I’ve put other links about CoBrA but this is an excellent introduction to the movement written on the 75th anniversary of it’s founding, last year.
As the seeming stampede to world war by the western states and their proxies continues the political stance of the CoBrA artists is more important than ever.
A visit to the CoBrA Museum in Amsterdam is not to be missed if you find yourself in that fair city.
The spirit of the movement is anti-formalist.
My work Requiem for Oil has been selected for the Bath Open Art Prize Exhibition 2024. There are other pics of work in progress earlier in this blog.
Prize winners will be announced by judges Leonie Bradley and Karen Wallis on Friday 11th October, wish me luck!
The exhibition runs:
10th to 26th October
open 11am-5pm daily
at 44AD artspace, Bath BA1 1NN (this gallery is in the centre of Bath)
bathopenartprize.co.uk
fringeartsbath.co.uk
#BOAP2024
Thank you to organisers Fringe Arts Bath @fringeartsbath and the prize’s supporters for this opportunity: @Wessex_Area @thebellinnbath @studio44ad @minervaartshop
Poster artwork: Andrew Jenner, Sunday in the Park with George @the_dolliverer
I’m waiting for the post to bring some 18g (1mm) aluminium wire to make the supporting frame for these masks, the embellished fabric in this first pic is a bit heavier than usual (lower pic) and so needs a slightly stiffer wire.
Once the fabric versions are complete, maybe five or six, I’m going to start on some leather ones, with a somewhat different set of tools although the sewing machine will still play a part.
Mostly finished and mostly a trial for the shaping and finishing.
Post updated October 8th 2024. This is the final version of Requiem for Oil, 270 x 165 cm, mixed textiles, lino-print, transfer & other print, stamping, ink, fabric paint, embroider and machine stitch. I delivered the quilt to 44AD gallery in Bath yesterday and it will be on display from Thursday 10th October as part of the Bath OPen Art Prize Exhibition 2024.
Art Brut (‘raw art’ or for the cupboard) I expect. But more influenced by the COBRA (Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam) anti-formalism movement which grew out of Dada and the disaster of WW2.
If you’re in Amsterdam be sure to visit Cobra Museum in Amstelveen.
Requiem for Oil, artist’s book, 2016 (I updated the title)
I use a free font throughout the work, Action of the Time Now by Galdino Otten
Another in this series of textile pieces, not quite how I intended but almost finished and ready to frame. the contrast around the yellow isn’t as strong as I would like but further stitching over already quite dense and layered fabric and stitch will probably mean more broken sewing machine needles.
Although most of the fabrics are plain colours I also use white and colour it in-situ, sometimes also colour white thread the same way.
Another machine embroidery and embellish piece, scraps of fabric, mostly natural cotton and silk but with some poly for the shine, this is rather more whimsical than most of my offerings, the bee seems to be popular but the wings need a bit more work.
I’ve been finding the dust from the machine embellishing process to be annoying, even using a mask it seems to get in the throat. I now have a small air filter machine that sits on the desk, it seems to help. I also vacuum every few minutes and make sure to wash hands often. The dust is very fine, it gathers around the embellishing needles and guard but also manages to spread around the work area.
Now and then the UK charity shops are just amazing. I was browsing them this rainy morning in Bristol and found, in one shop four huge cotton scarfs in plain colours for just £2 each. Another one was just demanding to be used for doll-making, plaits and braids ready-made. All in good condition, as new. Now I’m reluctant to cut them!
Almost all the pieces in the Meltdown series are reworked from earlier fabric work, I don’t throw much away. I try to avoid polyester but for shine it does get into the mix. Rayon (viscose) thread and cloth can be shiny and I use that where I can, although rayon sewing thread is usually thinner and therefore weaker than cotton or polyester, I don’t know why that is. Silk is best but pure colour scraps can be hard to find. Viscose in clothing is often silky and now frequently used for fast-fashion clothing, also used in place of cotton, it was developed in the 19thC as a substitute for silk but has many other uses. Being made from wood pulp it’s potentially an organic fabric but the manufacturing process is intense and involves a number of chemicals. As with bamboo fabric – also viscose – there may be potential for a more environmentally friendly manufacturing process.
There’s a long way to go in creating truly eco-friendly fabrics but hopefully manufactures will be motivated by the prospect of reducing costs as well as saving the planet. Recycling of viscose clothing is low at present, a large amount go to landfill.
I was not planning to name the smaller pieces but this one seemed to name itself. All these works are for sale, at a range of modest prices direct from me or via Artigo, Gloucester Road, Bristol.
A larger-than-most piece in this series and one I’m happy with, scraps of fabric embellished and stitched, repeatedly. All the work in this series is heavily and repeatedly cut during the making, so as to expose layers of cloth and stitch. The deep box frame came with a rather wide mat/mount so I had a new one made barely 2cm wide. The black box seems to work well with these heavily textured pieces.
As usual the pic doesn’t show the metallic threads or fabrics, or the stitch detail, much higher pixel count is needed for that. I was thinking about the convention in western visual art to read the work from upper left to lower right and how to try and challenge that in a small way. Keeping an idea in mind helps me focus on what I want the work to look like although I might not have a fully formed mental picture of the final result. The whole series could be described as abstract expressionism I think, if one needs labels, made trying to keep the emotion through colour to the fore. The East is Red (somewhat topical again) was in my mind while I was working on it.
Artigo, a lovely art gallery and shop on Gloucester Road, Bristol has a full set of my toy and model kits on sale and has a display of working samples which I’m told by proprietor Diego are popular with children and entertain them while adults are shopping.
Diego has kindly agreed to display for sale some of the textile art pieces I have loosely designated the Meltdown series. These are mostly quite small, colourful and heavily textured, I have named the larger pieces.
I’ve mounted these works in box frame without glass, as with impasto painting the texture is lost under glass. I used different sizes of mat at the front of the box frames (cut by Craftworks, Gloucester Rd, Bristol).
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