Cold Kisses

140 x 140 cm; Silk, paint, burn holes

MakeArt Exhibition at Islington Arts Factory

What would it be like if children ruled the world? We'd finish work at 3pm and spend the afternoon on playdates or just sitting upside down on the sofa. Petit Filous would be our national dish. We'd all sing a lot more (as long as it's not Wind the Bobbin Up count me in). We'd have to travel around on those weird scooter things that they're all obsessed with. And justice would be a lot harsher, eked out with a pinch or even a bite.

You can't help think about kids as miniature overlords when you look at their powerful, ribald and sometimes, if I'm honest, a little creepy artwork on show at Islington Arts Factory. The 200 or so paintings, drawings and sculptures by 4-18 year olds display a directness, a freedom of imagination and a brutish control of materials, all dispatched with unapologetic assuredness. ALL the attributes really which you spend so long trying to rediscover at art school.

Take the below for example. It's from a workshop called Imaginary Cities, age-group 7-11. It looks like a more visceral Paul Noble. I love how the artist has distilled the terror and noise of modern cities into three of its most potent progeny: cars, planes and bombs.

Try wearing this Cinderella. Is it an object or a sculpture? Surely all sculptures are just objects at the end of the day. This work steps right into this debate with all the delight of a green frog-eyed welly into a brown puddle. I love how it seemingly invites you to put it on. I would not like to try wearing this.

Then there's this soulful painting. So much pathos in so few details – eyes, nose, mouth. It makes you realise what great artists Munch and Guston were.

I could go on. I have the pleasure of walking through this show several times a week since my studio is at the back of the hall. Sometimes it has felt like looking at the relics of a society where all the adults have left and no-one's sure when they're coming back. The objects are odd, thrilling, and just because they're made by children, no less true.

Anne Naylor

Silk, paint, burn holes; 140 x 140 cm

Scandie Walk

This September I went walking in north Sweden. We walked from Abisko to Nikkoluokta, 75 miles in all, mainly along the Kings Trail or Kungsleden as it is known. It was a group holiday; at times it felt like a school trip or being on Swedish Big Brother. My favourite part was staying in the mountain cabins, you could only get to them by foot. They had no running water or electricity and were run by Swedish fairy men. I also got really good at saunas and ate a life's supply of Ryvita. The landscape was pretty awesome too. I spent a lot of time drawing. I've posted a few more on my twitter.

Drawings for Anne Naylor

Anne Naylor was a 13-year old orphan who was beaten to death by her milliner employer in London in 1758. Anne's boss, Sarah Metyard, along with Metyard's daughter Sally, repeatedly tortured Anne who was a sick child and poor worker. Eventually Anne passed away, however, the Metyards kept up the pretense that she was still alive, so not to scare the other girls, whilst keeping her body in a trunk. The smell of the corpse became too much to bear, so the Metyards chopped up Anne's body and disposed of it in a drain in Farringdon on Christmas Day in 1758. Ten years later, unable to keep their secret, the Metyards were found out; they were hung at Tyburn. Anne's ghost, the "Screaming Spectre of Farringdon", supposedly still haunts the train station of the same name. These are the drawings that I'm working on for a silk about Anne, or "Nanny" as she was known.

Please Tell Me

140 x 140 cm; silk, paint, silkscreen, burn holes

Continuing with the ghost theme, Please Tell Me is based on an image I found of a spiritualist's automatic writing. It shows a frantic exchange between clairvoyant and spirit. I loved how it reveals how desperate we are for news from the "other side". It immediately made me think of our relationship with art. And if there are similarities, what this might reveal about the nature of an artwork. The screen-printed images in Please Tell Me are the start of an investigation into what for me what are ghostly moments in paintings and photos.

Page One with Charles Adrian

Page One, Vol. 45 by London Fields Radio on Mixcloud

My friend Charles Adrian interviewed me for "Page One", his book show on London Fields radio. Sitting in his top floor flat in Acton, and with me fuelled up on red wine, we talked about fairy tales, silk painting and Giorgio Moroder. Charles recommended to me "Sexing the Cherry" by Jeanette Winterson, an incredible book about a gigantic woman who lives by the Thames with her thirty dogs. It's about fables, love and how the imagination links us across time and space, and has already helped me see my practice in a new light (thank you Charles). I brought him "Not After Midnight", a typically gut churning Du Maurier short story about the relationship between hobby artist and collector. I even got to choose the music, well at least the first and last song (my current all-time favourites). In your face Desert Island Discs! Check it out. And if you you wanna book, Charles knows where to look. His show is great. 

