Some detailed shots of my (late) entry to the Cosmic Flush exhibition at the Magda Danysz Gallery just before Xmas. This has now been taken down but will hopefully be traveling to New York in the spring with the other pieces for the second leg of the show. ‘Battlestation Z’ is inspired by Rammellzee‘s homemade Garbage God outfits, built from parts of old model kits, toys, records, CDs and even a turntable head shell into a 3D construction that partly takes its title from his old home studio. Including laser-cut perspex discs spelling out his name, album and Iconoclast Panzerism / Gothic Futurism theories, it builds in layers of debris towards a futuristic insectoid/robotic shaman character at the head.
Art
I finally got round to checking out the Jamie Hewlett exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery just before Xmas. Split into three sections – colour renditions of the Tarot, Russ Meyer-esque posters of his wife as ‘Honey X‘, and B&W tree studies – it was good to see him pushing out of his comfort zone. The huge tarot images are in the style we know and love him for but all the pieces looked like prints rather than original art which was disappointing.
The Honey X fake film posters were enclosed in a black draped section that added to the seedy B-Movie vibe, their luminous glow alluding to the kind of dimly lit emporiums that would show such films. It’s hard to equate Hewlett with them as there’s so little of his established style visible. They weren’t bad per se, but I found it hard to care too much about them aside from the odd nicely observed graphic design placement here and there.
Much has been made of the tree studies and they are a revelation in that you can see his hand in the execution but they couldn’t be further from his usual source material. In recent years there’s been a stripping down of Hewlett’s style, a minimizing in detail and the stark contrasts of the tree images and some of the tarot remind me a lot of Mike Mignola’s work about 20 years ago when he first started drawing Hellboy. Since then Mike’s stripped his own style back even further and it will be interesting to see where Hewlett is in two decades time.
Is this the point where comic artists in the UK finally start to be accepted into the fine art world? What with this and the Comics Unmasked exhibition at the British Library last year could this be the tipping point that sees the UK catch up with our friends on the continent? Could we one day see major retrospective shows of the likes that Crumb, Hergé and Moebius have been afforded overseas in some of our major galleries? It’s been happening for years in comic shops and minor spaces but the Saatchi is a big player and tastemaker. The exhibition has been extended until January 3rd so there’s still time to catch it and it’s free.
A brilliant Sandtrooper commission I had done by Jonathan Edwards after seeing some of his Stormtroopers earlier in the month, he totally nailed it IMO. Follow him on Instagram for more of this kind of thing.
This book by Peter Goes is beautifully illustrated and attempts to map a chronological history of the world, first through the ages and then in decades by the book’s end. It’s just been published and can be found in most good book shops – beware though – it looks like a children’s book but it doesn’t pull its punches, see the Charlie Hebdo shootings referenced on the final page.
Finally got round to colouring my Mike McMahon commission from a few years back and mocking it up to look like my first ever 2000AD Prog. Bit elongated but Mike doesn’t leave room for much else in his compositions.
Just revealed yesterday, a cover mock up for the ‘Cosmic Flush’ box set by Will Barras (we’d seen the silhouetted version of this on the T-shirt earlier this year) and cover artists Poesia and Kofie for the final two releases. Poesia is paired with Sam Sever on the remix and Kofie provides cover for a Psychopab version on the final of seven 12″s. Both can be pre-ordered over on the Gamma Proforma website.
The exhibition of all this art – including She One, Futura 2000, Delta, Doze Green and Ian Kuali’i – opens this Thursday at the Magda Danysz Gallery, 61 Charlotte Street, London. Yours truly will be playing an all-Rammellzee set with a mix for Solid Steel premiering on the Quietus the same day.
Andy Votel collects all his artwork for cassettes together for an exhibition opening tonight at Electrik in Chorlton, Manchester for the next 3 weeks. He talks to John Doran at the Quietus about it here and they preview both sides of a new tape he’s made entitled ‘RAISING HELELYOS’.
