27 Feb 06 by JP Delaney
JP Delaney artworks

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Art Trap

This is the nearest I hope to get to making an artist's coffin.
I'd found a well-paying job washing dishes, rented a nice apartment, and had recently taken on the role of the proud father... but was infinitely bored.
I'd drifted away from contact with the art world and was afraid this would be the last piece I'd ever do.
In a way, I suppose I look on every work I do now potentially the last one ever.
Lacking a basic confidence in this stuff means I'd spend inordinate amounts of time testing my commitment to an ideal of the artist. My concern would be to fail that test, and drop the brushes once and for all.
This was a time that I'd come closest to doing just that.

copy
03 Nov 06 11:06

i like these coffins a lot!i like also very much the way you develop your sculptures on metal wire!

copy
25 Dec 06 04:23

me gusta mucho tu obra, ¡¡¡¡es muy vasta y de excelente calidad!!!!!

copy
25 Dec 06 10:19

art trap...art trap...look j-p, there is this guy who's a teacher at the art school in hamburg who worked a lot just doing traps. one link si here:
[LINK]http://www.jablonkagalerie.com/html/artists/slominski/04.html[/LINK]
the other here:
[LINK]http://www.jablonkagalerie.com/html/artists/slominski/05.html[/LINK] ;
[LINK]http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_lg_147H_2.html[/LINK]
andreas slominksi is his name...he deals with the sulptural features of the traps; coffins for artists sounds great!

copy
16 Aug 14 08:30

Paul .Keep painting. Get that dialogue going between you and your materials . It's not really a game. We all have demons to deal with every day .
Happy days , if you have your health you can do anything .
It was great catching up with you .
Take care of your self and your family .

copy
17 Aug 14 13:56

Mamma mia... don't tell me you're going to disappear! Only just arrived, stirring things up with sound critique, and you're already fed up? Personally, I'd like to know what it means:

1) "Get that dialogue going between you and your materials"
2) "It's not really a game"
3) "We all have demons to deal with every day"

Loaded statements that beg elucidation.

copy
28 Aug 14 10:12

You can't have all the sweets in the shop you have to stick with one or two from my own personal experience. I realised that I wasn't going to live forever . So I stopped making 3d work quite a while ago . Storage was a problem every time I moved I had to break up work . Left only with photos/ slides of the same. I lost interest in making things , because I was making things , had no dialogue with the materials. Not for me, now anyhow .Down the road who knows. I still have to learn too much about 2D image making.

Innermost
Innermost
Innermost

Unlike the mostly monochrome works previous to this, I spent time trying to paint this one - returning to an old approach long since abandoned.

copy
12 Jan 08 13:58

beautifull

Problem
Problem
Problem

As you can guess, it was originally one piece. However I couldn't get it out the door of the room where I had made it, and so it got chopped up.
An interesting outcome of this was that for the first time I had come off the wall with a free-standing piece in real time and space, and had finally ventured into the realms of sculpture.

Repose
Repose
Repose

I had done a series of objects with aggressive protruding parts, and wanted to 'soften' the tendency giving some feminine grace somehow. This work originated upright and reached the ceiling of the room I was working in. It curved out from the wall and it's sides ondulated in a similar fashion. One day, it just slipped down the wall and crashed to the ground on it's side. For some reason I don't recall, it stayed that way and became a free-standing piece.
It was one of those early works that (literally) broke away from the confines of the wall, and it's implied two-dimensionality.

Repose
Repose
Repose

copy
30 Jan 08 21:52

dear john
simplicity... no suspicion An interesting outcome spirit spread in your work, you are playing and that is the point. thank you

copy
31 Jan 08 21:00

Masaa al kheir. Thanks for your comment Khairy - I'm very happy to see a vocal arabic artist deciding it might be worthwhile to join us. In my opinion, the more artists from around the world who understand that we all share a common visual language, and use that as a means for communication with others from different backgrounds, the richer we become in spirit.
As you rightly mention, art is often a game, a practice of playfulness, yet the inspiratation and the process can often involve more serious emotion.
Sometimes I think it may be our job to present difficult issues in playful ways perhaps to make them easier to digest for the onlooker.
Other times the opposite is also necessary, where our job is to use a visual language to expose an unexpected truth behind certain accepted social rituals.

Repose (reverse view)
Repose (reverse view)
Repose (reverse view)

copy
29 Sep 06 09:48

There's a lot of Henry Moore in this piece. I really like the sensual femine quality. You'd probably have to get rid of the grit, but this would also be a fantastic marble, or bronze piece.......

crossing
crossing
crossing

This was the first in the series of objects of protruding parts.
It orignated from a journey in Sicily driving through the interior of the island, which is sparsely populated and pretty bleak. At the time, I didn't have a driving license, was driving a second-hand car that wasn't mine, and was travelling with a woman I wasn't married to, with our newly-born son at the breast.
On a road with minimal traffic I suddenly saw in the rear-mirror the flashing lights of a police car directly behind me following bumper-to-bumper. After some moments of suspense, the car accelerated and sped past. Nevertheless, the initial shock of the police car right behind following me, the aggressive intrusion of the image of the flashing lights remained, and became the idea behind this work.

copy
18 Jul 08 15:56

John-Paul, I don’t quite understand why you have the opinion of producing ugly abstract art only. I mean this example for instance appears to be extraordinary yummy. A huge collection of chocolate blancmange with whiped cream, filled, unbroken, waiting for me to jump right in and feast on it. Just forget about Police and such things. No one will harm you. Reading the stories of how you came to such things always shows me how close to life your works are. And isn’t it a particular honourable task for an artist to depict real life? Well, don’t underestimate yourself my dear.

Dead On Arrival
Dead On Arrival
Dead On Arrival

The balcony of the apartment I rented was full of dead plants. Some months had passed before I ventured out to investigate. I couldn't do much about the vegetation but there was an old rolled up water hose that looked very interesting. I took it, sealed in in calico and glue, gave it a layer or two of gesso, then painted it purple. I suppose I'd call this a found object.
Simple, no?
Then what's all this about contemporary art being so difficult..? - it's easier than watering the plants.

Shoes
Shoes
Shoes

Well, I suppose there are many drawings and paintings that artists have done of their worn out shoes. What's so attractive about that I wonder?
Then this must be my contribution to the genre. It's a pair of my favourite shoes at the time (they were handmade by an Irish cobbler) pretty tattered with use, then gesso'd and coloured.

Victoria
Victoria
Victoria

Watching the horror of the Uganda genocide, half-bodies being hauled out of the lake. One was just the legs and pelvis. I wanted to make the rest to somehow re-unite the mutilation. I could only manage this torso.

Sketch
Sketch
Sketch

In Florence I treated myself to a beautifully handmade, bound, hardback drawing book of the finest paper. It was such an exquisite piece of work, I couldn't bring myself to ruin it by drawing on it.
It remained untouched in the studio for months until one day I took a saw to it, cut it up, and over time covered it with layers of gesso and oilpaint.
Typical male aggression, though I was relieved and quite pleased with the result.
To me, it looks like the scene of a crime. I'm sure any Florentine bookbinder would agree.

copy
13 Mar 08 16:49

This is a wonderful piece of work... I like the idea that you took something that held some materialistic value to you. It was of the finest materials etc. and you broke down that barrier in order to create something even more beautiful. It does seem a crime, but the beauty is in excellent contrast to that notion. Bravo.

Abby

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27 Jun 11 07:42

caro jp non avevo notato questo bellissimo lavoro. complimenti.
ma sei a roma o altrove? fammi sapere. un caro saluto da trapani

Yield
Yield
Yield

I found a triangular traffic sign on the roadside. I thought it might be fun to highlight that shape and give the authoritarian a little sexual innuendo.

copy
23 Jan 12 12:57

JP thanks for your comment and interest in my work..Its older work but here is a link to my blog on the pieces you like
http://www.thepapercityproject.blogspot.com/

I see we share some similiar interests... yes Studio Critical has been good to me too, ive gotten to know a lot of artists so it has been productive. How is Italy for painting? your work is very interesting I like the surfaces a lot...the one above is super, brings to ming Anish Kapoor.

Best,

Valerie

Approach
Approach
Approach

Actually a triptych, the three canvases have been mounted one on the other and the painted fabric of the inner two canvases cut out, rolled up, and immersed in paint and embedded on the top canvas.
Looking back, all I was trying to do was break out of the two dimensions of the wall-hung painting, and move towards a third dimension to inhabit real time and space.
What a complicated way to do just that!

Box in Trastevere
Box in Trastevere
Box in Trastevere

Taking another look at the materials that make up a canvas, I thought I'd give the wooden frame and the cloth equal share of the surface on which to apply the paint.
That's all I remember about this one. The title comes from the converted garage I lived in at the time (the word italians use for garage is

Kids
Kids
Kids

You'd often see bundles of clothes strewn in the street in Rome. I took three children's pants from one to make this.

India che bella
India che bella
India che bella

Done after my first visit to India. I quickly lost any naïve ideas of philosophy and spirituality.
Most of my time was spent witnessing disease and crowds of people with seemingly nothing living out on the tense, oppressive streets of Bombay.

