POINTS OF INTERSECTION.

So during an insane thunderstorm in Sofia (Bulgaria) I managed to conveniently drag my friends into the city art gallery. There was a pretty sweet exhibition on called Points of Interest, a collection of portraits of artists by other artists. It featured work from the late 19th and early 21st century. The broad range of work was interesting to look at especially from a progression point of view in how materials and technology have had an effect on art.

I was stood in front of this painting for about 20mins. I absolutely love it. It really got me excited because of the focus to light the artist has used and how they're used different tones of colour to achieve this. The different tones of blue make the face look dead cold and reminds me of a massive android/metallic robot. The chap behind looks like a mad scientist with his crazy eyes and grin. Altogether perfect subject matter to attract me.


I think that this was done by an artist either called Hristo Alexiev or Ivan B. Ivanov but I can't work out which. Signs in a foreign language isn't the easiest to read. I've searched both names on the internet for hours but can't find anymore info or work by them. Gutted majorly. I tried to take some more photo's on my phone but security told me off so this was the only one I managed to get.Idiots.

HOCKNEY INSPIRED.

Before I left for traveling and earlier in the uni year I'd briefly looked at some of David Hockney's joiner photo montages he'd done. With this in mind I purposefully took lots of underexposed/overexposed/correctly exposed photos of particular views that really stood out to me with the intention of making my own set of "joiner's" when I got home.

Romanian Hostel Balcony

Bucurest Royal Building (2nd largest building in the world)

Sofia Market

Belgrade Graffiti

Bosnian Mountainside

Lake Bled

Croatian Hostel Balcony overlooking Adriatic Coast

Click on the images above for a bigger view.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

So after 5 amazing weeks of adventuring around with a few best friends, I thought it'd probably be best to update my blog. I can't stress enough to anyone that hasn't been traveling before to do it. It was my first time away from home for a long period of time and I loved every second of it.


All together I've visited 10 countries over a space of 35days with some intense train rides. The journey consisted of the following:

23/07 16:36 Berlin - Prague
23/07 23:11 Prague - Budapest
26/07 09:43 Budapest - Cluj Napoca
28/07 21:51 Cluj Napoca - Bucurest
30/07 12:24 Bucurest - Sofia
31/07 07:20 Sofia - Burgas
03/08 06:55 Burgas - Sofia
04/08 20:40 Sofia - Belgrade
07/08 22:10 Belgrade - Bar
10/08 14:40 Bar - Podgorica
10/08 19:03 Podgorica - Kolasin? (wrong train)
10/08 21:50 Kolasin - Bar
11/08 12:20 Bar - Belgrade
12/08 08:15 Belgrade - Sarajevo
14/08 07:02 Sarajevo - Stritzivojna
14/08 13:08 Stritzivojna - Zagreb
14/08 18:14 Zagreb - Ljublijana
16/08 09:27 Ljublijana - Munich
18/08 23:40 Munich - Zagreb
19/08 11:15 Zagreb - Spit
19/08 17:00 Split - Dubrovnik

My favorite city was definitely Belgrade (Capital of Serbia) and I really want to go back soon. The views from the old fort at the top of a massive hill were absolutely mind blowing. Luckily the weather was clear skies and temperatures averaging 33+ degrees everyday so this added to the highpoint. The zoo also had a wide variety of goats and I do love a good goat or too ha.

I'm just sorting through the 9430 photo's as we speak but I'll be adding them on here shortly.

Eastern Europe : Week 1

So it's been a week today since I flew out to Berlin to embark on my 5 week expedition of all things good in Eastern Europe. I've taken hundreds of photo's so far and I'll make sure I put a sly few up on here when I get the chance.


Berlin is without doubt one of the best cities I've visited so far. Some of the graffiti was absolutely amazing and incredible how some artists had painted such huge pieces. The remains of the Berlin wall was pretty sweet as well but had some really crappy mural pieces where the general public had been let loose with permanent markers. Spoilt it in my opinion.

Next was Budapest in Hungary. Even though the weather wasn't the best the city really stood out to me as a place I want to go back to and explore much more. The mixture of both modern and classical architecture was pretty spectacular and sort of reminded me of the docks in Liverpool but more elegant.