Readers might remember me featuring the first Metal Made Flesh kickstarter a couple of years back. Now the team is back for book 2, expanded with a second artist and bigger goals, two of which they’ve smashed, and they’re approaching the third with 12 days left. Taking liberally from all manner of sci-fi from the last three decades and managing to find new angles on it the book tells three different tales of a trio of characters and their place in the future cityscape of Tuaoni. You can get both books, T-shirts, original artwork or even appear as a character in the book in the new Kickstarter.
These are ads for a Brazilian insurance company by Jose Luiz Benicio I believe, posted by a user on the Syd Mead Facebook group, definite influence (Bob Peak too), love the way there seems to be a whole world and race of beings worked out.
A selection of just some of the work on display by Dan Lish last night at the 42nd Zulu Nation anniversary at the House of Vans gallery under Waterloo station in London. Talking to Dan I found out that he does no pencils for these, just a small thumbnail sketch maybe, some photo reference for the faces and then the drawing is straight from his head onto the page in ink.
Whilst sitting on a moving train on the way to/from work.
Awe inspiring, the man is a master of his craft. After checking some of his comic work and seeing his sketchbook doodles I’d go so far as to say he’s the Brit equivalent of Moebius. Seeing so many of the images that I’ve featured on this blog over the year was a delight, the size was the main surprise, a lot of the early image are only A5, even the biggest is only A3. A book should be forthcoming once Dan has drawn 100 characters, watch this space…
Also on display were photos of Hip Hop luminaries as they are now by Bunny Bread and a selection of personal photos from the collection of Part 2 documenting UK grafffiti scene from the mid 80s to the early 90s. It’s all on until November 15th so be quick if you want to catch it. More details here
Above is the artwork, by She One, for the 5th installment of the ‘Cosmic Flush’ series of 12″s – the final album by The Rammellzee (RIP). Remix duties come courtesy of Beans on this one and pre-orders are already open. There’s also a special exhibition of the art happening at the Magna Danysz Gallery in London on December the 10th, there will also be a catalogue for the show which can be ordered for those who can’t make it.
Laugh-In magazine was one of a host of humour publications that sprang up in the wake of Mad magazine’s success. It was a spin-off from Rowan & Martin’s TV show of the same name, cheaply produced and only lasted a year before folding. Going by the copy that I picked up in a basement over the summer, it’s not hard to see why, it wasn’t very funny at all, stuffed with filler to pad out the little of quality. I was drawn to some of the letter and graphic designs more than the humour content, for example the hand drawn headers and patterns you see here.
There was however one other redeeming feature worth keeping, a Moonlightling Monsters series of pin ups by John Strejan (who I’m presuming is the paper engineer of the same name), complete with period psychedelic lettering, that I’ve scanned and posted for Halloween.
Three exhibitions that have recently opened in London, all highly recommended, tickets are timed on the Escher and Cosmonauts ones so book ahead. Unfortunately no photography is allowed at any of them otherwise this post would have been full of images. The Escher has 6 rooms stuffed with originals pencils sketches, litho and woodblock prints and even some original finished illustrations plus other ephemera and the gift shop content is compact but enticing.
The Cosmonauts exhibition has original and mock-up vehicles, pods, landers, sputniks, all forms of space suit and space wear as well as films, artwork, propaganda and more. The gift shop is so overwhelmingly stuff with Soviet art and design it’s hard not to want to walk out with half of it. The Eames I’ve not visited yet but plan to soon…
Back in early 1989 – aged 18 – I was going out with a girl who loved Guns n’ Roses‘ debut album with a passion. Wanting to make something personal for her as a present before her birthday I decided to paint a version of Robert Williams’ cover image from the original album cover (it was later replaced when the group blew up commercially). What I was thinking I don’t know what with the very dodgy subject matter it contained but that’s the fog of love for you.