Male Painting
Male Painting
Male Painting

I had a large canvas that wasn't going anywhere, and had been abandoned in the corner until someone gave me a pile of jute sacking from India. I ended up with this as the result.
It was the first time I used jute as a material. I think I loved the exotic Eastern odour more than anything else, and I still use it a lot in current works (it's also much cheaper than canvas).

copy
05 Jan 10 22:51

Shahmeran who most probably may be linked with the snake gods of Mesopotamia, being converted into female in connection with the mother-goddess cult, is a symbol of Anatolian mythology. Her story may be related with the story of Jemlia of the Arabian Night Tales, but should be narrated much later than the appearance of the symbol. Not being in conflict with central Asian Turkic belief which regards snakes as the earthly universe, and adapting herself into Islamic belief of Anatolians by filling the gap of a distinguished female personality, had made her survive until today. The semantics of the symbol varied and enriched, her identity gradually enlarging from protecting females and homes to a more sophisticated assistance regarding her wisdom in the times of trouble. In time she who accepts her fate in full self-sacrifice, yet still holds the leading role at her story, had converted into a heroine for especially Eastern Anatolian women who identified themselves with her. The sociological characteristics of the region which only permits a closed society because of feudal relations had also helped the journey of Shahmeran from past to present. In that sense, the future of Shahmeran remains a mystery just like the symbol herself still does.I worked shahmaran and Guernica's mother...Thanks for your comment.

cinquecento
cinquecento
cinquecento

It's well known that italians love their cars. However it's not only the fast sporty machines like Ferrari, Maserati or Alfa Romeo they are passionate about, they also have a love affair with the dinky little Fiat 500.
It was with this in mind that I understood the often repeated image on the Italian news of a Serbian tank crushing the little Italian-made car in a Bosnian town, during the war in ex-Yugoslavia.
It had more effect to elicit the indignance of the nation than if it were instead a Bosnian Muslim man being crushed.
So I thought I'd make a beat up car front headlights and grille - as my tribute to all people and things that get in the way of tanks.

copy
24 Mar 07 15:11

I am not sure I would have seen a car here without your explanation, but you sure brought tears in my eyes with the concept behind it.

copy
26 Mar 07 20:53

I've always had that problem Maria... the finished work isn't much to look at, despite the initial intent being clear and having a specific aim.
Painting is my way of fighting ( actually defense) I suppose, but I've yet to figure out how to use the weapon.
One day I hope to make works that communicate without requiring a story to be told.
Many thanks for your comment.

Yield version 2
Yield version 2
Yield version 2

Another version with a found metal traffic sign, more colourful this time, with the hint of sexiness using a lady friend's underwear.

Hacked
Hacked
Hacked

Who says art can't bite?

copy
27 Dec 12 07:08

Thanks. I like your work. I work as all artists - in studio. But at first I do many sketches.

copy
30 Dec 12 18:14

Dear JP,thank you very much for your comment.
You are right, sometimes interesting spontaneous sketches, they sometimes as finished products.They can be works of art.
An example of this, sketches of Leonardo, of Durer e.t.c.
Sure, I can show them.

Valediction
Valediction
Valediction

I saw in an Indian magazine a news item on the recent assasination of Rajiv Ghandi. It was a time when the aftermath of an explosion would be treated by the news in the west with a photo of a mangled vehicle or a blasted building. The magazine instead concentrated on the gory victim's limbs and entrails mixed with the dry desert dust strewn on the ground where the explosion took place.
I was shocked by the images, the silence contained within them, the unexpected colour.
These days we are treated to atrocity in a much more familiar way, nothing shocks, we don't even question the clichéd paraphrase

Back View (after Guston)
Back View (after Guston)
Back View (after Guston)

copy
08 Nov 06 13:57

Gooh homage to Guston, an artist I love! I don't know but it gives a prretty good idea of his spirit!

copy
09 Dec 06 20:06

"Thanks EliZabeth.. you'll find the painting Back View at:

[LINK]http://www.sfmoma.org/msoma/artworks/5393.html[/LINK]

Clicking on the link ""Guston at work"", there's a short video of him discussing his work - it's a gem.

copy
10 Dec 06 13:23

I am curious to see the real work. I think P.Guston is a great inspiration, because of his apparent simplicity and his real strength. If you are interested you can come over and see my show next sunday, 17th of Dec. at the galleria Stella, via di s. callisto 8! A presto!

eliZabeth

Broken picture
Broken picture
Broken picture

I had given as a gift a painting to a friend. Next time I saw it hanging on the wall I asked to have it back to make some adjustments. This is what I returned.
She didn't accept it back.

Inversion
Inversion
Inversion

Framed canvas / Canvassed frame. I wanted to invert the materials so that the frame became the inner image while the canvas became the frame.
I wasn't quite happy with how it looked long and narrow, so I cut a diagonal through it then positioned the two pieces side-by-side resulting in this diptych.

Centre
Centre
Centre

Originally constructed when the kids were still breastfed by their mother. My own intimacy with this piece came ten years later when, undisturbed and hidden away in a disused garage, I got to spend some weeks to paint it.

copy
07 Nov 06 15:05

I love the work with linen, material! Very attractive, design like, strong.

Watched
Watched
Watched

Much to my dismay, I believe this to be the only work I completed in 2005. Anything else is still in progress, or temporarily abandoned.
I spent much too much time on developing this website, especially the studio log part.
Nevertheless, I hope to rectify such a miserable production rate in 2006.

al
al
al

Done shortly after a journey made to the middle east visiting Syria, Jordan, Israel and Palestine. The form was new and exotic to me although I couldn't make any direct correlation between it and anything I saw while there. Despite the act of falling it seemingly gains new momentum on hitting ground.

copy
08 Oct 06 10:07

There's a wonderful exotic ceramic feel to this one........!

She
She
She

One of the first works projected as a stand-alone sculpture. (I'd finally come off the wall).
Opposing spirals. A familiar celtic motif, with some added curvilinear feminine grace.
It turned out to be a great climbing object for the kids when they were little.
Unfortunately, my stubborn insistance on doing larger works like this creates more and more a problem of finding storage space afterwards.

copy
10 Aug 08 18:28

friend my [kalispera] you I thank for good your lettered above in my work the stimuli I pass him from the nature, [kyriosapo] air the sea and from various fruits, [kathos] [episeis] I watch the tobacco of cigarette, these they is the stimuli [moy].[apo] there and beyond makes [maketess] and then him I work in the material that I believe that him it will elect!!

She
She
She

She
She
She

She
She
She

copy
27 Nov 07 23:38

I've been meaning to ask you this for quite a while what's with this on the wall off the wall thing, as though coming off the wall were some kind of victory or advancement in your personal evolution?
I'm not sure whether you're either a painter or sculptor but you're definitely an artist and I think you should try to stop the tendency to see yourself as one or the other. You seem to see it as some kind of progress to go from on the wall to off the wall but after all is said and done you're still painting your 3-D stuff and not like a sculptor would, all solid colour or different planes of colour.
Like myself, I don't think of you as a painter. What do I mean? Simply that you don't particularly love the substance or are enchanted with the lovely surface textures and brushstrokes and are indifferent to colour and quality of pigment, etc. And I don't think of you as a sculptor either because you're not all that interested in pure form and how the space cuts up from innumerable angles or once again the appeal of materials and surfaces. As a matter of fact you basically use painters' materials to produce your three dimensional works with the addition of wire mesh. Yet somehow you've created some of the most beautiful images (both the paintings and 3d works) on this site. I've been looking at them now for quite a while now (art takes time, even lousy digital reproductions of it) and I like them more and more. There's something meaningful and honest about them and I have wanted to comment many times but am reluctant to do so because I relate too closely to you and your failure/s and rejection.
How do I know it? It's obvious from your comments.The sculptures that collapse in on themselves and never turn out as expected and are abandoned to finish themselves and become something different and unexpected, paintings completed and painted over or lost, who knows where... for ever. Stuff you can't give away to be rid of, all that futile effort.
If art is strategy, and I think it is to a large extent, at the very least, a "life strategy", the main problem being how do you go on doing something that no one wants? How do you keep your interest when you feel dead on the inside and look at your accumulating inventory with disgust, and the whole world, including beloved supporters think you're mad for flogging a dead horse for so long? The answer for me at least (maybe it's my age) is complete indifference, just carry on with whatever it is that may arouse your interest. Apparently for you it's been this website for the last while, it's anyone's guess as to why. However I'm sure you'll get back to your own work in earnest at some point.
Just keep asking your own dumb questions. Answering them into your old age may be your only solace.

Offnow
Offnow
Offnow

Sometimes, other than starting with an idea then refining it through drawings and maybe preliminary models - an idea may spring just from an arbitrary offhand drawing. This was one of those. I don't think it had much in the way of precursors but has been the spur for further work having similar tendencies.

copy
07 Nov 06 15:03

I find your work in one of the best in the list. Love the strong shapes, with material and primitive colours.Old and new at the same time! Where do you work? Rome or Sicily?

copy
07 Nov 06 21:52

Thanks eliZabeth for your supportive comments. I think this may seem different as there are so few sculptors (or who work in 3-D) on the site. I'm not sure why this is so, and would very much like to attract more submissions of sculptors showing their work.
I'm also especially keen to see work like yours where painters and graphic artists venture out into real time and space to make things we can "bump" into!

copy
08 Feb 07 16:45

I like this one. Now god knows why it makes me feel like taking a bite...

Gone
Gone
Gone

Driving in winter in Sicily, I passed an ancient, roofless, abandoned cottage at the side of the road. I was reminded of similar scenes in the Ireland of my childhood which were frequent testiment to a history of colonization, poverty and emigration.
One detail caught my eye. It was the remains of a large, ragged, cloth caught in the sash of an upstairs window and fluttering in the breeze.
A flag of resistance or surrender, I wondered.

copy
25 Jun 06 05:00

that's excellent! I hope your real world exhibit comes together..meanwhile did you see I posted something about art process on artblog? here's the link

copy
25 Jun 06 05:00

Funny how you should pick on this - I've just returned from my second visit to Sicily twelve years after the first trip mentioned in this piece. Last weekend I went there on the invitation of Antonio Sammartano (some of his work can be seen on this site) with the intention of seeing if it would be possible to organize a "real" Art Process collective exhibition there. I feel that a real group show is the next step to take for Art Process. I've worked with this virtual project for so long now that I want to see work I can touch and bump into! Antonio is very experienced with organizing art events, so hopefully we'll get to realize something in the near future...
You mentioned cactus. In fact, Sicily is full of them - huge, spiny, beautiful green fleshy presences in the arid landscape. I agree with how this work looks so cactus-like though at the time it hadn't occurred to me. The "hair" is the metal wire (used to hold the thing together) that gets covered in layer upon layer of gesso and oilpaint so in the end it's all one.
Regarding the movement you mentioned, yes, it was all about that - transience, a valedicition, and what remains after the leavetaking.

copy
25 Jun 06 05:00

oops, guess i can't put a link in. well just go to artblog and look at posts for 6/25/06 and you'll find it.

copy
25 Jun 06 05:00

i like the way this just about marches off the wall. it's got some momentum that reaches out. i also like how hairy it is. at first i though it was cactus!

copy
27 Jun 06 10:32

Hello Roberta... many thanks for that lengthy one-year-later writeup on artblog. I've just finished adding some more to the Art Process homepage (last three registered artists who've posted work, latest artwork comment, latest forum comment, and a selected comment), with a view to stimulating more discussion, so let's see how it goes...
As soon as I get a moment, I'll fix that issue you mentioned where you can't post a URL, and I'll keep you informed if the show in Trapani becomes a reality.
Best wishes again for your (and Libby's) great work.

copy
27 Jun 06 11:38

Thanks, J-P and keep up the good work!

