31/3/24
New contemplated work - ceramic bust of Vladimir Putin in two parts - head and shoulders and fat-fingered hands joined together in front of him. Glazed pink and shiny.
Above the figure, a choice of woolly hats. Commission a knitter to help with these? See sketch. They need to be made of wool the same colour as his skin - Note to buy clay and do glaze tests, then buy wool... - Choice might be Monk with tonsure, Adolph Hitler, Hamlet cigar advertisement comb-over..
Consider the sensitivities above. Religion. But not all religions? Are adherents to the Christian faith less sensitive than those to the Jewish or Muslim faiths? Or does it simply depend on who you talk to? Could a Charlie Hebdo incident have happened in the UK if a satirical magazine had printed a cartoon of God, or Christ? Probably not, but there were demonstrations in 1979 when the Monty Python film The Life of Brian was first shown, and on 11 January 1980 it was banned in Norway. As I have said elsewhere John Bunyan was imprisoned for his religious beliefs from 1660 to 1672 and had a fear, justified, that he might be executed for those beliefs. Our convictions, at least our Christian religious convictions, appear to have become less entrenched in this country. We should remember, when thinking of other faiths, that we as a nation once demonstrated extreme intolerance within religious controversy.
But in relation to conflict, and in particular to a conflict which I believe should never have begun, deriding something through caricature is a powerful way of belittling it.
Satire is I think effective if I can navigate the sensitivities.
Aim would be to invite audience to choose a hat and fit it the ceramic bust.
1/4/24
New Art Works - Progress the carving of Christian caught by Giant Despair, but adopt a much more robust attitude to the carving - see Georg Baselitz' wooden sculptures at The Serpentine. I'll paint the sculpture, or at least part of it. Consider Giant Despair painted black with porcelain ceramic teeth, Christian carrying red mattress as his burden. How does this relate to my main topic - war. It's a part of it (despair). I need to capture that sense in some way.
Watched 20 Days in Mariupol (2023). Mariupol has a special significance for me having formed the subject of two previous works.
The documentary is hard to bear. It raises (again) two questions for me. The agency of an artist, versus that of a reporter on the ground. I haven't been to a war zone. What work I produce has to recognise that; and I need to make sure that there is a difference between a documentary (synthesised, we were told, from many hours of film, carefully selected by the director), and any artwork I produce. There is no point in my simply representing "real" images. My work must bring something different.
The second line of thought was about truth. The documentary shows graphic images of a missile strike on a maternity unit in Ukraine. Russian media claimed that reports of that strike were fabricated, and that the wounded people filmed in those reports were actors. I dismissed the Russian media claims as propaganda. The footage is compelling. But I can't now pretend that in an age of AI image manipulation there isn't an element of doubt in my mind about whether or not some part of what I have seen in the media is accurate and truthful. See the AI image of the boy in the rubble in Gaza.
That too is about agency. Can you now only believe things you have seen yourself?
Should I go to Ukraine?
20 days in Mariupol (2023) had another significance for me. Towards the end of the documentary there was footage of black body bags being thrown into a mass grave. I recognised the scene from a still photograph I had seen in the papers many months ago, and from which I had drawn inspiration for one of my paintings.
Perhaps, for now, we have to question everything, accept that the truth isn't always clear, but (rather than dismissing everything) allow a weight of evidence to convince us of what is and isn't real. It has always struck me that Holocaust deniers appear to ignore the overwhelming volume of Holocaust evidence.
2/4/24
I have sent two emails - the first to the Islamic Arts Museum in Malaysia to ask where the ivory-coloured plate (the inspiration for my painting stealth aircraft) was made and what the writing on it says; and the second to David Cotterell (the artist who spent time in Afghanistan) asking for help with an introduction to one of the curators of the Blavatnik Galleries at the Imperial War Museum - with a view to discussing, with them, a possible visit to a hospital in Ukraine.
I have worked on sketches for a ceramic bust of Vladimir Putin. I want that to end up life-sized (after the shrinkage caused by firing at stoneware temperatures - (stoneware so that the final piece is much more robust than if fired at earthenware temperatures) - together with sketches of possible woolly hats which viewers can place on his head - all satirical.
The Putin sketch didn't work. I need to decide on the level of caricature/abstraction. It needs to be recognisable as Putin but heavily distorted. I'm wondering if I could use a decal image of him from a photograph on a very stylised ceramic head (similar to the very ancient carvings in the Metropolitan Museum of New York)?
I have now seen a wooden block for making hats and am contemplating buying that and simply painting a portrait of VP on the front of it.
10/5/24
I don't normally like mind maps but have produced one, to try to clarify my thinking.
The topic (war) is of course huge. What interests me the most? The history, the causes, the effects, the attempts to prevent or stop wars, the role of art in any or all of these - my personal experiences (as an observer, from a distance, of wars in the 20th and 21st centuries - Vietnam, Malaysian insurgency, sub-Saharan Africa (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Angola...), former Yugoslavia - Bosnia in particular - the Falklands, the first Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan...the list is very depressing. So perhaps the failure of all attempts, by pretty much everyone, to prevent what often feels an inevitable slide into conflict.
Do I need to choose and refiine further what I address?
11/5/24
Trip to Poland and Ukraine booked. I am due to visit the Superhuman Centre in Lviv, to talk to doctors who are helping to reconstruct patients who have lost limbs or otherwise suffered injuries in the war with Russia, and to talk to the patients themselves.
