This is the House

“There is no real and no imaginary except at a certain distance. What happens when this distance, even the one separating the real from the imaginary, begins to disappear and to be absorbed by the model alone?” Jean Baudrillard

“When two people see the same thing at the same time, that is real.” John Lennon

“Time can pull us together or time can push us apart – distance is the space between.” .. me.!



The Cruiser artists are a busy bunch ..and the past month has been no exception .. the Memory + Migration exhibition opened at Deda in Derby in January and runs through March 28th .. meanwhile “I can see your house from here” was a happening at the Old Knows Studios in Nottingham ..


Simon has been engaged in calculating a new theory of time travel – and this is a terrific example of his blueprints ..








Yelena had her first performance / Lecture at the RCA .. yet still had time to conceive and paint these wonderfully imaginative pastiche pastels on perspex blocks entitled ‘ninja mickey mouse’ ..






John sent his pre-packaged ‘art in a bag’ from America’s East Coast ..


Chris Lewis-Jones performed his live painting ‘never mind the pollox’ at the Sycamore Centre on 13th February .. in Chris’ words it was: “an only slightly ironic time based exploration of expressionism, the physicality of mark making and the visual language of Abstract Expressionism in general and Jackson Pollock in particular to the accompaniment of Be Bop.” However, for “I can see your house from here.” Chris examined our relationship to appearance and how we perceive ourselves – how do we define the physicality of personal space?











Saira seems to be everywhere at the moment .. the Horizontal group exhibition opened at Wadham College in Oxford .. and she produced these stunning ‘alien figure’ drawings and a fine example of encapsulated artefacts ..











I performed
a spoken word piece
called ‘Hame’ ..

a rumbling bus ride through some of the rougher parts of a post-industrial Northern town into the darker recesses of long buried memories .. a Scotland of the past – and not so far from home .. as the conductress said, “I can see your house from here.”


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What's Up & Coming: 2010

With 'Up & Coming' soon arriving in Nottingham, I thought I would post this little video of one of my works on display at Novas Scarman's Contemporary Urban Centre in Liverpool .. the exhibition was the masterwork of Sheffield graduate curator David Thomas Crawley, and coincided with the European Capital of Culture celebrations for 2008 ..



It was a hectic time, with the open studios at Banks' Mills and a hot and sweaty poetry night at Big Blue in Derby, the John Lennon Drawing, Gustav Klimt paintings at the Tate in Liverpool, the preview evening of the Vickers' Art Award (the missed kiss haha .. Oi! where's my invite?), the emergence of Subism and No Parking as underground collectives created a buzz .. oh, and it was about that time I started this Blog ..

But while all that is in the past the future looks bright .. with Deda and Quad offering opportunities for local artists to show their work and the addition of Cruiser and Horizontal and many other small groups challenging the idea of traditional artist outlets and opening up new venues - working within and without the established art sector, and forums such as the Visual Arts Network establishing viable links with community and civic organisations, this region's independent artist associations look set to break down the barriers between the private and public to develop into a truly national hub for arts development .. and I'm certainly pleased to be part of what's happening ..