Friday 24 February 2017

Emerging At 73 ?

You often read about a young artist as 'emerging', which suggests they are just starting out but in a promising way.
Is it possible to do the same at my age -73?
I have been painting all my life (mostly work using my family as the subject matter) but until ten years ago I taught Art fulltime so my practise was  on the backburner. It was always important to me though, partly to keep me sane but also as my research into what the boundaries of what painting could be.
In the last ten years I have still taught three days a week but have had more time to develop my pop-up gallery - Ted Coney's Family Portraits and have a retrospective at the Babylon Gallery, a couple of years ago.
I have also had more time and energy to develop my ideas for painting .
In that sense, as I also look for different venues to display my work, I will hopefully be 'emerging' in the next twenty years or so.

Friday 17 February 2017

A Painter Of Nothing

'I am a painter of nothing' replied the Belgian artist, James Ensor, when asked what he had achieved.
Looking around an exhibition of his work recently at the Royal Academy, I don't think that was strictly true but I know what he meant.
I have just started my latest painting, 'Forget- Me- Knots' and I am trying to show how dementia robs people of their power to remember things. I am using the objects I collected at the sea-side last summer to represent memory, so must find ways of painting them to give the impression that  they are fading in and out of consciousness.
I have a feeling that 'less is more' as far as this painting is concerned.

Friday 10 February 2017

Pre- Queen Prices

I've recently taken my two latest paintings, 'Bicycle Thieves' and 'Against The Light' to be framed and had the usual discussions with Johnathan about the colours and shapes of mouldings etc.
Johnathan has been framing my pictures for about 30 years now and over that time has gradually framed every one in the collection, dating back to 1969.
I know he now does some work for the Queen, though he is very discreet about this.
Luckily, I think he still charges me pre- Queen prices but we don't talk about that, either.
You  can see a short video clip of my meeting with the Queen on the MEDIA page on my website.
Though we weren't talking about framing on that occasion.

Friday 3 February 2017

In La La Land

One of the paintings I showed  to visitors last year was 'Dear Reginald Owen', which is about a cousin of mine who went to Hollywood in the 1930s to try his luck in the movie business.
You can see it all explained in my virtual tour where I 'appear' to fly back in time in my 1931 Morris Minor to the Hollywoodland of the same era.
The Morris has just been in the garage recently for its annual service (and receiving a new battery) and I was reminded of my flying trip as I sped home in the car at it's top speed of 25 m.p.h.