Can
Can
Can

Sometimes it's better just to shut up. At least that was my feeling while I was doing this piece.
Shut up and work, shut up and work. Quit wasting so much time.
Hmm... even then after a lot of sustained work and production, nothing ever happened.
It's 13 years later, and looking like it's not enough to just shut up and work.

copy
01 Jul 09 15:38

This for JP - I often go back to your studio log to visit the painted hospital twenty- something artist pictured there. Something comforting about that environment,and i like the paintings. I like the exuberance and passion of youth exhibited there, the confidence and arrogance and ignorance all mixing wildly together, cold-hearted cynicism yet to come. i also painting my digs and contents white as a youth, but often upon moving in...
by the way, a belated Happy Birthday! I have posted a photo on my studio log of what I was doing on June 23, 1963...my first solo show.

copy
07 Jul 09 13:23

Thanks Arnold for the birthday wishes. I'm late in replying as I'm back in Ireland for a month working as a laborer for my brother as he builds a showroom for his business. I'm adding this message on his office computer while I take five minutes off from plastering the ceiling.
Saw the poster for your first show all those years ago. Does the tradition still exist of taking on a space for a show?

Tela rossa
Tela rossa
Tela rossa

When I first arrived in Rome, I had a lot of problems with the neighbours as I'd get up early in the morning and start sawing wood to make stretchers for canvas. Very quickly I realized I'd better stop that, and so I began to work with garden wire netting to build forms that turned out to be robust and light.
The main advantage was that it was a relatively silent process - the disadvantage being it took much longer to complete.
This work was a combination of the old process (stretched canves) inside and outside the 'new' wire frame.
I liked the result - not only the finished work, but that the neighbours too became less hostile.

copy
08 Jan 06 05:00

this is an excellent image/sculpture, i wonder what meaning it would 'acquire' if you kept on researching this big, soft material, apart the problems you've got with neighbours, landlords and kids , understanding all that as the limits we all have and live upon...i see this work in different colours, different kinds of clothes nad maybe even different forms. i like the circle i see, the softness is gentlem maybe the same work in two colors, i don't know...i just think it's a very interesting field to research a bit longer than just one try...go for it ;) !

copy
11 Jan 06 05:00

Hi Patricia.. In fact you're right - this was a type of watershed in the progression of things that I did after. I abandoned altogether stretching canvas, and moved with the building of wire frames. So even though I've always enjoyed building stretchers and stretching the canvas fabric - this tendency was dropped, and the other continued with.
But now that you bring it up, I think it may be useful soon to revisit this approach to the work. As you suggest, there is a lot still to explore in that direction, and I will certainly return to develop along those lines in some way. Many thanks for your comment. /j-p.

essential
essential
essential

copy
05 May 05 05:00

I like this one. So artiful that it seems a natural form.

essential
essential
essential

This is still unfinished. It's another one I had to cut up in order to get out of the room where it was built.
I suppose it's a bit outlandish and exuberant though at the time it was just these qualities that I hungered for.

copy
08 Jun 06 05:00

Me like it. Stuff is really three dimensional. You can look at it from all angles and I think its probably interesting. The metal wire and jute stretched over it probably slows you down. That's why I'm suggesting commercial styrofoams that can be carved or cut easily and cardboard and papermache, etc. It might give you more freedom. You'd probably have to change to acrylics from the oils you love. I think it would be small price to pay. In any case I really like this work.

copy
29 Sep 06 09:44

Hi JP,

Have you thought of doing this kind of thing in plaster, or resin in order to eventually do bronzes..........

ceded
ceded
ceded

Designed and built as a tall standing sculpture. Instead it crumpled and collapsed on itself (I know the feeling). Undaunted by such incidents, I stood it up on it's side in such a way as it would support itself and carried on from there.

copy
06 Feb 09 03:21

It’s a difficult task to write down what I want to say. It would be much easier if it was in behalf of my own work but it is in behalf of your’s. Or at least your work has triggered these thoughts or your beer-box thing to be more precisely. It’s a whole bunch of problems that came to my mind when I read your studio-log. By the way, I like that once you shortened „studio-log“ into „slog“ which indeed is a precise description of what I have in mind when deciding to comment on all these things: Very hard work!
It has to deal with different aspects of our work as there are the difficult „abstract“ definition, the contradiction between sculpture and two dimensional painting, the question if objects like your sculptures are just an object or say a diary of a story. In your case a story of desperation in the first place, and many others that come and go the longer I think of it. And not to forget: Everything that comes to my mind has to be expressed in English so that everyone ... or at least the majority ... can follow. And that indeed is one of the most difficult parts. So I beg your pardon in advance if some of what I try to say will be incomprehensible. In one part it will be caused by my very small brain and in the other part by my inability to say things that make sense in this foreign language.

One thing that once caught my interest in a special way was your studio-log entry called „Notice to quit“. On one hand it was about an object you were going to build and on the other hand it was about the story that triggered or initiated this object. And, I beg your pardon, this was the by far more interesting part.
I really have the impression that in the first place your work is not about forms or colours, sculptures or paintings but about desperation that comes from being an artist. So as it shows all your objects can be seen as a kind of diary talking about the different aspects and states of this desperation and, as a significant proof that it is about desperation your ordeal of never coming to an end (as described for example in your „Controtendenza“ entry. So or so you actually come to an end with your sculptures at least for the observer that finally sees it but not with the desperation that is embedded in your life as an artist. So for me the first conclusion would be: How can the narrative of this desperation be shown in your works more comprehensible and clear without having to add a seperate booklet to each of them.

As a sculptor myself I always questioned your habit to use your objects to paint paintings on them ... paintings not just patterns ... and this way making the sculpture unclear as well as the painting. So the two aspects or compartments of your work, sculpture and painting, seem to work against each other instead of supporting. This, so my feeling, leads to the frustration that in the end you have neither a sculpture nor a painting.

Well, somehow I have the feeling that this discussion might be what you had in mind with your suggestion of an interactive forum. What we have now is a forum section where we can talk to each other in just words without having the opportunity to add a picture to make things more comprehensible. In addition we have the studio-log section where we can upload pictures and our own comments but your discussion partner or partners cannot. In need would be a combination. So for example I could illustrate this text and you could answer in the very same medium as could all the others that want to join the discussion.

Okay, so far for now.

copy
06 Feb 09 06:40

Hanjo... hold on for a bit please. I'm working on that new section you've mentioned. Hillel has already given me some ideas very similar to yours, and has suggested we call it an artists workshop. It will basically be an evolution of the SLOG (as you've also mentioned) where anyone can add images, text, etc.
The point will be to see if it is possible to deconstruct, then propose an alternative to, or evolution of, an artist's approach to the work - very much like how you've begun to do here.
Let me first get the bare bones of the Artists' Workshop up, then we can continue with the objective.
In response to what you've said so far - your insight is correct, and I'm looking forward to see how AP artists can help me carry forward the pile of junk I leave behind in the studio each day.
As you've both indicated, a new location to centralize our efforts is required in order to make a presentable project to the observer. I thank you for the concentration and "slog" you've put into this so far. If you don't mind, I need you now instead to put pressure on me to produce the workshop, as I'm getting far too lazy. I should work harder if I've got you guys on my back demanding results :o)

copy
07 Feb 09 20:44

This is a very late answer to your call for help on the studio log on September 23rd, triggered by what Hanjo has been saying here about the painting on the sculpture etc.

I took a closer look of your beer boxes again among other older paintings of yours and then looked back at this sculpture. Maybe it’s me, but anyway what I see in the beer box paintings is the actual shape and two dimensionality of the flattened box being canceled by an illusionistic drawing, which takes me into a multilayer space, which somehow moves outwards rather than inwards the surface of the painting, as it is traditionally done with perspective and such and as you used to do back in the 80’s. On the contrary, in three dimensional painted pieces like this, I feel as if the actual volume is sort of moving towards the centre of itself, as the ever present multilayer painted space opens another dimension that invites me to the inside, like a black hole, canceling the surface of the sculpture and its sense of being a mass occupying space in the room I stand, contrary to what is traditionally done in sculpture.
Now, maybe you are after something really important and pioneering here. Maybe this is all Greek (!) to you and I am completely off track. But I must say that it is true I do not recall you talking about what it is that you want with these works. I would love to hear you telling us a bit more about how and why you ended up playing Escher with more dimensions than he does (that is, if I got any close to it), instead of going around in circles about “going down”, or up, or in or out (sorry, I got fixed with this idea). Then we can talk about whether “you are embarking on a same as last time” or whether this is good or bad.