I want those first hand conversations. Everything I have heard so far has been reported speech through the mainstream media, everything I have seen so far has come, again, from documentary and news reporting.
I do not yet know what, if any, work I will produce during or following that trip.
17/5/25
Met an ex-soldier who had been in Bosnia and who was given responsibility for looking after Peter Howson. I think this is public knowledge, and so not sensitive, but Howson only stayed 3 days. It is extraordinary how much work he has produced subsequent to that visit. More research required. I wonder if Howson would be prepared to speak to me.
20/5/24
I travelled yesterday from Krakow, in Poland, to Lviv, in Ukraine, to visit the Superhuman Centre, a very modern medical facility (it deliberately does not call itself a hospital) focused almost exclusively on making and fitting prosthetic limbs to those (both military personnel and civilians) badly wounded in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
I wanted to make the trip to see at first hand (albeit in a very limited way) some of the effects of the fighting in that conflict.
The experience was not at all what I expected it to be. Much of my writing on this subject (war) has focused on the negatives – the devastation, the death, the pain and the suffering, the apparently unstoppable human determination to fight and the evidence, accumulated throughout history, that nothing we do, whether as artists or otherwise, seems to influence that trajectory. This visit was, in one respect, overwhelmingly positive and has left me wondering what work I would like to produce in response to it.
I spent over three hours being shown around the facility by a very charismatic guide. I met the medical and administrative staff who run the Centre and a very large number of patients, some of whom had lost three of their four major limbs, and who included a boy of 12, Sacha.
I was shown how the prosthetic limbs are made, how they differ in sophistication (some are electronic and “semi-bionic”, others simply mechanical), how they are fitted and how, once fitted, the rehabilitation and mobility training is undertaken. Many patients need considerable psychological assistance to overcome their initial trauma, and counselling to accept that the prosthetics available to them will help them return to something close to their original lives. The Centre has established a specific sub-facility to provide that psychological help, both for the patients themselves and for their partners and close family members.
Many of the patients I met, far from remaining crushed by their experiences, had re-enlisted in the army and were determined to return to front line combat.
I expected the visit to be deeply depressing. It was not. The atmosphere was overwhelmingly positive. Almost all the patients were friendly and cheerful. Not one appeared uncomfortable or angry and not one appeared self-conscious about what were, in many cases, truly dreadful injuries. Many made jokes about their lost limbs and almost all were pragmatic. One explained to me how hot weather was annoying because sweat interfered with the electronics in his new, semi-bionic arm. Sacha, the 12 year old boy, now plays football in a team of other players who have lost limbs.
The Centre is known internationally and doctors from overseas visit it, both to provide help but also to learn from some of the developments in prosthetics which have been achieved.
I met, briefly, a 25 year old girl who had been a sniper in the army and had lost a leg in an explosion. I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's views on war expressed in her book Three Guineas, interpreted by Susan Sontag as: "war is a man's game...the killing machine has a gender and it is male."Sontag (2003, p.3) That doesn't seem always to be the case any more, or at least didn't seem to be so in Ukraine that day.
As an example of human compassion, commitment and courage the Centre was remarkable and uplifting. But it was nevertheless impossible to forget that the damage which brought these people there had been caused by violence inflicted by other human beings, not least because one T-shirt which crossed my path just as I was leaving read simply: “All Russians Must Die”
The Superhuman Centre in Lviv, Ukraine
My guide, Andrei
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I met this man at the Centre. He had lost both legs, but has returned to his army unit and moves people and weapons around in a converted cab
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One of the prosthetic limbs made at the Centre
27/7/24
Many things have happened since my last journal entry.
In Susan Sontag's "Regarding the Pain of Others" she refers to a story told by Socrates in Book IV of Plato's Republic about a man called Leontius who, walking up from Piraeus outside Athens sees the public executioner standing in front of the bodies of executed criminals. Leontius is impelled by a desire to look at the bodies but restrained by a sense of disgust at himself for wanting to do so. His rational restraint loses the battle with his desire, he rushes forward and stares at the bodies, cursing his eyes for wanting to "look at this lovely sight".
That story has resonated with me. I think we do have a morbid or ghoulish fascination for the "pain of others" and I worry that I have that impulse and don't always win the fight to suppress it.
I have painted a picture - "Leontius" - depicting that scene above Piraeus, and have added in the figure of one of those I met in Ukraine, walking away from the scene. I wanted big, almost cartoon-like figures in blue/grey, black and white tones. I moved away from images of corpses in one of the early sketches for this work, to images of severed limbs, perhaps as a small reference to the work in the facility in Ukraine to repair lost limbs. The executioner is dark and faceless, intended simply as an image of physical violence.
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I completed the two wooden sculptures I had been working on - Christian caught by Giant Despair (from Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress"), cut from yew and with ceramic eyes and teeth - and a work I have called Diplomats II, showing two people in close confrontation with each other, the images taken from charcoal sketches, loaded into a computer and then laser printed onto very carefully prepared blocks of weathered cedar wood, given to me by a sculptor who hadn't been able to find a use for them. The wood has a wonderful grain to it and is hard, despite being coniferous. The laser printing, burning the images into the surface of the blocks, has produced a rich brown set of images. The two blocks, and the images of the two figures on those blocks, are separated by a very small, 5mm gap. The work is a not very subtle representation of what I see as our innate tendency to confrontation, an impulse not only to shun compromise but, on the contrary, to escalate situations of tension. The title is of course ironic.
