David Robilliard: The Yes No Quality of Dreams

 

I first saw this artist/poet's work a long time ago in an exhibition at the Southbank Centre. The combination of sparse line-work and typography really appealed to me, being a graphic/illustration student at the time. They really left an impression on me, and I was sad to learn that Robilliard had died and passed into spirit in 1988 at the age of 36, as it seemed there was a lot of unfulfilled potential in his work. 

It was a pleasure then to visit the ICA for the first time in a long while and to see another retrospective of Robilliard's work, (the first for 20 years apparently). They still have an enduring appeal for me, and remind me of Andy Warhol's early illustrative, advertising line drawings which also have plenty of white space around them, and an economy of line. I feel that there is also something of the presence of Cocteau's work in there too. They also brought to mind the linear work of Ben Shahn. In fact there was a real spirit of that whole 1950/60s era and Beat Poetry about the pieces on display.

They are mostly personal and draw from Robilliard's life experiences at the time, (he was gay, and was good friends with the artist duo Gilbert and George and found many of the young men who modelled in their work).

 
The titles of the paintings are life affirming, (Life's not Good It's Excellent!) Bawdy - (Too Many Cocks Spoil The Breath), or hopeful, (Keep Tomorrow Free). I like the spontaneous feel of the typography, and its crude application, sometimes capitals, other times lowercase, and the way it dominates the images makes the work appear to be like advertising posters with slogans.

I really recommend this show, it was great to see Robilliard's work again. My only criticism is that the exhibition could have been bigger, I would have liked to see more work on display.

David Robilliard: The Yes No Quality of Dreams

until 15th June

Institute of Contemporary Art

The Mall

London

Life Begins At 40

I recently accepted a  commission via a client of the Rowley Gallery who had seen my work there. It was to celebrate the landmark 40th birthday of her husband. The commissioned piece was to be one of my Butterfly Balls composed of 40 butterflies created from a black and white map of the area of London where they lived, (Shepherd's Bush).

I asked Chris, one of the directors of the Rowley, which street they lived on, as if possible I like to personalise a commission like in my "Map of The Heart" series. I was surprised to learn that they lived in the very next street to where a friend I had graduated and moved to London with lived, and where I had spent many happy hours hanging out and partying as a carefree lad new to the hustle and bustle of London. I had also attended a party on the client's street back in the day, but sadly the house number eludes me after so many years. This commission sparked so many happy memories of younger days where so much seemed possible. Those days seems like a whole other lifetime ago now. With so much personal history invested I was eager to do a good job. Anyway Chris asked if I would like to document the commission and I agreed to take some photos and describe my working method.

As it was requested that the artwork be created from a black and white map my first task was to source a map of the area. I could find no modern black and white maps of Shepherd's Bush so made a visit to my sources and was able to obtain 3 black and white reproductions of vintage maps of the area.

Having gained approval of the maps I began to identify key streets and landmarks of the area and then choose which butterfly shapes they would appear on in the final artwork.

This done I began the task of wielding the scissors and cutting out the butterflies.

Once these were cut I had to decide where they would be placed in the circle to make up the "Butterfly Ball".

I was quite anxious about this as I usually just lay them out randomly and fit them like a jigsaw, but with this commission requiring exactly 40 butterflies - no more, no less, I had to make sure the exact number fitted, they were kept to a certain size, and that they formed a recognisable ball shape. I needn't have worried however, as all went smoothly and they all seemed to fit organically.

Once each butterfly had its place I had to choose 'bodies' for them from my selection of printed spotty papers.

Each body was then cut and glued into place on the butterfly and each butterfly in turn glued into place to form the "Butterfly Ball".

The whole artwork was then flattened for a couple of weeks to smooth out the creases from the folded maps, and then the finishing touch was folding back the wings to bring the butterflies to life, which is one of my favourite parts of the process. All now ready for take-off!

All completed it was now just a case of framing the artwork and delivering it to the Rowley for collection by the client. She apparently loved it. Hope her husband did too, and more importantly that he had a good 40th birthday. Many happy Returns sir!

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Yellow Butterflies

“The yellow butterflies would invade the house at dusk”  

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

South American author Gabriel Garcia Marquez died recently at the age of 87. I remember his books were an inspirational gift and a must-read for myself and other illustrators back in the 1980s because of the rich visual imagery he conjured with his words. His style of writing - known as magic realism, was a blending of the everyday with fantastical elements. In his most famous work One Hundred Years of Solitude, published in 1967, a host of yellow butterflies would follow the character Mauricio Babilonia. Yellow butterflies were one of his most famous literary images, and he used this device in more than one story, where clouds of yellow butterflies would precede a forbidden lovers’ arrival. Yellow was also his favourite colour, he adored yellow roses and used this colour in his writing as a metaphor for change and destruction. 

 

I was delighted to see these recent pictures of his memorial service in the Palace of Fine Arts building, Mexico City (his adopted home), and others in his Colombian birthplace, where they celebrated his life and memory with yellow roses and released clouds of yellow paper butterflies. A joyous and fitting tribute to a unique literary voice.

Boro: Threads of Life

 

Visited another very good exhibition, this time it was a form of textile art at Somerset House. I had no idea what ‘boro’ were and did not know about this aspect of textile history. ‘Boro’ or 'rags' are basically recycled patchwork collages of fabric scraps which were initially used as clothing or bedding by the poor of Japan during the Edo period (1603-1868) who could not afford to buy new fabrics. During this period the poor were forbidden from wearing any bright colours and were only allowed to wear clothing which was coloured blue, grey, brown or black. All other coloured clothing were strictly reserved for the aristocracy and ruling class.

