Salon du Patrimoine

Last night (November 3rd) I had the pleasure to attend the Vernissage of the Salon du Patrimoine, in the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris.

If you are interested in french culture, quality craftsmanship, painting (in the craft sense), art restoration, restoration of buildings, or just want to get a real sense of how enormously motivated the french are to preserve their historical roots, then visit the Salon du Patrimoine. It's a blend of high tech and traditional crafts, usually blending seamlessly together in ways that are very surprising.

The salon takes place annually in the Carrousel du Louvre, just beside the upturned pyramid. The dates this year, are from the 3 - 6th of November.
99 rue de Rivoli
75039 Paris 75001
tel:+33 (0)1 43 16 47 47

You will meet extremely helpful and friendly french people with exacting knowledge of their specialisation. A picture tells a thousand words so here are a few to give you an idea of what it's like.

My paints supplier from Germany is there :)

Quality oozes out of everything.
Very impresive reproduction carpentry everywhere although that's not the issue here. They are displaying handmade, individually designed, objet d'art and jewellery boxs.

The school where I studied Trompe L'Oeil and faux effects are there. They are based in Montmarte. Stand K1, if you are visiting. Say hi to Thimy or Pierre, for me.

Vespas and mopeds

If you are a classic Vespa or moped fan, an artist friend of mine has just started selling prints of his paintings of these classic, two wheeled, dream machines.

Check them out here: http://scooterprints.com/category/vespa-on-canvas

Borgogne, NY, Dublin, Paris, exhibitions and events

It's been a very nice summer here. Not as much sunshine as many would like but that just means that there's been less need to water the grass as far as I'm concerned. I like the rain.

It's very quiet at this time of year. Paris empties completely. I can go for walks and draw in the local forest with no chance of being disturbed. If people stuck around they'd realise how nice it is here without the crowds but then there would be crowds so I'd rather they didn't.

So what's up? Well I've had my head down painting and drawing. I'm working with a film crew in Paris to produce a music video.

The prepartations for the chateau artists retreat in Borgogne are well in hand but there's still plenty to organise there.

There are several exhibitions:
One in September in NY at the The Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery on Broadway. The exhibition is called "A Book about Death" and it is an homage to Ray Johnson, a celebration of Emily Harvey and a global exploration of Death. There are several hundred artists taking part. It opens on the 10th of September and Matthew Rose is the currator.

Another in October in Dublin. This is a solo show, curated by Tony Strickland. I don't have a lot of details on this yet as a location hasn't been officially pinned down but I'm sure it will be excellent. Lot's of new work in process for this.

In November I'm exhibiting in the StylePixie gallery. For the life of me, I don't understand why I'm so excited by this one, but I am. Really looking forward to it. The stylepixie gallery is great. A lovely off the beaten track, undergroundish and genuinely artistic, incredibly friendly gallery.

In December I have a great exhibition for two weeks in the Greenland Gallery on the Ile Saint Louis. Sur la rue des deux ponts. It's a great gallery and I will be sharing the space with the incredibly tallented Joby Hickey. Joby is a photographer. He specialises in pinhole photography and the results are quiet magical.

I've been getting down to more drawing while experimenting with metal and corrosives. The results are interesting and compelling.

Compelling me to do more, experiment more and develope this unique approach. I love it because it's a development of the sides of painting that usually gets lost in the process. The drawing and the chemistry. The drawing is dramatic, big and surprising and you can say the same for the chemistry, which of course exists in all painting processes but you can rarely see it so clearly at work.

The other thing I've been focused on is the production of smaller works. It started as a project for an upcoming exhibition. One of the constraints was size but it surprised me that I got a great deal of satisfaction from this limitation. It allows me to produce more intimate pieces.

So although this blog has been quiet, it's for a good reason. More soon. I'll post examples of the things that are happening and of the week in Borgogne as it developes.

Black and white paintings.

I'm doing a lot of work with black and white at the moment. Large paintings on wood and painted in acrylic. The nudes are more difficult to organise because they need a model who will pose for several hours. I find it fascinating work. Very absorbing and fantastically interesting to translate the world of colour into shades of grey.

There is a lot to learn here. It's a medium that has been ignored but it has an intense beauty and romantic feeling to it. It's definitely necessary to have a concept of the atmosphere you want to create in mind before you begin. Here are a couple of recent pieces.



The forest beside my atelier.

A mature model from the atelier of Jean Louis Morele.

I want to build these up into a series for exhibition later in the year in Paris.