All three works, together with my painting, shown at Millbank and which I have re-named Diplomats I, were shown at Camberwell in our MA Fine Art Degree Show.
Three of the works (I left out "Christian Caught by Giant Despair" were then shown at the Espacio Gallery in an exhibition titled "Ascertain", curated by LumiNoir Art.
27/7/24
Following the MA Fine Art Degree Show I had an email from Alistair Redgrift at the Mall Galleries inviting me to apply for a residency sponsored by the Mall Galleries, up in Crinan on the west coast of Scotland. I applied for that and was shortlisted for it, but wasn't awarded the residency. There is a fishing fleet at Crinan. I wanted to paint the fishermen and their boats; to address the history of the fleet and the threats to fish stocks and to a way of life that has been part of that community for generations.
28/7/24
I have been through the glaze tests for my Putin ceramic sculpture. The clay is a rough, raku clay with quite a lot of grit in it but I'm happy with that because it's the clay least likely to crack in the kiln.
The glaze tests are above. The glazes are: Coral pink, snow white, black and a transparent overglaze. I am looking for a pinky/white/grey colour for Putin and will refine tests 9, 10 and 11.
I am intending to knit woolly hats to match the glaze colours so that the base colour of the hat blends into the glaze colours above, so that only the "hair" within the hat catches the eye.
Separately, I'm listening to an interview as i write this with Daniel Handler, who wrote the black comedy series of children's books called "A Series of Unfortunate Events" under the pen name Lemony Snicket, read obsessively by one of my children. DH's father escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930's. The family stories were about the miracle of survival of the few family members who escaped. DH attributes the narratives in his novels - which he says aren't morality tales - to a sense, from his family history, of a simple truth, that how you behave is unlikely to affect the course of your personal journey through life.
Asked about the darkness of his plots he compares them loosely with those of Roald Dahl and says bluntly: "I think we are all interested when something terrible happens..." I of course agree with that. As a post script to this there is an irony in that reference to Roald Dahl. Mark Rosenblatt's play Giant, currently on at the Royal Court Theatre in London addresses an antisemitic article written by Roald Dahl in 1983. I haven't seen the play, but have read an article written by Michael Coren in The New Statesman on 8 October 2021 in which he describes interviewing Roald Dahl in 1983 and listening to unashamed anti-Semitic rhetoric from him. In an interesting paragraph mentioning the fact that Netflix have bought the rights to the author's works, Michael Coren points out that Steven Spielberg directed the BFG and that Taika Waititi "the self-styled "Polynesian Jew""is working on a series based on the world of Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He goes on to say: "Dahl’s works are undeniably impressive, and arguments about separation of creator and creation have raged for generations. What does bite, however, is the fact that Dahl seems to have largely got away with his bigotry. "
That is of course a very large topic, which spreads well beyond the liberal arts. It is one that troubles me. Perhaps it has to be, in part, a personal matter. For my part, I find it difficult to divorce the artist from his work, but it isn't always easy to know where the truth lies. I am currently reading Wild Thing, Sue Prideaux' new biography of Paul Gauguin. I had always espoused what I thought was an accepted view that he had behaved so badly in French Polynesia that it was difficult to view his work as untainted by that reputation. This book appears to be a comprehensive re-examination of that position, painting Gauguin in a far more favourable light.
Yet again, i ask myself to what extent our views are moulded and then set in stone by influences which we absorb as truth, without properly asking ourselves to what extent the foundations of those influences are built on solid ground.
14/8/24
I continue to work on two things, both satirical and political: The Putin ceramic bust with a selection of woolly hats, and an animation. In both cases, I can't decide to what extent I need to achieve a convincing likeness of Mr Putin. More important with the ceramic piece, because the satire in that instance is about the person, not the message. With the animation, achieving a likeness in say 300 images is very difficult. Perhaps less important because the message is simply about resorting to violence if you are cross about something. Perhaps I should be content with a much simplified cartoon image.
Knitting the woolly hats is proving difficult but rewarding from an entirely different perspective. It has given me an insight into a craft which has evolved over centuries, is remarkably simple in one respect (the end product made with two knitting needles and a single, very long ball of yarn) but remarkably complicated in terms of the architecture of the knit. I find that fascinating for some reason.
1/9/24
I've been given the "Viewers Award" by LumiNoir Art for the works showed at Espacio Gallery. That was apparently based on the level of interest shown in my work by visitors to the gallery, and is very gratifying.
2/9/24
Invited by a friend who teaches at the École des beaux-arts de Nantes - Saint-Nazaire to the reception at Tate Britain for the Turner Prize. My friend knows Delaine Le Bas, one of the four shortlisted artists and a member of the Roma community.
Cover photograph of Delaine Le Bas from a flyer for her exhibition Rags of Evidence - 7 September 2024 - 13 October 2024
Photo by Tara Darby
25/9/24
Went to the Turner Prize reception yesterday. Met Delaine Le Bas and looked at her installation, and the work of the other three shortlisted artists - Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson and Jasleen Kaur. They all practice in this country, but all carry with them a mixed, trans-national family history which has raised social and cultural challenges for them, deeply personal and yet politically charged. Their work is brave. The video recordings produced by each of them were, for me, almost as compelling as the works themselves. Putting on headphones (surrounded by hundreds of people at this event) and listening, one to one, to these artists explaining their work was moving. Video employed in that way felt like a work in its own right. Perhaps that is obvious, and indeed was part of the point.
