demo tape from one of my former bands, Serpentine Smile, is obliterated in the top left corner. The dripped on ruins of the ‘bongo cafe’ from a friend’s fanzine nestles along the lower edge.
John Macormac 