Park Road Pool 1960s

In my last post, I shared a different portrait of artist Dan Ferguson. I am lucky enough to know Dan through my friend Lisa, who shared his work with me via the magic of Instagram. Lately I'd been thinking about starting to collect art in a slightly more concentrated way than previously and thought that commissioning a small painting from an artist whose palette and subject I loved, and who I had a personal connection to, would be a good place to start. 

Am I glad I did? You bet. Dan and I emailed a little about inspiration and subject first off. I had been arranging some of my own photos and bits and pieces of others' work on my shelves at home and realised that I already had an unconscious focus on swimmers, swimming pools, water, divers and so on. This made sense to me: I've always felt that water was my element, as I wrote about after my time in Morocco. 

When I mentioned this to Dan he got pretty excited as he's already been working on a series of swimming pool pieces. He grew up swimming in a pool in Crouch End which his children then learned in before the family relocated to Northern Ireland and he shared with me some stills from a vintage informational film about that very spot. I highlighted a couple that spoke to me, and off he went!

A few weeks later, and we met in a Stoke Newington park so I could say hi to his son and youngest daughter, who I'd never met, snap some photos of his oldest, who I hadn't seen since she was a baby, shoot Dan himself, and of course receive my beautiful painting. 

The soft blue and purples tones he has used suit the misty, memorialised act of leaping into an unknown void that is the future and the air all at once. The physicality of the flecks of paint is exciting to someone whose work exists (even in print) in a flat, 2-D state. It seemed fitting that we met on such a hot day, in such a childlike place, when I am so in-between myself. 

The finished piece can be seen in his gallery.

Please do drop him a line if you're thinking of buying or commissioning a piece of art. He paints gorgeous family portraits too. 

Dan can be found on the internet at the following places: website / Instagram or by emailing dan_fergie@outlook.com.

Dan Ferguson

Dan is an extraordinary painter of swimming pools, places of memory, figures and families and is based in Northern Ireland. Check out his work online at danferguson.co.uk and see his process on Instagram.

Spanish Art-lovers

The Icing Room

I recently had some images exhibited in a pop-up exhibition in Walthamstow called The Icing Room. Below are a few pictures from the installation (including the work of the other participating artists) as well as some portraits of curator, artist, writer, baker and all-round brilliant egg Isobel Atacus. 

You may recognise the smoking portrait as one of Tori; the others are a bit of a departure for me and represent some experiments and jiggery-pokery I've been doing with glitches and automated apps. You can see some more of these as they happen over on my Instagram.

Order and Chance

I recently completed a five-week evening course at the Tate Modern. Each session, led by artist Sarah Sparkes, looked at a different aspect of the work of artist Alighiero Boetti, currently in exhibition at the gallery. We all made work inspired by the themes that intrigued him - grids, ordering, chance happenings, games, collages, repetition, mark-making and more. At the end of the course we held a small exhibition for friends and family at the top of the Tate building. Below are some images of the creators and their work.

 

A group-created artwork

 

The pieces below are mine.

 

The large piece on the easel is what I would call my final piece - double-exposed photographic prints cut up and rearranged according to certain rules. The final piece is unfortunately too big for my scanner but I've posted my preliminary tests below (you can see where they were displayed on the floor to left and right of the easel). 

(Sorry about the wonky scans)