The colder climate of northern Japan made growing cotton impossible and the cost of transporting it north was prohibitively expensive to the rural poor who were reliant on traders from the south to bring discarded pieces of cotton by boat which the poor would then trade for fish and seaweed. The cotton would then be patched onto worn clothes and futon covers by successive generations of the rural poor. Most boro were thrown away or discarded as Japan became more industrial and affluent, as they were an unwelcome, embarrassing reminder of a certain period of poverty and hardship. As a result the surviving boro are scarce in quantity.

What is interesting about boro is that a purely utilitarian object borne of need and poverty, are now being collected and revered as objects of art. They (boro), appear to be pieced and stitched together with no regard to aesthetics, but the frayed, patterned, randomly stitched fabrics are reminiscent of modern works of Western art such as those created by Klee, Rauschenberg and Tapies. 

The surface textures are really interesting as some are frayed and ragged, some have early Japanese hand-loomed patterned fabrics peeping through the many hues of indigo, some have regular patterned patches whilst others are completely randomly collaged. I actually like the idea of boro being mounted on canvas and being displayed as pieces of artwork in themselves and think that they benefit from having the restricted colour palette that was imposed on them by the ruling classes. There is a nice sense of restraint and uniformity amid the varying shades of indigo and patterned fabrics.
 

Some of the boro remind me of grids and mapping systems, the crude stitching resembling arial photographs of roads and motorways. 

What I found interesting is that even the tiniest postage stamp sized pieces of fabric were used as patches. Absolutely nothing was wasted or thought of as being in too poor condition to be recycled into service to extend the life of the item of clothing or bedding. Some pieces on display have generations of layer upon layer of differing fabrics and shades of indigo creating rich seams of social and family history in each boro.

I was also reminded of the fantastic appliqued quilts of the Gee’s Bend quilters of America who originally created beautiful, colourful quilts instinctively from fabric scraps in similar straitened circumstances. I was also able to make links with the contemporary textile pieces of Natasha Kerr who stitches together fabrics and also adds photographic elements to create pictorial layered textile works that have a link to both her own personal and fictional histories. 
   

The exhibition is only on for a short time so you will need to hurry if you want to catch it. A visit is well worth the journey to see these serene, abstract pieces of textile art.

Boro: Threads of Life

Somerset House

Strand, London

until 26th April

Walt Whitman - A Beard Full of Butterflies

"Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies"

Federico Garcia Lorca

More beardy blogging, this time courtesy of two poets. I really liked the imagery the above quote by the Spanish poet Lorca about Whitman evokes. One poet to another. The American poet Walt Whitman had a love of animals and insects, butterflies in particular, using them as a recurring motif in his books. He was also fond of documenting himself by being photographed regularly, the image above from 1877 being one of his favourites, of a butterfly resting on his forefinger. It was claimed by some that the butterfly was a representation of Psyche - the poets soul. For years whilst he was alive Whitman liked to claim the photograph was an actual chance encounter with a real butterfly and play up his closeness to nature and animals. A closer inspection of the picture and his finger however, reveals a strap to hold the "butterfly" in place. It was only revealed after Whitman's passing that the actual "butterfly" in the picture, was in fact a mass produced card to celebrate Easter (pictured below). The words on the butterfly are from John Mason Neale's Easter Hymn.

Happy Easter readers.

Flower Beards & Facial Foliage

“He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man”

William Shakespeare

Facial hair in the form of beards seems to be very popular amongst younger men nowadays, perhaps inspired by the likes of actors Ryan Gosling and Idris Elba.

Growing a beard is seen as an embracing of ones masculinity and for those poor souls with a whispy, not-quite-there beard, who are keen to keep up with their more hirsute brothers there is always the last extreme resort of facial hair transplants, which are costly but apparently gaining in popularity. 

Beards sported by the likes of George Clooney and Jeremy Paxman have led to the beard revival amongst men of a certain age also. 

So now that spring is here, there is blossom on the trees, and the flowers are beginning to bud, are you man enough to embrace nature and sport a flower beard?  

I really love these images of facial foliage. The first I saw was of the model above at fashion designer Fabien Verriest's degree show, which is really striking, and then I came across these other examples below. 

 

 

I think they look great and feel the trend for flower beards would go down really well at music festivals such as Glastonbury and Bestival. I like the combination of the masculine in the beard, and the femininity of the flowers. 

I'm impressed that even actor Bill Murray has seen fit to give the trend a try, albeit in a very modest way.

The images reminded me of the mythology of the Green Man who sports the ultimate in facial foliage. He is a symbol of rebirth who represents the season of spring and the cycle of rebirth, found in, and on churches and other non-religious buildings as a form of architectural decoration.

Flower beards also strongly brought to mind the intriguing floral portrait images of eccentric 16^th Century Italian artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo. 
 

And then again the work of John Piper in his Foliate Head series.

And also the work of Dame Elizabeth Frink and her Green Man series.

Still not convinced of the merits of a beard chaps? Well then perhaps the words of wisdom in the cheeky image below might persuade you to grow one.

It begs the question - If that's what she'd do for a normal beard, what would she do for a Flower beard?...