By the way, I don’t mind “respectability” in a work’s presentation; I do mind that wooden frame that has me landing on two dimensions again. Try another form of clean, respectable, or better, authoritative presentation that would give the work its right dimension. Throwing up is irrelevant for the moment, I think.

copy
08 Feb 09 11:58

Well, I’m afraid you are absolutely right Maria and something like this being sucked into his sculptures must have happened to our poor fellow artist. By the way, since when are you working in the horror department? I already see the news with headlines like „Killer Sculptures Swallow the Artworld“. This will finally make John-Paul famous ... inside the black hole unfortunately. But who knows, perhaps inside there it might be a much better place for all of us.

copy
08 Feb 09 14:15

Maria... I'd love to merit your lofty (and very interesting) interpretation. In this case I think the photo is better than the work. Simply put, it's just as I said in the comment, a sculpture that collapsed on itself.
It was around this time that I had started painting the sculptures as I found out they were being thrown out in the rubbish. I figured if I dabbled some form and colour on the surface, a person might stop and think twice before consigning it to the bin. That makes me think I'm, in reality, in the business of dreaming up ways to prevent the things I make getting sent to the garbage heap. That's pretty humbling when I think about it. So much for my idea of art.
Happily Hanjo has a bit of humour to splash on some flavour - though your're not going to find me going down any black hole just yet.

copy
09 Feb 09 19:36

Oh, no, my dear Hanjo, you got me wrong. I meant it as something good and rather difficult to accomplish. Not something that turns you into a poor artist.

J.P. if you say that the reason you started painting the sculptures was to make people think twice before they throw them away, it means you do want your work to be respectable. Who doesn’t? Now, I have a question; who has thrown your stuff to the bin? Has anyone (except family members; they don’t count) really done it, or is it you not being satisfied? And the most important question; if so, why? I see several elements in your work even if, as you say, what I see has nothing to do with your intentions. The question is, what are your intentions? Why don’t you give it a try to describe it?
And I don’t want any of you out there starting on me with “it cannot be put in words” and all that. I know all about it. But I know that you can get close to giving at least some idea.
All right, you can start by telling us which works or what part of them satisfies you.
And I demand results :o)

studio view
studio view
studio view

I thought I'd add this just for kicks, a view of some works in progress.
Ain't it grand when the studio is busy?

ready2b
ready2b
ready2b

early work

copy
07 Jun 08 02:56

John-Paul

Thank you very much for your comments on my work.You've left about the most considerate/considered observations that I've had on my stuff since starting up this little on-line presence of mine. The guy who most influences and inspires me is Alex Kanevsky.

As I've just discovered your work I feel it offers so much that I would have to spend much more time taking it in then I have.My facility to critique painting is much better then anything else.As an viewer and as a practitioner I feed myself almost entirely with painting.I can appreciate all kinds of coarse and yours included.

The relationship you have with color and that is expressed in your work reminds me of the thrill I had as I first started dealing with it.I've had to get a bit of a handle on it after deciding to paint and am totally excited to see work that revels in it like yours.Your maturity and breadth of experience is also evident in your confident mark making and play with form.The lighting bolt in this piece id a gutsy move and it soars.I especially like that you play with rendering and a sense of light and shadow within a work that could have been handled by someone in an all-together flat illustrative way.

I look forward to spending more time with your stuff.

P.H

return of the repressed
return of the repressed
return of the repressed

early tendency towards three dimensions

packed painting (triptych)
packed painting (triptych)
packed painting (triptych)

So, I began playing with the actual painting as an object, tearing, tying, and wrapping it up in this tryptich.

land of childs
land of childs
land of childs

20 years old this big dark painting. Dunno if it still exists but one I was quite fond of at the time.

early drawing
early drawing
early drawing

Large diptych drawing from attic series.

copy
25 Sep 06 13:28

Hi JP. I really like this drawing. Its original but it also walks in the Futurist- Early Duchamp "Nude Descending A Staircase" hallway. Cortland

copy
30 Sep 06 08:52

Hello Cortland... did you see when it was done? Twenty years ago! It feels like something from 100 years ago even to me! Those days I believed in my role as an artist.. something that got lost over the years. I suppose you can tell by the arrogant confidence of the drawings - even the scale has the stance of "Here I come guys!" I find that quite amusing now looking back.

copy
30 Sep 06 09:54

Hi JP, Yes, I did see the date... the work holds up especially the right side which is truly excellent.....!Size,well I guess most young artists want to explode out into space especially when most of what attracts their early attention in museums are the massive works. It wasn't until I discovered people like Paul Klee, and then all of the Minaturist schools that I finally broke away from the feeling that I had to do large things in order for them to make some kind of a statement. You know the old adage about experience being the best teacher. I still entertain the idea of doing some massive works if I can ever afford a space where I can really throw paint around and make a mess out of things. You know get my work boots really dirty etc like those of Pollock . I still have a dialogue with "Blue Poles" to complete....!

copy
30 Sep 06 10:22

Dammit... I always forget to login and end up losing the comment I've just made.

Anyway, just to try and think what I was saying..

You're obviously smarter than me.. I still end up after completing a piece having to cut it up just to get it out the door. What an ass!

I do associate small with intimate and intellect, large with physical and sensual. Is that how it is, or it's just a simplification?

copy
30 Sep 06 10:50

Well you've got me laughing about this cutting things up stuff. Years ago when I lived in the middle of France I stretched this huge canvas in my studio, and then worked on it like hell for months. Then we decided to move, and the only way to get the painting out of my studio without unstretchingit was to take it out by the 19th century window which just so happened to be on the second floor. The day we moved it was pouring rain, and things got a little slippery. Fortunately noone got hurt. When we finally arrived at our new home which is on the third floor we couldn't get the stretched work in the elevator, and we couldn't get it up the stairwell either, so I had to create a pulley system in order to finally get it into my new studio; the expressions on the faces of the neighbors below while we hoisted the work slowly upward was a sight to behold....I'll spare you the diverse linguistic details of the event. These days I only work up to a certain size, having made all of the necessary elevator measurementsetc to insure that I don't have to undergo any more Chaplin like adventures due to not thinking things out beforehand.

copy
30 Sep 06 11:06

JP, I think most people generally associate small with intimate-intellect, and large with physical-sensual, but those are really just generalities.Each work is a totally new experience, even when one is passing over familar ground. Once you get past the vocabulary of the familar, and you're truely concentratedall four of the incidental relationships that you mention come into being with a work. I think what happens with drawing is that one might feel the intimate relationshipin a more direct way because drawing is usually a more direct form of expression, and therefore one feels more exposed, and immediately sensitive to what is going on.

wounded
wounded
wounded

early work from the hospital

copy
08 Mar 08 03:28

I really like this two piece. I like how the top seems to be vertically orientated, i.e. brush stroke, adn the bottom one in contrast is horizontal... which leads to great balance and contrast that makes the eye continually jump from one piece to the other. Elegant and tasteful use of red even though the title "wounded" suggests more gore you rein it in nicely. The addition of wire is wonderful, tricky (on oil and canvas), but well worth the effort considering the final effect. Bravo

Untitled
Untitled
Untitled

It's so long ago now that I don't remember much other than I'd spent perhaps 18 months working over a small series of oil paintings that focussed on simple forms that became studies in colour. Day after day I'd work and re-work the surface until somehow I'd reached some sort of resolution. The series (mostly lost) represents for me an important time in my development, and became the precursor to when the paintings started to take on 3-dimensional aspects, eventually breaking out into real space as sculptural statements.

Untitled
Untitled
Untitled

copy
02 Mar 08 19:24

Dear Paul,your pictures seem to be installed in a real big Art Gallery, like when i was in Brixton A:Galleri in Sout London in 1983. Congratulation, anyway.

Two stars
Two stars
Two stars

Three stars
Three stars
Three stars

Star at sunrise
Star at sunrise
Star at sunrise

copy
05 Feb 07 23:03

I find it involving...something to wander into...and look around.

Star
Star
Star

copy
10 May 06 05:00

Hey Delaney, you've got this strangely, lovely, constructive thing going on in your paintings. You're a painter and sculptor. That's a rare thing and you're damn good. I'd like to see the real work. Send me an airline ticket. p.s. I like my eggs over easy in the a.m.

copy
10 May 06 05:00

Hmmm... actually I'm neither of those things. Instead I'm in the act of becoming a lousy programmer with a latent desire to organize real (as opposed to this cheesy virtual stuff) exhibitions of the work you guys are doing.
I've no idea on how to program nor organize events - though such minor details haven't stopped me up to now.
I *can* fry eggs however - so all we need is someone to produce the ticket, and we're in business.
Ever been to Rome?

Star (internal)
Star (internal)
Star (internal)

copy
06 Jun 06 05:00

I know you've been concentrating more and more on your three dimensional works of late and even your earlier paintings are kind of like studies for sculpture. When I look at either your paintings or sculptures I always get this urge to cut them up and
and reassemble them. To open them up and upset the continuum to add a sense of space (time) to the work.
I think it would be a shame to give up your joyous use of colour which, as in this painting you have such a great feel for. Have you ever used corrugated cardboard sonotube forms, light woods
and papermache, etc. as a medium for sculpture. I think for you it might be very liberating. The beauty of it is you use no metal, wire mesh, nails etc. and the finished result can be painted and varnished and is tough as hell or if you want to cast it and make a multiple edition, the inner sculpture
can be burned away.

copy
24 Jun 06 05:00

Hillel, do you teach art? I'm sure you're a popular professor with the students as your comments tend to be pretty true to the mark.
As a general response, I had migrated away from painting form and color for many years as I felt I'd worked myself into a trap, and couldn't find a way out. I then began to concentrate on monocrome 3-dimensional stuff that I really enjoyed. The problem was I could never get rid of them - no-one wanted them, and they'd throw them out even if I gave them away. I thought I'd start painting the 3D works to give them a feeling of "artworks" (that's pretty lame reasoning I know) and so I find now that I'm back in my old trap, but this time in three dimensions.
I'm curious about your wanting to cut up and reassemble, and would appreciate if you say a word or two more on that.
In fact, I'd really like to work with sheet metal and oxy-acetaline - an absence of color. I've never done that kind of thing before and reckon it'll be pretty expensive. Maybe one day I'll manage to arrange it, who knows?

copy
28 Jun 06 16:42

You have an inventory of forms you use. You can pull them out of your hat and produce mural sized walls of the stuff. The fact that they'll be whitewashed the next day doesn't bother you because you have an endless supply and a total command of oils. The problem, as you know is you become sick of your own phrases. To break that pattern I'm suggesting that you take a painting break it apart. Start with a grid, regular, perpendicular whatever 16, 24, 36 equal parts. Start shifting them around. Move some slightly, interchange others. Remove some entirely or overlap some. Do this on another support and glue it down when your satisfied. Merely an exercise meant to introduce the component of time into your work and surprise yourself a bit.

copy
29 Jun 06 13:35

Hillel - patience with me please, I'm a little slow:
How does breaking up the painting effectively add the element of time?

copy
29 Jun 06 20:39

There's a time lapse between what you see and what you perceive, just as there's a time lapse between the right and left eyes as they adjust. These slight physiological disturbances are a fact. That's what this fragmentation exercise is meant to achieve, a sense of that disruption that actually gives you a sensation of time and movement. I'm only suggesting it as an experiment.
I really hate getting into this stuff because as I've stated before we're all individuals and have our own sensibilities and ideas about art. That's why I never wanted to teach. Teachers tend to impose their ideas. All you can really do is give someone some crayons, paint or mud and say "here take this shit and then spend the rest of your life trying to learn how to see and make art".

