Exhibition Brighton wave hotel

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Originally uploaded by 6fish.

I have five paintings in this mixed show at the Brighton wave hotel. Very chic hotel and a good place to show and view art. You can see the full story on my website here.

Banksy, guerrilla artist or showman

Banksy has his latest show on in LA at the moment, I’m not going to review it because I’m not likely to find myself in LA anytime soon so if you’ve seen it feel free to comment. But it did make me look at his work in more detail to see what I thought and mostly I’d say he made me laugh. Most of what he does is humorous with a political  or social edge and for me is as much entertainment as anything else. Looking at early reviews of the latest show and in particular the painted elephant I do wonder whether fame and fortune have made their mark though. The inevitable pressure to scale up seems to have taken its toll and he’s starting to look like the graffitti equivalent of Damien Hurst. Stick with the small stuff Banksy, guerrilla war is all about hit and run!

Banksy website – Worth a look.

BBC review of latest show

End Times by Jill Greenberg

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Originally uploaded by 6fish.

This exhibition of Photographs of children crying is getting a bit of stick at the moment because Jill had to make the children cry by taking a lollypop she had given them away. In my view although there is a tiny element of cruelty involved this is by no means abuse. The children where given the lollypop back after a few seconds, their parents had given prior permission and the children where paid for the session!

The photographs are actually what I would call super real photographs because there has been quite a lot of post production work carried out on them. For me the result is great, I think these pictures express something of what a lot of us are feeling about the world at the moment.

Jill Greenberg, End Times at Paul Kopeikin Gallery

Jill Greenberg

Rex Whistler at Brighton Museum 2006

I wasn’t in a hurry to see this exhibition and in the end caught it accidently. I didn’t feel he was going to be my kind of guy and so it proved. Whistler was undoubtably a talented Illustrator, some of his pencil drawings are of a technical standard I have not seen before. But viewed as a painter (which may be an unfair approach) this show doesn’t have much.

I couldn’t help thinking as I walked around that here was someone working in the past, in 1929 he was producing work that had its roots in Victorian times.

Best moment of the show was laughing with a complete stranger at the fantastic abuse of artistic talent the army managed to bring about by obliging him to draw posters outlining the full and correct kit for new recruits, excellant!

Talented, but not for me.

Rex Whistler

Jim Haldane at Brighton Museum cafe 2006

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Originally uploaded by 6fish.

A friend invited me for coffee and the chance to take a look at five paintings by Jim Haldane.

The coffee..

Was good and the cafe is a good place to meet, its a bit quieter than your average cafe in town!

The paintings..

I’m not surprised to read that Jim has an illustration background as these paintings are very much rooted in the Illustration tradition. The work is quite large and to be honest a little too large for this cafe. I found it impossible to get far enough away from the paintings to be able to actually take them in properly. Interesting use of a scratch technique whereby he paints a light colour over the top of a dark colour then scratchs the light away to reveal the dark where he wants it. Personally I liked the Embassy Court painting the best and I note from his website he has now done the “after” to this “before” which also looks good.

You can find out more about Jim here – Jim Haldane

50over50 exhibition University of Brighton 2006

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Originally uploaded by 6fish.

The 50over50 exhibition at the University of Brighton Gallery is an exhibition of work produced by people over 50 and as far as that concept goes I found it pointless. Artists over 50 are no different to all other artists of other ages and certainly the work in this exhibition displayed no special characteristics that can be attributed to the age of the artists involved. This whole exhibition smells of a funding concept. Lets think of some way to get/spend some of the money in the honey pot. To be honest I’m not against the spending of the money I just wish it wasn’t necessary to have to apply some ridiculous theme to an exhibition in order to get funding for it.

 That said the artists and their work still deserve some consideration and so it was with interest that I took a look around. I guess I’d say I was a little disappointed, technically most of it is fine but at least 70% of it I’ve seen before in a hundred shows just like this, nothing very original here.The four pictures here were my highlights, the one above won the shows award, personally I liked Lemoney. The good thing about shows at the University of Brighton Gallery is that they are never too big as the space is not that large so It’ll only take you a half an hour to form your own opinion!

 

Website redux – www.6fish.co.uk

Now that www.6fish.co.uk is two years old and the style of my painting is changing I decided that although I still like the layout of the site it needed to be refreshed. This website redux has introduced a new colour scheme that more accurately reflects my current style of work. It also introduces a more interactive menu system courtesy of www.cssplay.co.uk. Also on the home page a new latest paintings menu has been introduced also courtesy of cssplay.

Graffiti art in Brighton 2006

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Originally uploaded by 6fish.

Had a walk around town today to look at three different views of graffiti art being displayed in Brighton.

The first was an exhibition being held at Brighton University Grand Parade. This was a little stilted in my view and demonstrated as much as anything how this kind of art doesn’t translate well to the gallery context. It did however show the clash between this kind of art and the desire to commercialise it, some of the artists here seem to blur the lines between design and illustration and Graffiti.

The second was some new work (being produced as I shot it) on Kensington Street. Some very nice work here.

The third is a large scale block of work produced by many artists in the New England Quarter as its now called. Lots of good quality stuff and like an art exhibition in the open air so well worth a look on a sunny day.

In general some really good work and credit to the council who I presume had to allow permission etc. for it to happen. If I had to critique it I’d say graffiti art doesn’t seem to have moved on much from the standards set say 10 years ago but perhaps its not so much about development as continuety.

 Lots more photos here.

Royal Academy Summer Show 2006 – Oops

I'm a fan of the Royal Academy Summer show and hope to submit work in the future but this years judges have not done it any favours by selecting artist David Hensel's work this year. To be honest they haven't actually accepted his work (a sculpture of a laughing head) but rather the plinth it was supposed to stand on. I hope the judges will think carefully about this decision because it demonstrates how the art elite have lost contact with real art and instead insist on feeding us the marketing idea's we currently get. They've clearly got to the point where they can't distinguish the difference between a clever piece of art/marketing idea and an ordinary object.

Come on people, wake up and start looking at the quality of the object not how witty or clever it may seem.

 BBC news story – Empty plinth sidelines sculpture

Exhibition at Billies cafe Brighton

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Originally uploaded by 6fish.

I'm currently showing a small series of paintings at Billies cafe in Brighton. The paintings are a mixture of work from my "Chimene" series produced during 2005 and new work produced during 2006 under the formal abstract expressionist banner.

Why not go along, have a great breakfast and take in some paintings.

For the full news story - 6fish shows at Billies cafe Brighton