Back to painting outside.

Belfast, Ireland.

I intended to document my thoughts a little better around my return to painting full time but instead i’ve become so embroiled in it i’ve had little time to reflect until this week. I’ve painted a huge wall in Belfast in about eight long days for Hit the north festival which was amazing fun. Then had two days rest and painted a gable end in Walthamstow. Big thanks also to Streetartatlas for all the photos. My own camera is now about as current as a mini disc player so i’m happy to leave documenting to professional photographers. what follows is a long ramble by me followed by a heavy photo dump. strap in.

I’m now taking an enforced week off now while i juggle the mini engraving release. (newsletter coming this week hopefully) Its taken a while because i originally wanted a zine that documents the process but i’m not happy with it. Instead I think i’m going to release them with a small printed card and look at doing the booklet another time. The whole idea of these miniatures is that i’m always working on them and adding to the collections. Even though these first batches will fly off the shelves, over time i’ll be able to get more out there on a regular basis. This initial setup is a bit slow as im ordering the boxes, sleeves and what not in large numbers so i won’t need to do it again for each release.

The first thing that hit me as i was high up on a lift painting was how many mental barriers i must have had to put up to get myself to stay in the studio until i’d finished all the engraving work. Really since covid i’ve been doggedly attacking this sort of self driven apprenticeship in engraving. Its only now after its all reached its conclusion i’m feeling just how grueling its been at times.

The first overwhelming feeling i had while paining was just a very pure feeling of just realising how much i love it. Large walls stretch out in every direction up there in a lift. The space feels abstract and the act of painting is physical and relies on unbroken movement, speed and efficiency. I’ve always felt my muralism is very linked to speed and its interesting to feel how much faster everything feels now. Once its sketched out with long poles and rollers you rely entirely on knowledge as a draftsman to (hopefully) know how to execute the line work with some experience. This is the area that feels very different coming back to painting after so much dedicated engraving time. My decisions about line and mark making are faster. Engraving is so unforgiving you develop a method where all creative choices are weighed in as you sketch on the wall. Whereas many drafting choices in the past would be made as i work on the wall, engraving has pushed me to organise all that planning beforehand so when it comes to execution it’s remarkably automatic. Before i felt there was a momentary lag when deciding how to light an area or what marks to make. Now there’s no lag at all, just a non stop outpouring of mark making and flow.

After wallowing in the joy of painting for a week or two i also started to feel an upwelling of pride over what i’ve achieved in the studio. The durer plate and the miniatures feel like a solid bedrock to build new work on. I was enjoying painting so much i started to realise just how much i’d sacrificed in the short term to push myself creatively. I’ve loved engraving but many of the goals were so ambitious it was often tediously slow and uncomfortable. Discomfort is something all artists need to routinely feel if they want to grow. Established artists even more so. There’s a security in being known for something and feeling comfortable and good at it. Its a trap and a curse for many artists and sadly it’s when the work becomes an empty shell devoid of any urgency or fire. Its a product rather than a real attempt to express something vital to your own communication. When you get good at your craft it’s hard to just put the well practiced side on a backburner and wade into uncharted water. Your finely tuned skills are still there as a life vest but its the instability that leads to invention and unexpected returns.

So now looking forward to my muralism again i feel i can really push the kind of narrative complexity further than before. I’m really looking forward to just having a summer of wall work and watching a new body of work grow. The paintings feel like a marked step up so i’m keen to just pursue it. I want to prioritise bigger walls but to keep a good flow i’ll also be knocking out a lot of london gable ends, and other walls i can just about manage on ladders or ropes near home. Come forward if you have any interesting spaces in london and i’ll see if i can fit it between my bigger projects.

So the photo dump below is from Ireland. I often get asked to explain my work but i get bogged down with words which just feel blunt and oversimplify things. I draw endlessly every day and always have done so it’s easier to see the meaning crawl out from a body of work or a period of work. To me meaning is garnerd like a novel, piece by piece leaving you with an impression. Its something poetic and culmanitive. That goes against a lot of street art i guess that likes to pack its meaning into something instant.

I often paint layers of houses and bones on top of each other. Different styles of architecture representing time and the building of civilisations on and on. Family units all entangled in this support bearing the weight of it on their backs. Many of the creatures at the top of society are manipulating and feeding from it. Birds drinking the nectar, the false bird king whispering endless lies down his trumpet, and the character hidden behind a wooden mask pulling strings. Grifters and manipulators. The central protagonist with the sword is trying to cut the trumpet. Hes also protected by a staff holding a planetary orrery which i often use in my work when i’m talking about science, truth, virtue and hope. This is a very small window into it and it feels kind of basic to reduce everything down like that but people ask so there you go.

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