26/9/24
My friend from the École des beaux-arts de Nantes - Saint-Nazaire was accompanied by the head of that school, and the two of them have asked if I would agree to have a show at the school and give a talk to the students there. I need to send images of my work and discuss a topic for the talk but would of course be delighted to do that.
1/10/24
I have made progress on my animation. I'm using Stop Motion, simply because it's easy, and this is my first animation. I was pointed at Stop Motion by another Camberwell student and am grateful.
The drawing is childlike - stick figures, almost no colour, but an element of caricature.
Caricature - defined in one dictionary as "a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect".
Caricature is a focus for me at the moment. It has been used as a forceful political tool for a very long time. I have a particular memory of James Gilray's image of the world being carved up (The Plum Pudding is In Danger).
Why does it appeal? It involves people, politics, and an element of ridicule. The drawing matters. If an image isn't recognisable, the caricature fails. But these aren't portraits. Features are exaggerated to the point where they bear no actual resemblance to the features being represented but nevertheless trigger instant recognition in our brains.
Simplicity - it is extraordinary how some draftsmen - political cartoonists, can reduce an image to a line drawing of exceptional simplicity which is nevertheless instantly recognisable as a political figure.
Cartoonists who produce animations or strip cartoons work in three dimensions. They have a three dimensional feel for their characters. They are not portrait artists. (Herge's Tintin - Captain Haddock - the drawings are exceptional and the characters viewed from every conceivable angle.)
But is this serious art? Actually, looking at the Political Cartoon Gallery I'm suddenly not sure. Some images are very strong. My memory of Rowlandson's Art Critics. Morten Morland's Project Fear. Others then become annoying. Perhaps all jokes, told too often, become boring.
How do I avoid that?
The work I'm producing at the moment is linked. The ceramic bust is based on a Morten Morland cartoon (two in fact). The animation has a figure in it which has a snout similar to the ceramic bust. One of the woolly hats (on the bust) will be the same as the woolly hat in the cartoon.
What's the underlying message or question I want to ask in the Research Festival. It is I think: "To what extent are we each prepared to engage in conflicts which don't affect us directly, firstly by thinking about them, then by expressing a view in relation to them." "What views are we prepared to express? It is easy to be repulsed, and to show revulsion for, the pain and suffering caused by conflict. But what's the point of expressing those emotions (they aren't really views or opinions) if that does no good? Must we take sides, must we express a political view, to make a difference - or not to make a difference but at the very least to register that view? Is there, somewhere, a set of political scales which will tip a balance in favour of peace if enough views are poured into one or other of the pans? And what if an equal number of opposing views are poured into each pan?
15/10/24
I have just finished The Making of the Modern Middle East by Jeremy Bowen (the BBC's International Editor).
I was looking for a dispassionate history of, in particular, Israel and the countries immediately surrounding it, to try to cement my own views of at least some of the rights and wrongs of the conflict currently engulfing that region. The book was written before the events of October 7th 2023, and so before the last twelve months of intense devastation. In addition to Israel and Lebanon it also covers all the major Middle Eastern uprisings and conflicts over the past 30 years, including the war between Iran and Iraq, the Arab Spring uprisings (and their - in most instances - unhappy aftermaths) in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the two subsequent Gulf Wars leading to the overthrow of Saddam Hussain, and the conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen; and finally the plight of the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
In short, the book contains a deeply depressing litany of violence, miscalculated interference by major powers, bad or deficient decision making by people or Governments who might have had the power to make a difference, corruption and greed on an industrial scale, political, religious, sectarian, ethnic or national fanaticism underpinning positions so entrenched that almost no amount of diplomacy has been able to influence the behaviour of extremists within those cohorts.
Jeremy Bowen does not, as a general rule, take sides. But he is deeply critical, without I think losing some sense of balance, of specific decisions or actions by particular individuals or parties.
But what emerges from his book is an overwhelming sense that the violence unleashed in all of these countries strikes those least responsible for its inception, and those most vulnerable to its effects. Civilians, including countless children, killed, injured, made homeless or deprived of basic necessities, and subjected to trauma which will last for a generation or more.
I return therefore to my question as an artist. Is it enough to rage against the suffering, to draw attention to it with a view simply to fostering international outrage as a means of promoting peace - or are we obliged to judge, to do the work to identify, as best we can, those responsible for behaviour which leads to violence, to call out that behaviour and condemn it?
There are conflicts or individual decisions or actions which at least appear to be more culpable than others. I was under the impression that the invasion of Ukraine fell into that category. The Russians lied about the invasion before it happened. I watched them do that on television. The invasion appeared to me (and certainly to the Ukrainians I have now spoken to) as unprovoked and instigated by one man. My work about that conflict has focused therefore, and continues to focus, on Mr Putin.
But in a seminar a week ago I was challenged by another student who made it clear that the accepted Chinese view is that Russia had no choice but to invade Ukraine, to protect its Western borders from Western (Nato and EU) expansion. I don't accept that view but must acknowledge that what appears to me to be black and white is not so to others.
In my Research Festival workshop or discussion I want therefore to pose a series of questions:
Is an artist, whose work is political, required to take a political stance;
Is an artist, whose work is political, entitled to take a political stance;
What does "political stance" mean;
Does it mean "to express a judgement about whether or not something is right or wrong";
What then is the "something"?