Exhibition detail
Exhibition detail
Exhibition detail

Being careful to maintain the privacy of the studio where I work has always been a priority. I wanted to challenge this 'secrecy' however and, on the invitation of the Wexford Art Centre, decided to turn the gallery into my studio for a month.
I used the walls as my canvas and people came in walking around the space as I painted. It was a challenge to my usual method of silence and solitude but an interesting exercise.
At the same time, a festival of dance was taking place in the building so movement was the activity of the moment.
At the end of the month's work, we held a one-night show 'closing' (with readings by a bunch of poet friends).
The next day the oil paint on the walls was scraped away and the surface repainted white.

copy
12 Jan 08 14:00

incredible

Installation detail
Installation detail
Installation detail

copy
19 Nov 07 22:05

It looks stunning John-Paul. How could you bear to have your creation wiped out? I'm interested in the "story." I've done residencies in public galleries and didn't mind the public at all but when I did an "open studios" week a few years later I hated it! I felt my creative space had been violated. Since then I've never let people into my studio but I have borrowed a venue for a similar thing. The difference is in going out to the public and having them come in to you. But in either case I don't like artwork being destroyed.

Installation detail
Installation detail
Installation detail

Untitled
Untitled
Untitled

Untitled
Untitled
Untitled

copy
28 Oct 07 16:59

ciao John, questa tua opera mi piace molto! D'impatto, i contrasti dei colori e questo movimento circolare!! ..A presto Alida

copy
07 Mar 08 01:57

Wunderbar John -Paul. Such energy in the ribbons of color dancing around each other. Magnificent balance and the yellow is brilliant as the sun. Good texture and depth. The only weakness is that the eye tends to hesitate on the yellow a bit long and I find my eye rarely traveling to the left side of the work because of the dominant yellow pulling me always to the right. Bring out the yellow triangular shapes on the left and I think you've got it. I love abstract and the vigor with which you seemingly applied the plaint leads me to believe there is an expressionist in you. Tell me if I'm wrong. What made you decide to do abstract paintings when you seem more inclined usually toward sculpture. Beautiful overall I will watch and learn many things from you.

Star
Star
Star

Black star
Black star
Black star

Star view
Star view
Star view

Installation detail
Installation detail
Installation detail

copy
31 Jan 07 03:05

nice idea!
wonderful artwork, unfortunatelly the next day the walls were repainted white, but that's what contemporary art is all about: impermanence.

Wordsmith
Wordsmith
Wordsmith

copy
22 May 06 05:00

Now you're really digging up ancient artefacts. I've just realized I'd mistakenly put in the date completed as 1996, when in fact it was 1986 (sometimes I think numbers aren't a good enough representation of our past, and often unconsciously screw dates up).
Yes, you're spot on with it's a Guston rip-off. I was a kid, had fallen in love with a babe from the US (who subsequently became a famous NY video artist) who introduced me his work. She dumped me pretty soon after, but left me with a deep appreciation for his work.
I think it (the painting) also got dumped in the end - like so many do. Whoever I gave it to eventually threw it in the garbage.

copy
22 May 06 05:00

This one here really looks impressive. I wish I could see it larger. This damn computor of mine won't let me click it up. Beautiful colour, form and depth its got that very early and very late Guston feeling to it and you know by now that I mean that as a major compliment.
Where do have this little gem tucked away Delaney?

copy
14 May 07 19:33

You cannot possibly mean that you know for a fact that this was thrown away! It is BEAUTYFUL!

copy
15 May 07 20:56

Thanks Maria... but rather than beautiful, it was just big - too big. People don't have room for such things and as it's always in the way, they end up discarding it. At least I have a photo of this one - there were three others of that size from the same exhibition, and they no longer exist - but I don't even have a photo of them (the youthful idealism of doing the work and simply walking away, having no attachment). I still have a little of that idealism but the energy of those years has long gone.

I imagine it's a familiar story, in one way or another, for most of us here, don't you think?

copy
16 May 07 18:44

Actually, it went the other way around for me. It was the first paintings I ever sold that I couldn't part with.

Oil On Canvas
Oil On Canvas
Oil On Canvas

So it's oil on canvas you want? Here you are - oil on canvas. So good it looks like shit.

Bombay girl
Bombay girl
Bombay girl

I had been deeply shocked by the vastness and misery of Bombay slums on my first visit to India.
On one occasion I saw a young mother who was so destitute she had to wrap her naked baby in newspaper.
Although not based on that scene, this standalone scuplture was one of the first works completed on my return.

copy
08 Nov 06 13:54

I like this work, allusive strong and tormented. One the few human figures in your work!

Fragment
Fragment
Fragment

Installation detail
Installation detail
Installation detail

Installation detail
Installation detail
Installation detail

Victim
Victim
Victim

After a lot of sculptural work having arrogant, protruding elements, I thought I'd turn one inside-out, to see what it looked like from the other side. I was curious to find it took on as aspect more like a victim, than the aggressor of the earlier pieces.

copy
29 Sep 06 09:51

I'd be interested in seeing how this idea might look worked in an upright position...There's got to be a technically easier way for you to progress with this kind of work..resin..Nikki etc......

copy
08 Oct 06 22:04

If I explored the path of easier technique, I'd end up with twice, perhaps three times the amount of (unwanted) pieces I currently have lying around. My wife has banned them from the house, and I've run out of space. I had to give this one away recently - even that wasn't easy - I tried to convince the guy it was an important piece for me (he wasn't impressed - ya just can't win). So I'm better off with that one piece a year worked over and over.
Luckily, messing around with this website keeps me away from the studio!

copy
09 Oct 06 10:32

Hi JP..I understand the space issue. I work in our apartment. You may have noticed the size of the works I've been putting up on the site..5 x 7 inches. You can stock a lot of cards that size in a small studio, and its much easier to sell them to private collectors from both the spatial and pricing perspectives....I know we all want to work on these large massive paintings and sculptures etc, but most people live in low ceiling smaller dwellings today, and they just don't have the space for industrial size art......

copy
08 Nov 06 10:21

hi John-paul. when I first saw these works of yours I thought they were made of rubber! they have that sheen or finish to them. I still cant seem to get that out o my head even though I realise now they are made with wire and linen.I see what you mean about them having an aspect of a victim, they seem to be trying to protect themselves, curled up and hiding their vulnerable 'bits'. I really like these works.

beerbox
beerbox
beerbox

copy
18 Jun 08 19:00

I'm just testing the image upload as Federico says it's not working...

copy
23 Sep 08 15:36

I really like these things, I'd just like to know a bit more about your process. Could you tell me approximately how many times you have to run to the toilet during their execution? Here's a great time saving tip I use although you probably already know it, just keep an extra large pale handy, right next to your easel.

copy
23 Sep 08 23:02

But with those images from your studio window of a lush, well-cared for, and spacious garden, I thought you would liberally throw open the those studio doors and execute a thorough watering of the nearby shubbery? Much to the awe and consternation of your liberal-minded neighbours of course.

As for me, we live on the ground floor, so it's a just a short run up to much-needed relief. Unfortunately, I regularly run into the mothers of friends of my children who've always got a distasteful look of disapproval for me.

How can the kids possibly turn out right with such a reprobate of a father?

copy
24 Sep 08 21:27

Wow, simply throw the door open, I just never thought of it, you're definitely a man of vision. And yes the children of geniuses are unfortunately, inevitably damaged.
My main concern right now is that I misspelled "pail" above. An offence that I believe Arnold could have me thrown in jail for, as it contravenes the laws of The Pale of Settlement.

copy
24 Sep 08 21:52

I thought you were already under arrest? Aren't the internationally recognized Blue Laws enforced adequately by the Canadian Mounties? I presume the queen will have some appropriately disapproving remark to say about the woeful lack of demeanour of her subjects in the foreign dominions.

Other than that, I love the wrapping of genius we are enveloped with in your fanciful tale - my wife eloquently translates that as "Just a Worthless Bum and plain old useless Bastard".
Guess who wins?

copy
26 Sep 08 01:42

This is in answer to your call for help from the guys (I just checked and I believe I'm still one) in your Studio Log entry. As we all know there's no facility yet to respond directly so I'm doing it here.

Well I've thought long and hard on the matter and my conclusion is not everyone can be a de Kooning. But not to despair because what you can be, is a Delaney. By the way quit putting your reds before your blues (something I've just learned). I find it funny that you abstract folk lump de Kooning in with yourselves when in reality he basically always belonged to the classical European figurative tradition.

If I may be so bold as to suggest that you try to stay away from the edges of the beer cartons and the obvious grid that they suggest and try to find the least likely suggestions. In other words project from within (the forms) as opposed to the contours. It's not de Kooning's colour that's so inevitable, colour is always subjective, it's his organic and non cliched drawing that after the fact seem so inevitable because he always formulates his shapes from the interior rhythms and you really have to go looking for those connections, the contours are too easy. Everybody finds them and they become hackneyed.

Alright I guess I've confused yourself and everyone else enough for now.

