I’ve been posting a lot of graffiti based stuff lately, but I never forget my love for good old oil on canvas, so here’s a little something I knocked up way back in the late 90’s called ‘Living Under The Lines’.
I realise it’s already on my main site but thought it deserved a post on the blog as the definitions of what categorisation it may fall into seem have been redefined
I suppose now they call it Lowbrow/ Pop Surrealism. I like to think of it maybe as Urban Visionary but hell what’s in a name, label, tag, school or ism?
It is what it is.
To me at the time it was just a feeling I wanted to get onto canvas. I think I hit the mark.
In the time leading up to this work an unyielding ‘itch’ had gotten into my head, provoked by awareness of the instability, inefficiency and unaccountability of the systems which govern and power our planet. Every night I watched the news the ‘itch’ would increase, as report upon report drew my attention to the precarious threads which hold our precious reality together, and the self-serving and dangerous attitudes and actions of our so called leaders.
This is a sketch for a painting I did in 2001, I thought it worth posting due to the amount of possibilities in the outline, and my interpretation of it. Following is the finished painting…
Here’s a graffiti piece I did in 2003 when there used to be a half-decent skate park at Bishops Stortford. It made for a refreshing contrast to the clone-town it was rapidly becoming, full to bursting with coffee bars and mobile phone chains, just like everywhere else. Folk of all ages including the elderly and families who found themselves walking through the parks pleasant grounds would sit and enjoy the free spectacle of people painting graffiti and skating on fine days. All graffiti art at the park was respected and any good pieces stayed clean and untagged for years.
There used to be a mini ‘hall-of-fame’ down there with good graffiti art on as many as seven walls by both local and London artists including myself Ashe and Evade but the council ripped down all the 8 foot high, art covered skate-ramps and installed ridiculous 3 foot high concrete ‘skate-bumps’ with no vertical surfaces, thus making the park unsuitable for graffiti art and of limited interest to most older skaters.
They also replaced the adjacent basketball wall illustrated below with a tubular metal frame with a hoop, effectively ‘cleansing’ all graffiti art from the skate park, hence the town in one quick and convenient operation.
The stoners, jugglers and dreadlocked mellow types who used to harmlessly congregate there to skate the ramps, enjoy the vibe and play their guitars in the sun instantly moved on never to return, as the town council no doubt hoped they would. However all is far from rosy for these well meaning do-gooders.
Upon cleansing the place of the younger generations culture its’ atmosphere changed immediately, the new council-friendly ‘skate-bumps’ were covered in abusive and obscene graffiti overnight, something which was never a problem before.
Now I hear the place is controlled by gangs of aggressive ‘townies’ who filled the vacuum and find the new low ‘skate-humps’ perfect as benches where they can get drunk, light fires, smash bottles and start fights, things which also were never a problem before.
The elderly and families who used to sit down to watch the fun on fine days do so at their peril now!