If you say "killing children, even by mistake" is wrong, nobody (even those who by mistake did the killing) would disagree - so what's the point of an artist saying so?
The "something" has to go beyond the outcome. It has to address the cause, and therefore the decisions or actions of those responsible for the cause.
But that too is not enough.
Jeremy Bowen's book makes it clear that almost all major decisions and actions which have led to catastrophic outcomes in the Middle East were based on motives, justifiable to the actors, and whether national, religious or otherwise idealogical, strategic, economic, or simply as a response, retributive, to a reciprocal perceived atrocity. None of those actors would ever accept that what they did was wrong, in the sense that their actions had no underlying justification.
After decades, the history of the region has become a litany of tit-for-tat violence. Who is right and who is wrong (in terms of who started the fight) simply depends on when you decide that the historical clock started ticking. Everyone chooses a date that best suits their cause.
Perhaps all this is either too difficult, or simply straightforward:
The violence must stop.
People - of whatever faith, nationality, or persuasion - must learn to live together peacefully.
Artists must find ways to promote that outcome, by attacking decisions or behaviour which are/is obviously wrong and by questioning borderline behaviour which, despite arguably justifiable motives, carries appalling outcomes; because that is all we can do.
16/10/24
An interesting discussion yesterday in the Steering Committee for the Research Festival on the significance of our chosen title "Unresolve".
I have worried for some time about the whole question of when a work is or is not resolved - in the sense that, at least from my perspective, it is finished.
Looking back at work I made a while ago, and finding that I'm not happy with some of that work, makes it clear to me that work we think of as resolved often isn't.
But our discussion yesterday considered the extent to which no work is resolved, because all work is to some extent interpreted, or re-interpreted, by every person who looks at it; and that re-interpretation affects and therefore changes the work itself. Part of this sits ill with me.
I think of the work that I produce (an oil painting, a sculpture or a ceramic piece) as something I present to those who view it. It is my work and not therefore subject to "amendment" by others. I think I do now have to re-consider that view. It is quite clear that some works of art are changed by an audience. Marina Abramovic's performance at MOMA (The Artist is Present) - the involvement of those sitting opposite her was a part of the work and therefore changed it.
But is performance art, by its nature, different and therefore obviously subject to change in a way that an oil painting or a photograph is not?
Susan Sontag's description of Jeff Wall's constructed image (Dead Troops Talk (a vision after an ambush of a Red Army Patrol, near Moqor, Afghanistan, winter 1986), 1992 in her book Regarding the Pain of Others, gave me a view of that image which was both compelling and I think personal to Sontag but which for me has quite clearly added to the work itself. I view the work in a different light to how I viewed it before, and that has changed the work for me.
17/10/24
Jeremy Bowen - Bowen, (2023, p.262) describes the rise of Hassan Nazrallah, the secretary general of Hizbullah, operating against Israel from Southern Lebanon.
The list of protagonists in Jeremy Bowen's book is long, and the names are often similar and difficult to distinguish, but this name rang a bell with me. Mr Bowen writes about him in the present tense (the book was first published in 2022 and my edition was published only last year, in 2023). But Hassan Nazrullah was assassinated by Israel on 27th September 2024 - less than a month ago. Mr Bowen describes him - "a man about my age, slightly stout, wearing the robes of a Shia cleric and a black turban showing his status as a Sayyed, a descendant of the prophet Muhammad. He was polite and serious, and Israel was not referred to by name but as 'the Zionist entity'. He did not give much away, except his unshakeable determination to keep on fighting." Bowen (2023 p.263). There
is something deeply disturbing about reading an account of a meeting with a man who was killed three weeks ago. There is no distinction between immediate events and history. Perhaps there is no such thing as history. Things happen, time passes, but as soon as an event has happened it is in the past and has gone. What is left? Only the memories of those who remain and the physical residue and records left behind - all now open to current interpretation which may or may not accurately reflect the reality of the past.
In that respect alone the resolving and unresolving of history has a resonance with the resolving and unresolving of a work of art. Is there such a thing as historic truth? Are we obliged to search for it, to reconstruct it out of whatever material we can find, available to us now? Does the same thing apply to art and our ever changing perceptions of art?
History can of course be viewed with a new, contemporary perspective, as can art. Does that change history, or does the new perspective simply apply a new layer of understanding over events, behaviour, opinions which were what they were but which, overlaid, carry a different meaning now. Again, s the same true for art?
Hassan Nazrullah was viewed as a terrorist by Israel and is viewed now as a martyr by many Arabs. Those two perspectives are, currently, irreconcilable.
Does an artist try to unpick that position? "This land belongs to me. You must leave." "I will kill you for moving me off the land on which I was living." "I will kill you for trying to kill me." How do you unpick that, particularly if you aren't part of either community?
I have spent another day working on my animation. It follows the completion (in an unfired state) of my ceramic bust of Mr Putin, a three dimensional rendition of a two dimensional cartoon image.
Both the sculpture and the animation have brought home to me the perhaps obvious fact that pictures render, in two dimensions, a three dimensional object or scene. A sculpture is, in that respect, completely different. You walk around it. It needs to be capable of sustaining a view from any angle. I have, in the sculpture, reversed my normal painting process by creating something three dimensional from a two-dimensional drawing.