I’d discovered Williams’ work a few years before via Zap Comix and loved this painting, despite the sexually assaulted woman (lord knows what she’d have thought of it, had it been finished). I set about copying it as accurately as possible in acrylics on a large piece of thick card, primed and gridded out to get the proportions correct. Below are a couple of in-progress shots I found from ’89 and you can see that I was enjoying painting the orange monster to start with. The chrome elements were incredibly difficult (and boring) to paint given the small reproduction I was working from (an LP cover borrowed from a friend, that I still have, sorry whoever has a sleeveless copy from back then).
I’d covered up the lower part of the image, partly to stop it getting dirty as I was generally leaning on the bottom half but mostly because I was still living with my parents and I was embarrassed about the subject matter of the assaulted woman. I wasn’t looking forward to painting that part at all if truth be told but it was integral to the original. As it turned out I never got to because she dumped me about a month before her birthday, any impetus to finish it vanished instantly and it was filed away in an old portfolio.
Over the years I’ve spotted it whilst rifling through the folder, pulled it out a few times and admired the level of dedication I must have had to go to such lengths. I recently shot details of some of the more finished bits to share here, you can see the layers of acrylic paint in parts and I was working with totally inadequate brushes, some with only a few hairs for tiny details.
One day I’ll have to finish it, just so all that work doesn’t go to waste but I’ve no desire to include the stricken woman so maybe I’ll paint something else in her place. As much as I admire Williams’ work – and copying this gave me a next level appreciation of the techniques he used – his depiction of the woman in this piece is the only thing I’m not a fan of.
Thirteen random photos plucked from the new Will Barras book ‘Yeah Man!’, a beautifully produced 200+ page hardback of paintings, drawings and murals from Will’s career in the past 2 decades. It’s interesting to see his early styles develop and change throughout the book as he experiments with different mark making techniques, including collage at one point. I realised that there were whole eras of his work I wasn’t familiar with from the first examples I’d seen when we first met in the late 90s.
His initial comic-y style has become even more fluid and the black outlines have slowly disappeared into a darker, more painterly palette. There’s still the dynamic forced perspectives, lithe figures and futuristic vehicles, now joined by sprawling cityscapes and psychedelic colour combinations. I was delighted to get a signed copy with an original sketch too, “Thanks man!”. You can order a copy here.
Above: 4 Hero & Goldie (Top) / Eric B & Rakim
It’s been a while since I’ve featured Dan’s work but there’s reason to look at it again to play a bit of catch up and to point out that you will be able to see some of these in the flesh at The Universal Zulu Nation Anniversary – OPENING NIGHT in London on November 6th.
Below: Public Enemy & the S1Ws (colour & B&W) / Robert Glasper & Dilla (colour) / Biggie / Gil Scott Heron / Jay Z / Grandmixer D St. & Herbie Hancock / Ultramagnetic MCs.
UPDATE: The three images above seem to be the finished item, when I first posted these they were a work in progress (see below).
These incredible Star Wars re-imaginings have been doing the rounds on the web this weekend after a live drawing event with Kim Jung Gi. His eastern versions of the Star Wars galaxy are just mind-blowing as are his astronauts which I’ve joined together from details posted on Instagram. Check out his work, it’s all incredible.
I was lucky enough to find time for a bookstore binge last weekend in Plymouth at the excellent Book Cupboard shop which yielded some Richard Powers and vintage Josh Kirby covers (ie: pre-Pratchett) and more.
Above: Richard M. Powers / Josh Kirby (bottom row only). Some of these were part of another batch of books that Stuart McLean aka Frenchbloke sourced for me from his local bookstore in Scotland. He very kindly went through multiple boxes and photographed a ton for me to pick through and reserve at The Book Shop, Wigtown. Massive thanks to Stuart who’s just completed his annual 48 hr radio marathon, The Dark Outside. Check out similar treats in his Stolen Library project too for free books and records.
I’m not exactly sure who the artists are on the books below except for The Cosmic Eye cover which is by Mike Hinge, but thought they looked interesting. If anyone has similar book stores in their town then please let me know so I can hit them up if and when I visit please.
I don’t need this
I can’t really afford this
The price of shipping nearly doubles the cost of this
But my god it’s a lovely object. Buy one here and make me jealous.