And Arnold, those things you've put in your Studio Log look interesting but you've got to get them into your portfolio so we can have a good look. You just need some kind of generic photoshop application If you have a digital camera it probably came with one. Any of them are capable of resizing an image. Uploads on AP are restricted to 150k. At that size you'll have no problems uploading work and once that's done my scathing comments will be sure to follow.

copy
26 Sep 08 23:33

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I like these beer box paintings very much, my opinion offered above was only in response to what I perceived as a discontent by the artist with what he sees as habit, doing the same thing over and over. For the restless amongst us and that includes myself, we become sick of our own moves and in reality it might just be a central nervous system thing. What we do is what we do, why not make life easy and just be accepting of it?

copy
27 Sep 08 00:18

There's no add-a-comment function in the studio log section, by design, as the original idea was to give a space to the artist that is her/his own to manage as the artwork develops - without the "noise" of comments chirping in and possibly causing a loss of focus on the project at hand. That idea obviously hasn't worked out as we can see looking at the very incomplete contributions of the majority of studio logs, and so some sort of revision will have to take place if that activity is ever to become an item of interest. I'm not sure how that will be resolved but it's obvious some more work has to be done in that area.

A short response on the discussion of de Kooning. Even though it's so easy to slip into the labeling game of categorizing ourselves, I personally don't feel that tension of dichotomy regarding the figurative versus abstract approach. As I've mentioned before, our language is dealing with somesuch visual syntax in order to communicate a message that normally isn't possible (for us) to express in other languages either verbally or musically. The relevance then is in the communication - and not necessarily how it has been technically executed - in the end, what visual dialect being used isn't of importance (in my not-terribly-humble opinion). When I responded positively to the de Koonings I saw in Amsterdam all those years ago wasn't an act of sectarian appropriation (in fact I was very much a figurative painter then), but rather an appreciation of the exciting work of an artist of stature. Now that I meddle about with apparantly non-figurative represenations doesn't mean I'm at war with figuration. I'm just finding it personally more useful in whatever (limited) visual communication I attempt at this moment.

Your description of the formulation of shapes from interior rhythms I instinctively feel touches on a fundamental point. Naturally, I'm extemely eager to know what that means, as I simply don't understand what it is you're referring to. If it helps, my approach is very, very simple. As soon as an initial mark is made, the chessgame of resolving the "whole" visual conumdrum is initiated. In the end, I believe that our job is to achieve that resolution.

copy
27 Sep 08 01:49

Very convoluted comments JP. For a moment i thought i was reading Kagan! Little internet humor there - do we really know to whom we speak? Is Kagan really a 25 year old female artschool undergrad?
Certainly, one 'approach' to an artwork is as valid as another. i allow that figurative painters are as relevant as myself, even if they are stupid idiots!
But the importance, as you say , is in the communication.You go on to mention the 'dialect', i prefer 'lexicon', and here i must diverge, for i believe this to be of supreme importance.To me, the creation of a symbolic language in which to approach the oeuvre in which i hope to create the imagery to DEMOLISH a canvas, comes before all. It is primary, the 'enabler'of an artwork, the internal battle which must first be won.It is also the first thing i search for after becoming interested in another artist's work.
There is a word in Yiddish for this - the "Shaychus". No literal translation of course, but alluding vaguely to ones true reason for wanting to proceed....and in painting, it must be up on the canvas. When i learn the language you speak, then we may communicate.
So. Enough. If i stop to edit i won't post. Sufficient that i be embarassed tomorrow. I'm off to engage in some sectarian appropriation.

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27 Sep 08 09:14

Can you say some more on what is meant by creating an imagery in order to demolish a canvas.
Do you mean that the image strives to become something - I struggle for words here - cosmic? ("It is primary, the enabler.."), and should therefore lose it's physicality in some act of destruction?

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28 Sep 08 00:59

The de Kooning comment was just a bit of tit for tat, I've got a long memory and comments to me like "Why don't you just drop your figurative baggage?", etc, remain. You know by now that I view myself primarily as an abstract artist, the human figure remains my motif because human expression, gesture and movement fascinate me and keep me attached to the process. As "M'Orenu Harav" Arnold implies it is the "Shaychus" that attaches me to de Kooning and others and keeps me going. ("Shaychus", Arnold? I hope you're good and properly embarrassed tomorrow, I know I never am. And by the way who told you about my dressing up as a 25 year old female undergrad? I don't do it often just when it's extremely necessary.)
Sorry, back to the topic JP, I'd love to invite you over and show you what I'm talking about, I can't do it with words. Why don't you do this? Use your flattened box as a template and make a tracing (putting back roughly the main lines of construction). take a photo of the result, repeat it and replicate a sort of linear facsimile of a support you might make for yourself. Email it to me and I will endeavor to show you what I'm talking about.

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28 Sep 08 14:14

Listening to this debate somehow evokes a strange picture in my small brain: It shows something as Saint Augustine, Rabbi Hillel and say Ibn Rushd are sitting together in some kind of shadowy mosque or synagogue somewhere in the middle of a vast desert engaged in religious talk. And more and more getting lost in the fog of speculation, the black depth of theory.

Approximately two month ago John-Paul came up with his suggestion for a new project which until now, as far as I know, no one really got the idea of. From my personal experience I have the impression that J-P is absolutely capable of explaining what he means. So in this case something seems to be extremely difficult to understand or explain. And please be aware that here we only deal with verbal communication done in a language that many of us, at least partially, understand. And then in your debate there is talk about the necessity of learning the private, „symbolic language“ of an artist to understand what she does, about „visual syntax“ and „visual dialect“? ... Are you kidding? What are you talking about?

I know that particularly J-P is devoted to the idea of communication. That’s why he created artprocess, which as he says is made for artist to artist communication. Well, I am aware that J-P isn’t talking about art to communicate but about artists to communicate what indeed is a tremendous difference. But following your texts I slowly get the impression that it is art itself that you think is made for communication. So that’s why I want to intervene for in my opinion this is a completely wrong idea. Or at least it’s a superficial way to think about art. I tend to doubt that communication is the goal. I have the feeling that art isn’t about communication or even dialogue at all. Looking back into art history or at contemporary art it seems to me that the best parts of it are about monologue or more precise about soliloquy. (Other people might speak about mystery but that is not my kind of vocabulary.) Even an artwork that at first sight obviously seems to be made for communication like Goya’s „Desastres de la guerra“ turns out of having been a monologue and soliloquy as well. Something he worked on in secret and never showed to anyone and printed only in two or three copies for private use. And which were published no earlier than 35 years after his death. He was an old man when doing these etchings and probably engaged in a very intimate and painful process of reevaluating his attitude towards the French revolution and what came out of it etc.

By the way, languages are a very tricky thing. There are people like Maria or Patricia who are able to speak several languages fluently but this is very rare. More often as not we are only capable of speaking not more than two languages but many of us don’t even do that. So having this in mind I am sorry to say that talking about that one has to learn the private symbolic or visual or whatever language of an artist and then being able to understand her artwork seems a bit ridiculous to me.

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29 Sep 08 20:31

If there were no Hanjo, we'd have to invent him! One thing i like about this site is the surprise, the comments appearing from all directions and points of view. Just as one thing i like about the world of artmaking is the speculation, the endless explanations which only in their accumulation approach anything like reason...JP, what else can it be but cosmic? Metaphysics,..even the science concurs. Our visual apprehension of an artwork includes a thousand edits of which we are unaware. Only an amoeba sees things as they are. For us, it is necessary to create, between the picture plane and our eyeball, something essentially greater than the imagery delivered.
So.
Back to work.

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29 Sep 08 21:52

Yes, I agree with Arnold in welcoming Schmidt over to our table in the artprocess bar, and surely enjoy his good-humoured introductory ""What a load of bullshit you're talking.."" remark (but for which he has to pay for the next round of drinks).
Then returning to the idea of communication, I would vouch to say that there appears to be three different ideas of ""communication"" in the conversation, one being an abstract form that talks about ""language"" i.e. the language of music, the verbal, or the visual, the second instead referring to an ""exchange"" between artists, and most of us would agree with Hanjo in that as artists our work has all to do with monologue. In rare occasions, such as the famous Braque/Picasso cubist period, one could talk about a creative dialog between the artworks of artists, but that's very much outside the norm, and therfore this idea of communication probably has little relevance in our case.
The third instance, and as you know by now - the aim of ap, has to do with artists getting together and simply talking and exchanging ideas, bitching, moaning, and sometimes fighting, but hopefully coming up with new ideas for a collective approach to *our* issue of how to succeed at being an artist today - taking into account all that word refers to - individual integrity weighing up to market appeal.
Following up on Hanjo's reminder of this previously-discussed topic:
[LINK]http://www.artprocess.net/opentopic?topic_id=129&topic_title=Reviews%2C+critiques%2C+thoughts+and+observations.&forum_id=10&forum_title=Artist%27s+Cafe[/LINK]

Yes, I am aware this one has to be taken up again. I've been super-occupied with my dishwashing day job this year (no summer holidays this year) but hope to get some time off in Oct-Nov to properly devote to ap and explore new horizons with all of you.
Nevertheless I must warn you that quite a bit of what I was talking about in that earlier forum topic has to do with the second form of communication I mentioned above - that of the creative dialog between the ""artowrks"" of artists. Are we ready to take on such a challenge, ""Interfering Artists""?

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30 Sep 08 10:16

I heard about a free round and thought I’d join.
The reason I am always very careful with NOT using the word “language” in the same sentence with either music or visual arts is this: Language is an agreed upon code consisting of signs (words, sounds, you name it) and signs are one to one equivalents of agreed upon meanings so we can all know exactly what we are talking about. Now, unless an artist uses symbols (which are one to one equivalents of specific meanings) a visual artwork does not have a single, a one and only, precise message to put across, therefore its content cannot be codified, therefore language is the wrong tool for the job. I won’t go on with what it is that a visual artwork can mean if it means anything because this is common ground and I risk getting peanuts thrown at my face.