The skill of the draftsman was to make that process easier than it might have been. The accuracy of the draftsmanship and the shading within the drawing gave clues to his imagined three dimensional form and underscored the point that a good draftsman also thinks in three dimensions, not two.
An animation, I realise, combines two, three and four dimensions. The images are of course in two dimensions. But if you animate the image of a man getting off a horse, you must see the man, and the horse, as solid objects. Each drawing twists and rotates the perspective of the figures, revealing a different angle of what needs to be a three dimensional figure for the animation to feel real. As a discipline in very basic draftsmanship it has been instructive. The fourth dimension, the time for which the animation runs, is new for me. I find some animations annoying as a viewer, particularly if I don't know for how long they will run. It is important that the animation holds the attention of the viewer. It must remain interesting.
Making an animation, I am acutely conscious that I am trespassing within a medium (film and in particular cartoon film) which has evolved in the world of entertainment to an extraordinary level. I must try to bring something new to that discipline - my imagery and my storyboard perhaps.
20/10/24
I came across this picture by Beryl Cook again this morning. With a silent apology to anyone reading this, I want to understand why I find it interesting. I think it has to do with the careful, and deliberate, limited ambition of the picture. There is a lot of "information" in the work. The angle of the right foot, the bent right knee, her weight on her left leg, the unnatural colour of her skin, the skimpiness of her leopard-skin dress, the thin belt squeezed by the fold in her upper thigh, her high-heeled boots, her permed hair, her gold bracelet, and the three dogs, one of which has to be carried.
The painting is much more carefully painted than it might at first appear. The shadow on the sole of her left boot; and if you look closely, an almost imperceptible shadow on the sole of the right boot, lessened because of the off-set angle of that boot.
She is leaning forward so that her torso is foreshortened and we can't see her face but don't need to. I think it's that that I find appealing. That Beryl Cook has painted a picture of a lady which is utterly revealing, without showing us her face. This, for me, is much more than playful, seaside postcard imagery. It is about what makes us all human, our strengths and weaknesses.
30/10/24
Why do wars matter? My current focus is on confrontation and conflict but why, really am I devoting myself to that subject?
I had a bit of an epiphany during a session on writing Artist's Statements. We were given a free writing task - 15 minutes on "what makes my work mine" and then told to highlight words or phrases within what we had written and which, with hindsight, we found most intersting. What struck me was that the bits I found interesting were those which made me feel personally uncomfortable. I have chanted a mantra that war and its violence upsets me; that I feel at times a sense of despair at our inability, as a species, to stop ourselves fighting and my, or our, apparent inability to influence a never-ending cycle of conflict. But for me there are troubling unanswered personal questions.
I watch (sometimes) films which contain violence. I enjoy them. I read books which contain violence and (sometimes) find that exhilarating. I'm not alone. The canon of violent entertainment is enormous. It has become interactive. The gaming industry is now gigantic. The violence is extreme and never-ending. Indeed it is in many instances the primary purpose of the game.
So a preliminary focus of discomfort is why we, and I, enjoy watching violent entertainment. Do we draw a distinction between fiction and reality? We clearly do, because I can't bear watching real violence on television. And indeed, even within fictional entertainment, I can't bear watching violence done to children, for example. I also can't bear scenes in which one human being deliberately causes pain to another human being under their control.
But why does that distinction (fiction/reality) matter? Is it because I ask myself whether I can be absolutely sure that no element of the enjoyment or excitement or perhaps, if not those, that no element of the sense of 'righteous indignation' I might take from watching a violent film leeches into "real life".
I watched The Enemy in the Woods, a documentary directed by Jamie Roberts about Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russians in woodland. I didn't in any way enjoy that film. I felt I think an overwhelming sense of wasted life. People who shouldn't be fighting, fighting and dying as a result of decisions taken by others, hundreds of miles away from the theatre of fighting. But the film is one-sided and the "enemy" is clearly identified. Given the film's perspective, it is impossible not to feel a partisan sense of support for those on whom the film is focused. Is that sense fostered when watching fictional films about war?
So - Does our entertainment industry condition, in some way, our response to "real" conflict?
Is an small analogy the very aggressive abuse shouted at football matches? We, as a family, stopped going to Fulham matches because my then young children were frightened by abuse shouted by a group immediately behind our seats, abuse which would have been unthinkable outside the ground - on a bus for example. A colleague of mine argued that the abuse was harmless. In fact almost therapeutic because it "released pent-up aggression which, if not released during the course of a game, might lead to violence outside the stadium."
I simply don't, and didn't, accept the view that aggressive behaviour was acceptable in a football stadium because it was confined to an entertainment arena. Children of fathers shouting abuse on a Saturday would be in school on a Monday with that abuse ringing in their ears. How were teachers supposed to stop those children bringing that abuse into the real world of the classroom?
When we first went to football matches, racist abuse was not uncommon. Nobody argued that that was acceptable because it was confined to an entertainment venue.
What's my point? Drawing a distinction between our response to entertainment and our response to real life is dangerous. Having written that sentence I ask myself whether I really mean it. Certainly, I don't think that indulging a taste for violence by watching violent films can be justified by describing that as a release of pent-up aggression which might otherwise spill over into real life.
But equally why shouldn't we watch what we want to watch if there is no evidence of a connection between violent entertainment and violence in the real world?
Perhaps the better question is why we like watching violent entertainment so much and what does that tell us about ourselves?
