Numbers Are Neutral

I've been looking at Jackson Pollocks today. That's not rhyming slang, I accompanied a friend to Tate Liverpool to see Blind Spots, an exhibition of his work. It really made an impression on me, the show was the opposite of a 'greatest hits' and apart from a few familiar pieces concentrated on neglected work. We got there early and I felt a bit drowsy which was a good way to be, I was receptive, accepting the rhythm and fury of his work. It made me want to make marks, to scratch, pour, drip, scribble. My tool is a camera and I couldn't think how to respond, so I just let him stay with me all day.

I like how he talked about his work, especially this line:

"I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time."

He stopped giving titles to his work in the later years preferring numbers instead, because as his wife said "numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."

Comments

A Lovely Pair of Pins

I knew the expression 'pins' referring to legs but had to Google what the Cockney rhyming slang comes from. It looks like 'pins & pegs', but there are some great alternatives like 'bacon & eggs' and 'dolly pegs'. I think I might start trying to incorporate more Cockney into my everyday speak, I do have London roots but they are more South (Saff) London than East London, where I think it originates. Anyway this is all to illustrate a new picture that sits quite neatly with an older picture. So brogues, legs and a sea view from my two main muses. This might be turning into a set... Oh by the way the top view is Morecambe Bay and the lower image is from The Wirral looking across towards Wales. The North West of England is a beautiful place, with some stylish residents.

Linda McCartney Video Commission

If you'd like to access my cyanotype video workshops, they are still live on The Walker Art Gallery website: Cyanotype prints for beginners Advanced cyanotype prints

Exquisite Corpse

I've gathered this project together here, although it really just started as instagram posts and me keeping myself entertained/ creative through the early weeks of the pandemic. On reflection, although it looks visually different from my usual work (black and white rather than a focus on colour) the themes that emerge are similar. This is how I've made sense of it: These images are inspired by the exquisite corpse parlour game first played by the surrealists around the time of the 1918 pandemic. In my interpretation each picture is a self-portrait made up of my silhouette and graphic elements found on my Lockdown daily walks in the suburban landscape around me. Living alone I soon realised the only human form I was seeing on a regular basis was my own shadow. I started making these images using my phone camera and a selection of simple apps at the beginning of the first Covid Lockdown and continued until things returned to some kind of normality in mid...

Marc Provins

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