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Growing Pains, or on being lost in the woods of one's imagination.

I knew this would be a bad idea, and still I did it. There is quite a lot that has happened in behind the locked doors of the internet watchful eye, and I guess someone out there always wants to have me spill the beans on my whereabouts as I emerge from the primordial slime of being nothing.

Long story long I have been working my arse off at the Drawing Year in London. My back is broken from using the donkey and still I have spurred the easel because I am and always will be on the way to recline.

I have had some shows and had a chance to see my girls admired, so far the list includes Vienna, Berlin, London and possibly a digital version of Hong Kong, but who knows if she was seen or just looked at. Oh, and almost, allllmooooost got a tiny grouping into Istanbul, but they got misplaced at the airport and never left the confines of the British Island (the big one). Good things, good things, and like a true Slavic fortune collector I am constantly anticipating a fall from grace. Now a show is approaching in my lovely Scotland, in mysterious Oxfordshire and apparently I also won a place in the Dephian Open Call Exhibition.

Life is strange, it ebbs and flows without mercy and leaves me confused. I just about graduated last Friday (last year but also actually only last week would have been my graduation ceremony if I have attended it). I only just started the Drawing Year and its on a way out, so keep your wallets ready for Christie's in November!

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I have some catching up to do here, so let's start with a double whammy! The lovely Motorist (who isn't Penelope Pitstop) has found her way into the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition while the not so lovely me has weaselled my way into the Royal Drawing School Drawing Year 2021-22. Marrying some sort of prince seems imminent, but I want to say that I do not intend to be any more polite. Also also also- I will be featured alongside some first class excellent ladies in a show opening next week in Stoke Newington! Yes! That IS happening.

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A lovely little feature on the AucArt Instagram story, so far not becoming an overnight sensation with thousands of coins in my bank account, but baby steps is what it takes to get to being able to support oneself.

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Show on in Glasgow, Six Foot Gallery! On until the 22nd of September, so catch it while you and it is there !

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Things are looking up for this one here, preparing for a group show in Glasgow at Six Foot Gallery opening on the 24th of August, dropped off the Motorist at the RA for the second stage of judging- so it might be included in the ‘Summer’ Exhibition, and got myself featured in the Elephant Magazine graduate selection

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Help help, I’m in demand.

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Just a little bit of an update on the progression of my illustrious career. The Alt Degree Show has been a lovely change from living online and only showing my girls as glowing rectangles of uncertain proportions. It was great to be back in Glasgow, seeing what everyone was up to over the long lockdown of our last year at art school together. I would say I was blown away by the quality of the work, but it would mean I didn’t know how talented everyone is. It was good, really good and I see a lot of potential for the future there. I also agreed to return to Scotland for some more showing off, so keep your eyes out for announcements!

In other news- the Bloomberg New Contemporaries are well on their way with the first show opening in Colchester in September just in time for me to finish freshers week at the Royal Drawing School. I have agreed to deliver the Motorist to the RA for judging and I should know by September if it made it into the summer (autumn?) exhibition or not. Fingers crossed! Oh, and got to be featured in Elephant Magazine‘s ones to watch graduates of the year, so that’s big news!

Working on a new body of work now that I have time and some money- looks like a busy summer ahead.

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By Jove I have done it again. I entered a painting into the RA summer exhibition and then sold it before hearing the results. Now it qualified for the second stage of judgment and I don’t think I can actually have it in the show. Damn.

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The Motorist. Acrylic on Canvas. 170 x 100 cm.

Part of the Ladyboss series .

#art #painting #acrylpainting #paintingoncanvas #figurative art #contemporary painting

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A bit more sketchbook development teasing. 

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Events of recent notoriety are- obviously- submitting my final work at Glasgow, which I cannot yet share with you here, but why not treat everyone to a slight  sneak peek into the development that went into it. Otherwise there are some good news- I am now set to join the Turps family of artists, which is greatly exciting even if I have applied for a deferred entry. John Moores has finally opened its physical doors and I have to plan my way up North to see the lovely Hilary. The other exciting news is the AltDegree Show which is opening up in Glasgow and will allow a look at my new work in full splendour. Aaaand there’s also being featured at AucArt this year, thanks to the wonderful curator Marco Galvan! Aaand last and a little bit of a tease- big news are coming, but I can’t give it up yet!

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Sad news are that I didn’t get that ATP mentorship, so fingers crossed I get into the RDS! Not that I am about to panic about the year ahead- I feel pretty confident about making work and new ideas are coming in all the time, but if I have to continue working from home then I will eventually get on the nerves of all my flatmates.

So, goodbye deptford doorway, hopefully I can fly in through a window somewhere. Straight into a nice studio with some nice new fellow artists.

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Today is (was) final hand in day. I am knackered, can’t be bothered to celebrate anything- neither the successful upload, nor the 30+ years I have been alive now (it’s 34, but I feel like last year doesn’t count somehow). The good news are that I know when the pickup will be for my works to be considered for the New Contemporaries. I really, honestly, truly thought that it was a dream and wouldn’t happen. Fingers crossed for at least one of them making it into the show! The sad news is that I will miss Glasgow, I will miss being a part of it, the tutors and all my lovely and super talented artist friends. I will miss telling people that I’m in the GSA even if it was a bumpy ride and I did my fair share of moaning. I was a bit of a weirdo , haven’t been back to Scotland in months, only properly lived there for about a year, and haven’t spoken to many teachers ‘irl’ for years (when I came back from exchange there was the strike and then the pandemic hit- oh wait, I guess there was glue factory, but it feels like years!). I will miss it! And yeah, after 4 attempts to get a degree I finally got a degree now! Yay!

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Another one for the fans. The slacker in the making.

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Just a little process of working on recent paintings

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I’m really riding the waves of this blog these days- but since I can’t exactly scan my entire sketchbook (or can I?) I am going to do a good portion of my artistic pondering here. Just to have a record of it for myself, don’t actually think it is of any benefit to anyone else here.

Today I was asked about why I paint. After spending months talking about my work on zoom with various people I think I have cracked it and come up with an answer. I have always liked telling stories about the things I have seen- on the way to school, on a mushroom picking trip, on a hike to the cemetery on All Hallows’ , the list goes on. But I was also shy and talked fast, like a automatic gun- most of what I said wasn’t landing where I wanted (heart or head, you know the drill) but when I started drawing these stories - suddenly people started remembering them, taking notice, asking questions. Painting has become the way I communicate best with people around me. Especially now that I live away from where I grew up, amongst people who grew up differently, lacking the shared points of reference. It just makes my life easier to be able to reach people with odd stories without the barrier of speech slowing me down.

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Since I’m here and am worried about not having enough room in my digital submission pdf- here are some things I want to remember, are important but not enough to make the cut-

Important artists:

I have done a lot of social media based artist research, since I couldn’t do the usual thing of browsing the library. I found a few treasures and I want to share them here.

The second, untagged image is also the amazing Hrvoje Majer. These are artists I have been obsessing over most recently and probably haven’t yet had the impact they could have on me. It’s more that I was looking for kindred spirits than inspiration, tbh. It seems to be that a lot of my artist research goes this way- I search for things I make a connection with and have set hashtags for figurative art on everything social media like imaginable.