A lot of violence within the entertainment industry involves meting out retribution for bad behaviour - and the worse the behaviour the more violent the just retribution. Perhaps there is a part of us which needs to feel that bad behaviour will be punished, because without that check bad stuff would proliferate and we would regress to a lawless and even more violent state.
And is that how we justify conflict? It's a necessary form of retribution for a perceived international or intra-national injustice.
The problem with that of course is that one person's injustice is another person's exercise of a legitimate right.
Which leads back to a situation in which some conflicts at least can only be resolved by assessing grievances, and the rights and wrongs of opposing positions, and encouraging either an agreed consensus or, in the absence of that consensus, a pragmatic compromise.
1/11/24
I have just been to see Tracey Emin's latest show at The White Cube. What is remarkable is that all of the pictures (and there are many) in that show were painted this year (2024). There is an energy in those pictures, a looseness of style, an absolute determination not to "finish" each work (in the normal, tidying up sense) which allows them to be, for me, fully "resolved" in their current state.
Listened to a podcast - Travis Alabanza - in which they discuss the violent abuse they suffer, as a trans person, when they step outside; that this isn't a rare occurrence, but rather one which happens to them, and to other gender non-conforming people, almost every day. They draw a distinction between that violence, and the violence suffered for example by cis women. They cited two incidents - one on a tube when a woman was called a slut by a drunk man. The whole carriage spoke up and intervened, and the man was removed from the carriage at the next stop; that was compared to an incident on Waterloo Bridge in broad daylight during which a man shouted abuse at Travis Alabanza and threw food at them, hitting them on the shoulder. Not one of the perhaps 150 people who might have seen that incident said anything. Their conclusion - "there is violence in silence" - and the reasoning for that is that by remaining silent in that situation every one of us is telling the perpetrator of that violence that that behaviour is OK, and in doing so helping to create a never-ending cycle of that violence.
We all have responsibilities to each other. If we shirk them, we are guilty of perpetuating behaviour which we might silently abhor - but our silence is not passive. It carries weight. It endorses violence and gives birth to more violence. There is therefore violence in that silence.
2/11/24
A second, similar podcast - The Danger of Silence by Clint Smith - in which he quotes words of Martin Luther King Junior from a speech in 1968 commenting on the Civil Rights Movement in which he said: "In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends." - and goes on to acknowledge, to his shame, times when he remained silent and should not. "Tell your truth" is a mantra in Clint Smith's classroom. We all need to "tell our truth", and doing that means not remaining silent in the face of violence, aggression, and all forms of discriminatory behaviour.
That message repeated in a powerful third Ted talk by Satta Sherrif the title of which was "Silence Against Violence is Oppression" - "As a society we are complicit in violence when we see violence and do nothing."
Unit 3 Online Research Presentation yesterday. Some helpful feedback from Emily Woolley with a suggestion I look at Stuart Hall's media theory. Whilst researching that I came across a case study on the Media Studies website, looking at the advertising artwork for the new video game - Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
That struck a chord with me because the game has just been released and I saw a very large advertisement, with that artwork, in the Tube two days ago. It seemed to me to do exactly what much violent entertainment does and has always done, but on multiple levels - in terms of appealing to many of our core instincts and appetites for excitement, moral endeavour and affirmation, and violence.
There is a very clear analysis of the thinking behind every bit of the artwork and the text. The case study is described as a "semiotic analysis of the cover art" of the new game and the author is Professor Piotr Drzewiecki (who is described as "a scholar and educator working for the Institute of Media Education and Journalism at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw").
2/11/24
Professor Drzewiecki draws attention to the darkness of the image, the guns held in each hand, the anonymised face and the white domed building in the background reminiscent of the US capitol, amongst other things. That image and of course the name of the game conjure political and national concepts appealing to qualities of patiotism, honour and duty.
But he goes on to refer to "the myth of the call to duty"
"The call of duty myth alludes to the archetypes of sacrifice, duty and heroism. The title “Call of Duty” refers directly to the specific myth of the call to duty. It suggests that fighting national enemies is the highest expression of patriotism. The presence of a Capitol-like building reinforces this myth, introducing an element of defending democratic values."
I'm not sure he's right about that call being a myth - in the sense that it in some way illusory.
When I was in Ukraine, those I met who were soldiers, and who had been badly injured, not only had no regrets about joining their army and fighting, many of them were impatient to return to their units and continue that fight. They would, I am quite sure, have considered fighting as a duty, and would not have described that call as a myth.
March in central London, starting in Whitehall, in relation to Palestine. I have walked within one of these marches before, but only briefly and by accident. This time I arrived deliberately, and early. I had many reasons for wanting to be there. I am appalled at what is happening in Gaza, but I am equally acutely conscious of the many political views held in relation to the Middle East, and the current fighting there. I wanted to understand who participates in these marches, what the goals of those attending are, what the tone and substance of their contribution to the march is, whether the views held are consistent across the march or are in some instances either inconsistent or even contradictory.
I chose this time not to carry a banner or to wear clothing indicating a political view and I did not participate in a group "die in" (see below) to support those killed in the fighting; not because I am not horrified by the killing, but because on this occasion at least I wanted to observe and understand the march, rather than express my personal views about its goals.
I spoke to many people.
The march was noisy. Elements had a carnival atmosphere which felt odd in the context of the wider messaging. But what was very clear was the range of different messages on display and the corresponding range of forms of expression. As an expression of a collective view it was uplifting.