After that the next stop was Cluj Napoca in Romania. Literally just think of Borat and that's the sort or scenery we saw on the 9hour train ride. The main city was actually quite built up but still incredibly basic which I much prefer in comparison to more touristy places.

Next stop is Burgas in Bulgaria where we're hoping for some hot sunny weather please.

Las Meninas : Part Dos

Feels like ages since I've posted anything on the progress of the summer group work me,Matt and Jord have been doing. On a whole I'm dead pleased with how its all looking and seems to be really pulling together and you can without a doubt tell who did what art. Everyone's own style is become more apparent as I'm seeing more and more work. Looking really professional as well.

I was a bit stuck with the actual editing process and got slightly confused as to what it was we were actually meant to be doing. It seemed to me like the rest of the group were re-doing their own version of what the person had sent them whilst I was physically working on top giving it my personal touch.


When I received Matt's interpretation of Picasso's War and Peace I hit a bit of a wall and was a bit brain dead for a few days in what I was going to make it my own. In the end I decided to stick with using hand painted typography like I did in my previous and make it a completely typographical piece. I'd been looking at old American billboards and shop signs from the 60's/70's that really inspired me to push my typographic boundaries to the limits.


On a whole I'm pretty pleased with it however it looked so much better before I scanned it in. It looses the hand drawn element to it and seems to make it look a lot more sketchy. With my final piece I think again I'm going to stick to the same working method but try and incorporate Matt's image with my own so that they compliment each other rather then covering it up completely.

London town

Whilst staying at my dad's recently I had a little wonder into London to have a look at what the galleries had to offer me. I was gutted to find out that the Saatchi gallery was closed this week for private viewings which was a dead loss as there's a New Speak exhibition on at the moment that looks pretty sick. Instead of Saatchi I went to the National History Museum in South Kensington and the National Portrait Gallery just off Trafalgar Square. Again to my disappointment the giant robotic T-rex was under the knife and not well enough to come and play so I amused myself with other various carnivores. I must admit that the stuffed animals in Manchester's Museum seem a lot more realistic in comparison to the ones in London. They look a little haggered and worn out.

I'd definitely recommend the National Portrait to everyone and anyone. At the moment they're showing the BP Portrait Awards 2010 and a small collection of Alex Katz portraits that were pretty sweet.

One piece in particular that really stood out to me from the rest was an oil painting by Sir George Hayter entitled The Reformed House of Commons 1833.



The intense amount of detail about everything in this piece was insane. The picture above really doesn't do it any justice whatsoever but literally everything was perfect. Seeing it in the flesh made me appreciate so much more then looking at pictures in a book or on the web. I can't imagine how long it'd have taken people to paint images like this, really mind blowing.

In the BP Awards 2010 there were so many amazing contemporary Portraits that have a broad range of styles. The overall winner of the awards was and oil and acrylic painting by Michal Ozibko called iDeath. At first glance I instantly presumed it was a photograph but at closer inspection I couldn't believe it wasn't. The portrait is of Ozibko's classmate, Jana. He got her to pose with iPod earphones to create a representation of how young people often appear closed off to the world. Apparently Ozibko and Jana aren't very close friends so this gave him the opportunity to create a new persona to depict.



Another one of my favorites was a hairy piece by Jason Butler called The Rubbish Bin Men. The two men in the painting are Rob Greene and Paul Lawford, friends of Butler. The portrait was made from a series of sittings in Butler's Jersey studio. He wanted to capture the dynamic between the two men, one of a series of double portraits exploring particular relationships. I one day aspire to have a cracking beard like these two chaps.



I've come to realise that I definitely prefer photorealism paintings even though it has been totally obsolete since the camera was invented. I think I just appreciate the skill and dedication someone must have to make their work look so life like. Ona whole dead inspiring.

Stephanie Davies

Stephanie Davies is post grad student at LJMU studying Graphic Arts and an good friend of mine. During my foundation last year at York I saw a few of Steph's paintings and was pretty blown away by them. I remember thinking she was able to paint these incredible portraits so effortlessly and definitely had a nack for doing it. Was just having a cheeky look around her blog and caught sight of these beauty's.



I especially like the choice of cropped composition of these two. It really gives them both a sense of tension and drama and the use of subtle tones and dim lighting add to this as well.





As with most of Steph's work I'm dead inspired by it and It's pushed me to paint more over summer.