20three » Art

Sketchbook pages: 02.2012

Owen — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:41:46 +0000

Some recent scans of my sketchbook.

Dan Drakeford: new ‘Now In Lemon’ Illustrations

Owen — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:27:13 +0000

As well as contributing to the Now In Lemon ‘zine, Mr Drakeford has also updated the Now In Lemon site with a load of new work. I have posted a favourite of mine below but please take a look at the rest of his work – his ‘The Park‘ strip is definitely worth checking out.

Now in Lemon: lo-fi art & illustration

Owen — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:33:03 +0000

Now In Lemon is a 40 page black and white zine produced by Dan Drakeford and myself. I won’t try to describe it, you can see it all here.

Available for the majestic price of £3.00 plus postage at the Now in Lemon website.

Now in Lemon was printed by those nice people at Footprint Workers co-operative.

Sketchbook: 20three type

Owen — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:57:04 +0000

I did do some post production work on this scan from my sketchbook – I made the image grayscale then reversed the colours, making the image white on black. The letters were also generated on the computer then printed out, cut up and glued into my sketchbook.

The font I have thoroughly abused is Futura Book. Paul Renner is probably spinning in his grave, considering that legibility was a fundamental concern when he designed Futura, widly known as the first mass produced geometric sans-serif typeface.

Ah well, destroy your heroes and all that.

Sketchbook: L’art brut préféré aux arts culturels

Owen — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 19:49:56 +0000

Spare Place :: mapping empty shops and pop up places

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:25:58 +0000

Open Sussex has teamed up with the Empty Shop Network to create a new web site called Spare Place

A map of spaces across the UK which can be used for temporary and pop-up projects: it includes empty shops, church halls, fields, shopping precincts and old offices. All spaces can be legally occupied by agreement with the owner.

It’s not a comprehensive map of every empty shop or derelict building across the UK. It’s a crowdsourced guide to interesting, unusual and underused places that are available and ready to go.

The site is currently in beta testing stage. We wanted to get it live because we wanted people to add their places, and see if the resource was used and adopted by people. From a development point of view both Open Sussex and the Empty Shop Network felt it was important to get the site live and people using it rather than spending months and months putting together a detailed specification only to find out no-one actually wanted to use it.

We hope that people will start adding their places. We hope that Spare Place will encourage people to add more interesting locations for people to use for art spaces, workshops, community resources, fun days and events. We also hope that it will encourage people to start to look at the spaces around them and see them in a different light, and start using them.

If you know of any interesting spare places , or know people who might be in the know then please spread the word.

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Blast Theory – Ulrike and Eamon Compliant

Owen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:45:57 +0000

Blast Theory’s work is interesting stuff – I especially relate to the level of immersive interaction and the integration of technology. I came across Blast Theory as my good friend Dan is their administrator, and I participated in the piece Day Of The Figurines when it came to Brighton.

From the Blast Theory website:

Blast Theory is renowned internationally as one of the most adventurous artists’ groups using interactive media, creating groundbreaking new forms of performance and interactive art that mixes audiences across the internet, live performance and digital broadcasting.

Anyhow, I was invited along to the ‘premier’ of the documentation of their latest work Ulrike and Eamon Compliant at Blast Theory’s quite swanky studios just outside Brighton. Having not experienced Ulrike and Eamon Compliant firsthand I can’t comment on it, but the short film and supporting book documenting the work was enough to make me want to experience it for myself. The wine was nice too.

The book is beautifully designed by John Hunter, simple two column grid with a swiss flavour. I particularly like the cover, no messing about:

Blast Theory

To read all about Ulrike and Eamon Compliant go here:

The DVD and book I am told should be on sale from the blast theory website soon – also check their website for information on upcoming projects.

The Glenkiln Sculptures

Sketchbook pages: 12.2009

Owen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:22:56 +0000

More sketchbook pages from my Moleskine sketchbooks. See more on my Flickr account.

Sketchbook page

Museum of Everything

Lamont — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:51:02 +0000

Took a trip to Chalk Farm on Saturday to have a look at the Museum of Everything, a wide collection of outsider art from the last 60 years, and I can honestly say it is the best collection of anything I have ever seen and urge you to visit. Yes you, we’ve not met but I’m sure we’d be friends, right?

The collection is housed in what used to be a recording studio and the location sits very well with the objects and images, small rooms linked by smaller corridors opening into a larger room, filled floor to ceiling with the most obsessive imagery I’ve ever seen. The collection is selected by artists, musicians and writers but don’t let that spoli it, you might like David Byrne. Each curator has written a small text explaining their choices. Some of these are very annoying, some are better. Nick Cave managed to get to the nub of it for me with the text ‘Louis Wain is my favourite painter ever’. Fair enough eh?

There are some truly startling paintings, illustrations and installations on view here, the product of a persons obsessions and compulsions. This is not art made for the consideration by others, this is true art, made because the artist has no other choice but to get it out of their head. Highlights for me were the Aleksander P Lobanov collection and the Henry Darger panels, a twisted Norman Rockwell of adolescence and fear.

Get up there and see it, don’t think it’s going to be on for much longer.

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The Glenkiln Sculptures

Owen — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:22:51 +0000

In between 1951 and 1976 landowner William Keswick dotted several sculptures around the glen of Glenkiln. There are a couple of small abstract numbers on the main road, an impressive John the Baptist by Auguste Rodin (a version of which is in the Musee d’Orsay, Paris), overlooking the Glen, five by Henry Moore and a Jacob Epstien. (Visitation). One of the Henry Moore’s (Two Pieces Standing) is a fiber glass replica, the original being only a loan and after 14 years was called back by the estate of the artist.

The Glenkiln Cross by Moore is at the top of a raggy steep sheep shit strewn field and gives an amazing view across the Glen, the cross is interesting in itself as from afar it looks like a christian cross but once you have made your way up the field, close up the cross resembles more a totem pole, certainly something much more pagan and ancient. The Sculptures are now a popular walk which I took recently. Here are some photos of the pieces that I found interesting and a google map with their location:

John the Baptist By Rodin

The Glenkiln Cross by Henry Moore

The Glenkiln Cross by Moore

Visitation by Jakob Epstein

The Sculptures are listed in a couple of books on walks around Dumfries and Galloway and a google search throws up a few results for further reference.

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