I met and spoke to this gentleman, a holocaust survivor called Stephen Kapos, and his son. They take part in most of the pro-Palestinian marches together with descendants of other holocaust survivors. "Genocide" is of course a hugely emotive word. For a holocaust survivor to adopt that word in this context carries a particular weight.
A "die-in", the first time this has been done at one of these marches.
The manner in which people express strongly held views varies and is creative, drawing on prominent and controversial figures (in the case of Julian Assange, above left), historically emotive and powerful vocabulary (apartheid, genocide) or simply expressing simple and heartfelt pain (above right). Others expressed unbridled anger, a man with a megaphone shouting "Starmer, you murderous bastard" at the black metal gates of Downing Street.
A separate group, drawn from various Jewish organisations, gathered away from the main march opposite the Houses of Parliament. I asked one of them why they hadn't chosen to gather in Whitehall, with everyone else. I expressed a view that if, as was evidently the case, they represented Jews opposed to what was happening in Gaza, their message might be particularly powerful if expressed within the body of the main march. I was told that they indeed intended to join the main march as it passed them, but I wasn't given a coherent reason as to why they had chosen to gather separately.
There was a reasonable police presence at the march, but I saw no situation which required their active involvement. In that respect it was, again, an uplifting experience to see so many people peacefully expressing revulsion against violence thousands of miles away.
Approaching Millbank I came across a group of Orthodox Jews, accompanied by a Muslim gentleman who was helping to create the signs above right. I spoke first to Chaim (above left) who said quite simply that he, his colleagues and some of their very young children had gathered to oppose what was happening in Gaza. I spoke then to the Muslim gentleman (on the far right of the picture above right) who described himself as a friend of Chaim, and had both aligned himself with their group and agreed to help with the message they had espoused.
They placed themselves in front of a roundabout directly in the path of the main march, which approached them, divided around them and engulfed them as it passed. It was an extraordinary sight.
I walked ahead of the march and at Vauxhall Bridge Road, at a point where the main march was to turn left and cross the Thames, there was a second demonstration of pro-Israel protestors, shouting slogans about Hamas terrorism and with banners insisting the Israeli hostages be brought home.
Shouts of "Terrorist scum"and "Terrorist armies off our streets" from those within the pro-Israeli demonstration, with supporters of the much larger pro-Palestinian march trying to drown out those shouts.
Very few things appear clear to me. One of them is that the killing, and particularly the deliberate killing, of civilians including children, is never right.
It seems strange to me that the public discourse appears to prohibit us, or at least pretend to do so, from holding two positions at once - that the killing on 7 October 2023 and the taking of civilian hostages was wrong, and that the response in Gaza has been disproportionate and appalling.
I saw not one banner in the main march referring to what happened on 7 October 2023, and not one banner within the pro-Israel demonstration acknowledging the loss of life, damage and suffering in Gaza.
During the course of Unit 3 I finished, or at least progressed, a large painting begun early in the post 7 October fighting in Gaza, which was intended to say, perhaps too bluntly, that if you are a very young casualty of a conflict the question of who killed you and why is of no significance. I am again conscious of the sensitivity of my imagery in this picture. Is a caricature more offensive than an image also drawn from my imagination but in style more realistic? Perhaps it is and perhaps I have over-stepped a mark with this picture.
To the Militant, Identity is Everything (2024)
Oil on canvas. 110 x 90 cm
3/11/24
I have given an interview about my practice to Jonathan Hillson of LumiNoir Art, which was then made available to Savant Art Magazine and posted on YouTube (below)
References
20 Days in Mariupol (2023) Directed by Mstyslav Chernov. Ukraine: The Associated Press and Frontline.
Alabanza, T. (Host). (2023). Who is allowed to be a victim , Podcast. BBC Sounds. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=_wAwcTTOq4k
Baselitz, G. (2015) Georg Baselitz: Sculptures 2011-2015. London: Serpentine Galleries
Bowen, J., 2022. The Making of the Modern Middle East: A Personal History. London: Picador.
Bunyan, J. (2008) The Pilgrim's Progress. Edited by W.R. Owens. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Coren, M. (2021) Roald Dahl’s anti-Semitism was grotesque. I should know – I saw it first hand, New Statesman, 8 October. Available at: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2021/10/roald-dahls-anti-semitism-was-grotesque-i-should-know-i-saw-it-first-hand
Drzewiecki, P, (2024) Case Study - Call of Duty : Black Ops 6 - Semiotic analysis of the cover art: covert operations, political intrigue, and tense gameplay. Media Studies. Available at: https://media-studies.com/black-ops-6/
Plato, 1935. The Republic. Translated by D. Lee. London: J.M. Dent.
Prideaux, S. (2021) Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin. London: Yale University Press
Roberts, J. (Director). (2022). The Enemy in the Woods. Documentary: ITV Studios
Sherrif, S. (Speaker). (2023). Silence against violence is oppression. Podcast. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/satta_sheriff_silence_against_violence_is_oppression?subtitle=en
Sontag, S. (2004) Regarding the Pain of Others. London: Penguin.
Smith, C. (Speaker). (2017). The danger of silence. Podcast, TED Talks. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/clint_smith_the_danger_of_silence?subtitle=en
Handler, D. (2024) Interview with Daniel Handler. YouTube video, available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3GbM68HPJc