I was aware of your wood parade.  I had heard instances uttered in the dark beside slightly shifting footsteps and dry-throat-yawns.  This was your assembly, but I wasn’t to know – the depth of you, upon the hole of my world.

If I were to offer you free money, it would be a different story of course..

Hi There,

I’m giving away an art print this friday (3rd Feb) .. Join my Facebook page to find out more :

www.facebook.com/Chemical.Gdns

See you there! :)

Chris

Glossom.com have very kindly featured my portfolio collection ’08.’ on their front page.

However, a few low resolution images survived, I rediscovered them today in my ‘Miscellaneous Box of Mess‘ folder..  Sadly, they will never be good for anything other than displaying on the web (or mobile-web devices, folks), so I wanted to give them one last airing before they go to sleep in the JPEG graveyard…

..and today, I continue to work with ink.. This is a foray back into the realms of eventual screen printing.  The photo is blurry because I used an old mobile phone;  my SLR is currently – shall we say – ‘out of service’ for the moment..

And yes, this is a pink and white polka dot table cloth.. Nothing to do with me, I can assure you! :)

Until next time,

Chris

Important foot-note:  If you work digitally, remember to BACK-UP your files!

A belated Happy New Year to you…

Just writing briefly to declare brightly I have completely refreshed my portfolio pages, with an aim to make a generally more pleasant and cohesive experience for those viewing my work on-line.  I intend to add additional galleries for collaborative and commercial work in the near future.

So, please : Click to View…

Thoughts, feedback, and criticism always most welcome.

Thanks for your time,

Chris

I have only recently discovered the work of late-Victorian artist Louis Wain.  His story fascinates due to my own interest on the effects of various mental disorders upon the creative mind.

Born in the summer of 1860, Wain was an English artist who possessed a natural gravitation towards the illustration of anthropomorphised cats originally drawn to provide comfort and amusement to his wife during her battle with cancer. 

Following a series of tragic life events, including the eventual death of his wife just three years into their marriage, the decline of his career, perpetual financial difficulty and finally the death of his mother, Wain’s mental health began to suffer. Increasingly bizarre, delusional behaviour eventually led to a diagnosis of schizophrenia and he was committed in 1924 to a mental hospital.

Wain would spend the rest of his life within mental institutions and, not surprisingly, he became of great interest to doctor’s studying and documenting mental illness at this time.

The story fascinates as his artwork, losing not one iota of craftsmanship or skill, began to take on wildly powerful new characteristics; however, the subject matter never changed.  The cats, originally an instrument of pleasure for his sick wife, became magnificently psychedelic, geometric and wildly colourful manifestations, pulsing with a beautiful vibratory quality. Interestingly, this style of artwork was not seen again until the LSD influenced psychedelic poster art movement of the 1960′s (from which my own earliest influences lie).

Although I write from a brief, generalised viewpoint: In my eyes, this visual inner world became deconstructed, refracted and mind manifest; his subject matter taking an intensely profound and enlightened energy, similar (I think) to classic eastern religious symbology.  Also, I think there is an interesting link here between schizophrenia and the LSD-inspired art movements of the 1960s.

Regardless of my own take on this, I would like to believe his soul in peace gliding within a feline foreverness…

Read More:

Wikipedia | Catland: an introduction to Louis Wain | Google Images