As far as the Braque – Picasso or Matisse – Picasso or whoever else you may think of are concerned, I think this is a very old game between artists (it was the artist that was throwing achievements on the table as an answer to the achievements of the other, the works themselves had no dialogue going on) and that is exactly what I am after here dear J.P. And allow me to believe that this idea of “communication” (your word) has every relevance in our case and it might as well be happening already here in artprocess. At least that is why I am still on board. The other thing about “our issue”, well I rather think our primary issue is to succeed in solving visual problems and yeah, this interaction (I am allergic to the word dialogue) sure helps a lot. The rest, well, it might follow with a little marketing.

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30 Sep 08 11:04

Γειá μας

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30 Sep 08 11:51

Welcome Maria. I like your comment but unfortunately I do not fully agree with you. I only agree say 99.9%. Scientists who work on the language phenomenon have said that spoken language comes to approximately 10% of our communication. As far as I know all media involved in communication of any kind are called „languages“ as there is body-language, the language of gazes, of gestures, of scents (pheromones) or what the shape of the body tells you about health, fertility, etc. etc. which make the other 90%. Nevertheless all these „languages“ only function if the recipient of the message can decipher what is meant. This of course doesn’t happen the way we deal with spoken language which as you points out follows an agreed-on system that we decipher conscious. What on the other hand enables us ... at least theoretically ... to speak and understand several different spoken languages. The knowledge of how to understand messages in the other obove introduced „languages“ is genetically embedded in our brain and we are unconscious of how that functions. So, for to cut this sermon short: There are languages other than the spoken one. The spoken ones can be learned by will, the others not really. So it comes to feeling or something like that and this is a field very complicated and unsecure to walk on. So „learning“ the visual language of another artist is ... if it’s not about mere patterns or symbols ... something almost impossible to do. So like Maria I would prefer to be very careful with the term language outside the spoken one.

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09 Jan 09 20:50

Hillel - back to this again. I can't tell you how much I suffered following your instructions to make the tracing of this thing.. I've always absolutely loathed the world of the graphic artist (I'm aware that you've been known to reside there at times) and I've even dabbled at bing a signpainter myself many years back (and made quite a bit of money doing so). However the very act of tracing - I find even the word repulsive - makes me weak at the knees.

Nevertheless the maestro requires it, so I dutifully go about the exercise. That was during a couple of evenings two months ago. I hid away the result and only now could pull it out and parcel it up in a package for you. Basically it's a rough tracing of this image done on 2 beer boxes exactly as shown, and is on it's way to you by Italian post (don't hold your breath) as we speak.

Let the painting lesson begin (should it ever arrive).

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11 Jan 09 00:06

All I was after was a template of the flattened beerbox because it looks different to what we have here... looks like some kind of weird 6 pack to me. I think you have 2 of them stuck together plus their own intrinsic lines of construction... Nothing to be afraid of or tracing etc... just the contours of the package (flattened) but if you've put it in the post already... kool, I luvz them Eyetalian stamps.
I thought as an interfering artist I "might" have some ideas for a way out of the usual for yourself... and now that you've put me on the spot, I better have. This seems to be test case #1 for your concept of interfering artists. My only problem with that concept has always been "How does one go about documenting it?"... Well let's see how we do with this one.

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11 Jan 09 11:29

You're right, there are 2 flattened boxes in the image, each one contained, once upon a time, 24 cans of Carlsberg.
I've updated the studio log with images of the 2 roughly penciled-in reproductions I made (one for you, and one for me).
I've absolutely no idea what we can do with these now, and I'm sure you're quite bemused yourself with the prospect of playing this absurd game of not minding your own business. At any rate, let's try and have some fun, and if anything useful comes of it, all the better.
We can also use this exercise to work out a better way of documenting, as you've already pointed out.

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04 Feb 09 05:04

Well, my dear,
while strolling around in the studio-log section I finally ran into your beer box elegy which really delighted me. I mean I really like to read your texts as I do with Hillel’s. On the other hand I feel a bit ashamed for it took me exactly nine month to discover these pieces even though you put my name in them. Unfortunately the link didn’t work (with me I have to qualify) so I still have no idea what you were talking about when connecting something out of my hands with the music of Bjørk (thanks for the kudos).
Okay, I cannot say much to your problems exept that they touch me and that in some way I like the results of your alcoholic self therapy in particular the vertical version on the easel. But if I can manage to visit Rome this year I promise that I come helping you with the beer at least.

Bread For Forgetting
Bread For Forgetting
Bread For Forgetting

Mauro Lovi said he knew some bakers, and would I design a bread loaf for them?
I decided to try it out by baking it myself first, so I made up a wholegrain dough with millet and farro, and using fresh brewers yeast as a raising agent. I then put it in a recently-emptied beer can and let it rise so it started to spill out the top and dribble down the sides. I baked it at 200C for some time (as I'd proceeded to empty other beer cans, I don't remember how long it stayed in the oven). Anyway after it cooled down, I cut away the most of the can to reveal the perfectly baked loaf.
I then sent it off to Mauro. The resulting silence tells me the bakers weren't amused.

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28 Mar 10 17:53

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! That's a good one...

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29 Mar 10 12:05

In Germany we call beer „liquid bread“. So your work is not only a proper depiction of reality but a pleonasm as well. Maybe you should send a photograph of it to a German brewery like Dinkelacker-Schwaben Bräu, 70178 Stuttgart, Germany. www.schwabenbraeu.de, as an advertising suggestion. Might be in the end there’s some money in it. Perhaps they are more clever than Italian bakers.

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29 Mar 10 16:11

It's nice to see that at least someone here is making some bread from their work.

REALLY GOOD PIECE!

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29 Mar 10 20:26

Propose To Me Darling!
I'd also sent another piece some weeks earlier to Mauro in response to his request for an artwork submision ([LINK]http://caseminime.it[/LINK] - actually I hadn't taken a photo of it as I'd left it right up until the final day of acceptance to complete, and I wasn't too sure if it was worthy of making a record), nevertheless now I find I'm enthusiastically on the verge of emailing him to ask him for what he's proposing for the next project.
However, it also strikes me why can't we at ap not do this proposing of ""Requests For Artworks"" ourselves? (I mean if asking for a loaf of bread can be meaningful - we can surely come up with something equally as ridiculous).
What do you think of each one of the core group (Gang of 4 and selected others) making a request for realization of a work, and it being open to anyone of the rest of us at ap to send in images of our submissions? It wouldn't be a competition - just a reason for a bit of craic (that means fun in Irish) - and maybe we'd possibly even succeed in mining something of meaning between our efforts?
It'd be a sort of Anti-Exhibition. What do you think - anyone game?

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01 Apr 10 01:42

I iz in! Only I don't know how to bake, kin I jes' buy a store bought loaf?
Wadja say man (JP, sir) iz it ok, kin I still be part o' dis here thing? PLEEZE NOTIFY ASAP!

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01 Apr 10 09:30

Ah you've put your foot in it now Mr. Kagan. The loaf of bread is over and done with, and so we need to come up with something else. As you're a member of the select Go4, how about coming up with a new RFW (Request For Work) proposal that the rest of us can mull over and consider working on?

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26 Jun 11 21:15

Caro J Paul mi puoi dire dopo quanti anni si possono usare spot radiofonici a fini artistici? grazie Claudio

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26 Jun 11 21:15

Caro J Paul mi puoi dire dopo quanti anni si possono usare spot radiofonici a fini artistici? grazie Claudio

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30 Jun 11 21:15

la tua caro J Paul e' una vera esplosione per dissetare la sete dei tempi moderni. Ci si potrebbe anche mangiarla a fette oltre che a berla. Buona digestione!

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03 Jul 11 13:46

My dear John-Paul, don’t worry, I’m not commenting on this piece another time but on an aspect of your project „Luogo del sogno“, which I can do only here. And of course I’m sorry to disturb your dreams at that silent location with my remarks for to begin with.

Well, today my comment has nothing to do with art but, triggered by your term „ a vagina-like form“ with terminology instead. Since years I watch the growing confusion in terminology spreading from the English speaking countries which in my opinion is an offense against the beauty and completeness of the female genitals. Since the old Romans we all have a perfect decent terminology when it comes to talking about or describing the female privates.

First of all there is the destinction between the outer and the inner parts. All of the outer (i.e. visible) parts are called „VULVA“. This term collects parts as the outer labia, the inner labia, the clitoris hood and the clitoris glans. And as the transition to the inner parts the vulval vestibule with the urethral and the vaginal opening as well as some very small openings for the secretions.

The inner and therefore invisible parts on the other hand contain the vagina, which is that tube that starts with its opening and ends with the the cervix, which is the connection to the uterus. Attended to the uterus deep in the lower body are the ovaries that produce the eggs etc.

So for to cut a long story short, when we, like you did in your explanation, talk about what’s visible of the female genitals, then we should use the right and proper term VULVA and not use the name of just a parthidden inside the body. I mean it’s not that difficult isn’t it? We all owe women so very much that I think it should go without saying that we use proper terms for all they have.

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22 Jul 11 16:11

Thanks Hanjo for pointing out my ignorance and putting the matter right in the most exact way. I acknowledge it here:
[LINK]

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04 Aug 15 07:14

This bread is the result of a "process" that you haven't credited. And, clearly is too yeasty.

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27 Jan 16 11:03

Nice one!

Drawing for Forgetting
Drawing for Forgetting
Drawing for Forgetting

One of those drawings that hang around for years, that I work on fitfully between other stuff. It's actually a couple of flattened beer cartons.

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14 Jan 13 09:44


“Don't play what's there, play what's not there”.
Miles Davis
Your art, if you allow me, seems to be of this nature, able to play like yourself.

Little 8 (Piccole tette per dimenticare)
Little 8 (Piccole tette per dimenticare)
Little 8 (Piccole tette per dimenticare)

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12 Aug 14 15:33

Paul I love you work great , your sense of humour creeping in to your 3D work.

I particularly like the paintings that report on a social / political encounter with the world.

The work you have made are such substantial structures . It would be interesting for you and others to see you work in a public space so that you can see it yourself, and let people touch it, its very tactile.
You must be able to get a grant to show your work , Italy , Ireland or the EU ??

