I have just completed a new batch of en plein air paintings from DayZ.
The pieces have been added to my website where you can view the whole series, but for now here are a few pieces:
I like that a number of scenes from DayZ bring up recurring themes in my own work- watchtowers, checkpoints, petrol stations, water, abandoned buildings. I think I might retire this project for now, seven pieces makes for an interesting body of work.
Also- here is a super work in progress panorama, where you can see a little of the processes involved. With a project like DayZ en plein air I think it is important to understand the physical nature of painting like this.
In addition, a link to my older post on earlier DayZ en plein air work and subsequent exhibition.
It's be a very busy month, with a lot of time spent in Ireland and a lot of time spent playing music. I've not really had the chance to get into the studio as much as I've wanted but should have some new work done this week.
In the mean time- here is a few stills from a mini documentary about a good friend & luthier, Martin Gallen. Martin makes gorgeous pipes, and has recently crafted a flat pitch chanter for me out of some 100 year old box wood recovered from the derelict mill in my home town.
Will hopefully get the footage completed this week too, alongside a video I shot in Barcelona back in April.
This weekend I am exhibiting in Sheffied Millennium Gallery as part of the Games Britannia gaming festival.
The exhibition has been organised by new game/art collective Third Person View and the show is called Far Lands.
I am exhibiting three new paintings which are part of the DayZ en plein air series, details of which I will post on my website portfolio after the show.
Its really great to be part of a large gaming exhibition and also to see other artists exploring gaming culture too. The whole festival looks immense, I would have loved to attend a few of the workshops myself, including one run by ex-Gremlin staff.
I have been working on a new piece for a 'digital intervention' exhibition in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, curated by local artist Sarah Younan.
The exhibition deals with 3D scanned museum pieces and distributed digitally to artists around the globe.
I have done a piece based on a Aztec Teotihuacan mask, reinterpreting the object as an interactive video game based on my own experiences of Mexico last year. More information on the piece and a digital download is available on my website, and on the exhibition website.
Other artists have done purposefully digital manipulations and then had the pieces 3D printed and reintroduced into the world.
There is also a talk with the curator via Axis as part of their Behind the Scenes of the Museum series. The talk is on Wednesday 14th of May and is free to attend but book in advance as spaces are limited. A link to the website is here.
I occasionally dabble in games and I am always on the look out for new game making apps.
Today I have been experimenting with a text adventure game creation software called Twine, which has been a lot of fun. I have made a game called 'Dream Job' which I've been kicking around for a while now.
This is my attempt to capture the highs and lows of working your dream job.
Recently redesigned my website and updated with a new project I've been working on:
POSTCARDS FROM MEXICO
Stay tuned for more details of this one. Exhibition will be in the Nation Museum of Wales, Cardiff and feature a number of artistic responses to 3D scanned artefacts. Curated by Sarah Younan.
As some who dabbles in instrument repair and construction I was lucky enough to recently come across an old set of Irish Uilleann pipes. After much research and discussion with leading pipe experts around the world, some pieces of the pipes were traced back to the workshop of Richard O'Mealy, a Belfast based piper who was prolific from around 1900.
O'Mealy was quite an important maker and piper, with a very distinct style, and as a 'Northerner' I was already familiar with his work. There is a video of him playing here, from the film The Devil's Rock.
On a trip home in March I stopped over in Belfast, staying in my sister's house near the Ulster Museum. Here, I tracked down O'Mealy's old workshop, being only a few streets away.
Nowadays, it's probably occupied with students. Still, it was pretty exciting to track down the possible origin of my 100 year old pipes.
Wanted to do something musical on the day Lou Reed died and this is the result.
I fed a recording of The Velvet Underground's European Son into the new pitch recognition software in Logic Pro X. Whatever notes it could detect were converted to MIDI and played back through the standard Steinway Piano patch.
The outcome is a track of mostly atonal piano meandering but with some recognisable core notes. Sometimes you can hear the bass line come through, especially at the beginning.
The original song is largely guitar feedback mixed with frantic drumming and one of my favourite Lou Reed pieces.
I love how Logic has picked up feedback spikes as high pitched single notes. They punctuate the later sections of the recording. There is also some great rhythmic parts despite the nonsensical music.