Islington Arts Factory

Here's a pic of my new home. I am really happy to have been given a residency by Islington Arts Factory. The IAF is an arts centre on a busy road in a North London. It feels like a cultural outpost in a no-man's land part of London. There's Holloway Prison on one side and petrol station on the other. Go inside, however, and the mood changes. There are noisy north London kids rehearsing a play, a troupe of young ballerinas tiptoeing across the hall, a loud din coming from the rehearsal rooms, a potter in the basement. It's a great space. How an art centre should be: diverse, well-used, a little rough around the edges. I'm extremely fortunate to have been given a studio tucked away in the loft of the building. My mind is already whirring away with ideas of what I'll do with the time and space. My work definitely has a ritualistic feel to it - the silks are a bit like religious artefacts for non-religious purposes - it should be fun to explore this in a former church. I'll be there from September this year to May next. Come down and say hello.

Flower Painting

All: 21 x 14.8cm, gouache on paper

Why do artists paint pictures of flowers? They're so often dismissed as the terrain of the Sunday painter. I wanted to explore my voice within this area. A friend pointed out to me that you can be so much more honest when you pretend that you're joking. For me, I see my flower paintings as simple meditations on colour.

Mimi on Kingdom

My first review. I'm not sure if I'll ever top this. Mimi is a local at Islington Arts Factory. It's great to have someone talk about art so openly and without any inhibitions. When do adults lose the ability to use free association? She's found some great stories in there too. Ones I'd never imagined.

This week I also did a workshop on my Kingdom silk with a Year 5 class from Tuffnell Park. They drew themselves into a fairy tale. I forgot how much kids like drawing. They drew and drew and drew. I particularly like the scary eyes in the tree. I'll be "borrowing" that idea. Thanks to Eleanor Pearce at IAF for arranging such a great session.

Metamorphose Show

I am showing my "Kingdom" silk at Metamorphose, an exhibition of emerging artists at Islington Arts Factory. Been a real pleasure to show with such great artists - from Fanny Chan's graceful abstract painting to Fabienne Hess's ghostly corrupted computer images. Click on the flyer for details.

Janet Hodgson (the Enfield Poltergeist)

Silk, paint, burn holes, 140 x 140cm

Janet Hodgson gained notoriety in 1977 in what became known as the case of the Enfield Poltergeist. Eleven-years old at the time she claimed that she was possessed by the spirit of the deceased, foul-tempered former resident of their north London semi. The Hodgson family reported furniture moving through the air, objects flying towards witnesses and incidences of Janet levitating above her bed. The case drew nationwide interest, making the front page of the papers. The Hodgson's neighbours started a campaign to force the family off the estate.

Lately I have been thinking about the similarities between what we think of ghosts and what we think of as art. To name a few, both are representations, both invoke moral panic and both provide very subjective experiences. I have always thought of my silks as a little ghostly, how they move when caught by a draft. Will blog soon of more findings.

Silk drawings

A teacher at college once said to me that all my work on silk was about the drawings and not the other way round. One thing's for sure, I really enjoy making these.

Graduate Art Festival show

I am showing my two fairy tale silks at the Graduate Art Festival in the basement of Shoreditch Town hall. The show is on till Tuesday 12th March, is open 11am-5pm every day and the address is 380 Old Street EC1V 9LT. You can find more details here: http://graduateartfestival.org. Thanks to all my special ring ins who came down to the PV to lend me their support!

The Merry Rec

Silk, paint, burn holes
140 x 140 cm




The title paraphrases the wolf in Riding Hood when he threateningly says to her: "How merry the woods are!"

Futuremap show

I've been invited to show my "Holy Commandments" silk at Futuremap, a show of work by recent graduates from UAL. It's a great show. I really liked Esteban Peña's large watercolour painting: a press-style image of a flooded river; I've never seen watercolour look SO watery - in an unsettling way. Plus, I enjoyed sharing the space with Conall McAteer's "Crate", a giant hand-crafted block that looked like it had dropped straight out of a video game. The show is on till 9th Feb, it's in the front gallery at the new St Martin's, just behind King's Cross station. All details here: http://futuremap.arts.ac.uk/.