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12 Aug 14 19:30

Hello PK... the fact that you call me Paul tells me we knew each other many years past in Ireland, and the only PK Kelly that springs to mind is Patricia Kelly, artist and teacher extraordinaire, sister to my own dear art teacher, Jane, of my final year in school (with whom as a 17 year old I was hopelessly in love), and of course daughters of the great Mr. Kelly, master printer and generous sage in Drumcondra. Although I met him just a few times, and loved to spend those occasions in his printshop listening to his stories, one statement of his has always remained with me: as I was rushing out the door, he could see I was uncertain about setting out on the road of the artist, he stopped me to say... "Remember this, a labourer works with his hands, a craftsman works with his hands and his brain, but an artist works with his hands, and his brain, and his heart."

Ok apologies if you're not Patricia, but I seize on the opportunity to give credit to a wonderful family.

Many thanks for your kind comments. Here in Italy this stuff doesn't have the required style e.g. la bella figura - or the fine italianate taste, so it's simply laughed off. I'm not even allowed to bring it into my own house - my wife says keep that junk out of here! (haha). The cellar and garage are full to the ceilings with the stuff.

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12 Aug 14 20:05

Well done. GREAT to see you have survived . I do love your work .The Italian ,what do they know. Why would that stop you is it not the nature of the artist to rebel , to go against convention . There are other countries in the world . Temple Bar Gallery or the Project would love to show your work, if you could get someone to drive it over . The only problem would be getting it back .All you have to do is send in a proposal , the fact that you live in Italy is in your favour makes you and exotic . Why don't you use technology to record your work in some form , would that be slick enough for the Italians . You have to do what you have to do your not hungry enough . You could send images of youGet you use of language to go beyond the process .

You don't get kind comments its a fact you work is good .
Jane took down your address she may write to you I don't know . I have retired from teaching . I am glad , The school had become violent and I was glad to get out alive to be honest. I intend to have a studio built be the end of the year all going well . I have quite an amount or research done for my next body of work. My garage it too cold to work in , It has to be rebuilt .

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13 Aug 14 19:42

Haha... survived? That's it I suppose - about the most we can aspire to, survival after all these years. Nevertheless I agree with you. If one can still get up with that spark of an idea that this unwanted junk I'm doing is the best thing I can do, then as the man said, try again, fail again, fail better.

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13 Aug 14 22:30

Catherine called today.I showed her your work she said "God that's really good". she remembered you did you go to Pat's?
My parents are dead and the houses demolished .Even James Joyce couldn't keep them standing.
To get back to your work , you have to find a way to get it out That will be a challenge for you . Just one piece in a group show , or work smaller. I would like to know a bit about one of your pieces , the one above for example . Talk to me about it.


I am exploring the Magdalene Laundries, I did a course in local history to try and find out how a race of people could act the way they did .The problem seems to have been imported from Europe, I went to a play in the Gloucester street laundry , as the only one in the audience it was quite an experience being led through the life of a girl in those places.I still don't know what to do but I will get there.I have to give it more thought, it can be quite depressing getting into that space ,I do think it is an important thing to do .

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15 Aug 14 08:13

Patricia... Here's the background [LINK] to this one.

Your taking on the cold viciousness of religion in Ireland is certainly not going to be an easy project; yet a terribly important exercise to explore the reasons why a collective blind eye was turned to gross abuse in the community. I imagine a protracted history of disempowerment, the resulting fear of authority, and a deeply ingrained ambivalence towards punishment of the social deviant, being areas ripe for investigation.

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15 Aug 14 08:18

maybe your wife needs a bigger house

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15 Aug 14 08:30

Haha... I'll be leaving her this one all to herself in the very near future, and I'll be returning to a thatched cottage in Ireland, all by myself!

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15 Aug 14 08:32

well then!

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15 Aug 14 09:01

Check out the Helix Theatre, Dublin 11
They will allow you to show your work FREE of charge . The take a 15% commission on what you sell . If you sell nothing you pay nothing.As people don't drink .the opening will cost very little . Maybe 20 euro at most . You would have to pay for invitations, and a catalogue . You also have to hang your work. The exhibition would run for a month . Pick the right month NOT during the Summer. (2D work only I think )

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15 Aug 14 09:03

and

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15 Aug 14 09:44

I get it . Read your comment about the piece . Materials??????? Concept???????? not doing it . Empty breasts. course fabrics . You went with the bra and forgot about the breasts . Wrong materials you should have stopped half way through .You rushed it at the end . Would be interesting to return to . Cotton, old sheets something soft domestic , that would cling to the shapes I don't know . Something maternal something sensual l something related , something even smaller . Any it's old work . You know what your doing.

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15 Aug 14 10:40

Hey Patricia... I love that critique.. I went with the bra and forgot about the breasts! That is funny, and probably spot-on. It would never have occurred to me, had you not pointed that out.
Looking at the image again leads me to wonder if it's saying keep away from these... it's a trap that will take 25 years and more to get free of. Haha! Anything but maternal and sensual. Then again, I'm back to dreaded Irish catholic guilt; one pay's 100 times over for that little pleasure. It's not worth it.
You go on to say there is no concept, nor reasoning for the choice of materials. It's been so long since I've been challenged like that - too many years working in isolation, comfortably making me lazy, I'm not prepared like I used to be to adequately answer those observations. The only thing I remember when starting the piece was I wanted a sort of tongue-in-cheek rendition, and a strong image. All a little bit too vague I know.
As to "You know what you're doing"? - Nah.. nope.

Coming back to your earlier comment on starting out again at the bottom. I'm much too old and cynical at this stage. That one does in one's early 20's with the youthful confidence to take on the world. If I were to start anything from the bottom at this point, it would be to open a gallery and work with people whose artwork I consider significant and important. One day maybe!

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15 Aug 14 12:36

Who me?.. bitter? I can't imagine where you get that idea!

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15 Aug 14 20:09

" too many years working in isolation, comfortably making me lazy, I'm not prepared like I used to be to adequately answer those observations. "

was someone twisting your arm?

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15 Aug 14 20:14

btw, that looks like a ver crusty and uncomfortable bra

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15 Aug 14 20:18

Maybe it's just me but My parents are dead and the houses demolished .Even James Joyce couldn't keep them standing.
is loaded and not the kind of thing one says casually like: the snot-green sea

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15 Aug 14 20:40

this needs an edit button for those who don't quite get it right the first time-- the "snot-green sea" is a reference from the first or second page of Joyces's Ulysses, as Mulligan was shaving and looking out from the top of the Martello Tower (called that, but really is not a tower as it is merely two stories high), but anyway, the thing about Joyce not being able to save your people is just odd, but I always liked the word picture of the "snot-green sea".

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16 Aug 14 21:35

You can see some of my work on my website if your interested .I will look out for new work from you soon . Some really good artist on this site .

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17 Aug 14 10:18

Take a look at the work of Lidia Palandino .

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17 Aug 14 10:18

Take a look at the work of Lidia Palandino .

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17 Aug 14 11:43

Found it! [LINK]

I remember your colourful, contorted individuals.. only now they seem even more isolated and melancony. My favourites are the simpler what's going on in the head, "Shockwaves", "Second Thoughts", "Senseless", and "Undecided". They're all begging for 3-D versions, IMHO. What do you say to a brief detour into sculpture? Now that you're having prepared a (well-deserved) purpose-built studio, you'll have the luxury of space to walk around the pieces.

There's a large work without a title of a female nude blindfolded that has your lips. Once I saw that, I was sure the site was yours.

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25 Apr 15 16:40

It's been a while .Nothing new then .
A bit stick myself but that's ok.
Did G.C take any of your paintings , there should be resale rights on them .That person has died a while ago now .

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01 May 15 15:25

Hello PK... it's been ages since I've been back here. Today, first of May, is Workers Holiday in Italy, so instead of washing dishes I figured I'd use some of my free time to look through old artprocess. Regarding "nothing new" - although I have a couple of things on the go, they're not of much interest to me to merit documentation. The sole reason is an excuse to escape down to the dark hole of a garage that is the studio.
Actually I'm thinking more of wrapping up here in the coming months and returning to Ireland before year's end. BTW I'll be there during August and I'd love to arrange to meet up with you, if you're around.

GC died? I vaguely remember phoning him from Rome in the early 1990's. It was the last time I had any contact with him, the reason was to suggest that he finance a web-streaming live art project... haha! Very few had even a home computer then, so he quickly put the phone down. Before he did though, he said that he still hasn't paid me for a large painting of mine. I didn't even remember that he had it to be honest, but was glad it was in his hands as for sure it would have been dumped otherwise. Anyway nothing more was said on the subject.
I'm sorry to hear that he's passed away. He wasn't much older than me, and was a very enthusiastic art collector. Remember back in the 80's he had an original Keith Haring in his living room? And that was when Haring was still alive. Seems like a 100 years ago....

Anyway hope you're keeping well and painting!

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25 Jan 16 00:55

I don't think that GC was near the same age as you . I think he was much older .

So glad that to see that you are making something that makes some sense .
Great work you have made a breakthrough good for you , this is good work.
I have had a builder working on my house for the past 6 months I now have a studio . There is no heat in it but I will work in it in the summer . The builder is not finished . Sorry I missed you as I have not visited this site in quite .I didn't know that you were in Ireland . I would loved to have seen you . I got a notification that you had posted new work on this site that is why I have seen it .
This is a great site . Now that you are on a roll I will be waiting to see the next paintings . YOU ARE A PAINTER

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25 Jan 16 12:22

Hello PKK... sorry to disappoint you but that email notification you received from this site was in reference to a comment I made on Kristine Lycke's painting... let's see if this link to her painting works: [LINK]

And so, I'm still *NOT* a painter! :o)

I am back in Ireland however, and permanently this time. I arrived just over 3 weeks ago, at the very end of 2015. So slowly finding my feet - trying to patch the shack I'm living in (water leaking through the roof etc.). Let's arrange to meet shall we? You can email me directly here: jp[AT]artprocess.com