Never mix Snakes with Crochet ....

Sadly this show has been cancelled - but there will be more next year.

In September Madame Fifi and I are putting on an exhibition at the Nucleus Gallery. We had great fun over the weekend having our photos taken for it.  Carl, the photographer, was excellent at negotiating children, dogs, snakes and vanity. The snake (a pampered pet, by the way if anyone is worrying) particularly liked Madame Fifi's crocheted dress and decided to make a home in it. Poking it head through the holes it got stuck and did not appreciate my efforts to free it. Let this be a lesson to you all - no matter how good an idea it seems at the time, never wear a live snake with a crocheted dress.

Marge Simpson trying to rescue the snake - you can tell I'm enjoying it.....

Our exhibition is called called Cock'n'Bull although the content, at the moment, is a bit.... how can I say? Fluid. That is, we haven't made much of it yet. 

But that is all part of the excitement. What will it be about...? What will be  in the show...? Will there be anything in it...? Anyway, here are the posters.

Madame Fifi,  with me as Victor Spinnylicker, the wicked circus ringmaster....!

The cover for our forthcoming country and western album .....

"I just can't stop, no matter how hard I try" ...

.... and that's the name of my next show, at The Deaf Cat (http://www.thedeafcat.com) on Rochester High Street. It starts on May 28th for 2 weeks and is mostly made up of drawings of 'Auntie Renee' my showgirl who just can't get out of the job.

There will also be a few of paintings of her ... if they're finished in time. Here are the works in progress.

There will also be some other drawings in the show, including this one 'Girl Boxer'.

An early warning for later in the year - on July 7th and 8th I'm taking part in the Medway Open Studios (http://www.medwayopenstudios.co.uk/). Opening my studio up will be interesting - at the moment it's full of old canvasses, broken brushes and a wide variety of chairs I never actually sit on. No visitor could get past the door so I'll have to clean up. There will be quite a few artists opening their studios along with me at the Nucleus Arts Centre in Chatham. It should be a really good event for anyone interested in contemporary art, whether to buy or just to take a look. 

Then, in September, Mam'selle Fi-Fi and I are having a show at Nucleus. I can't say what's in it because Mam'selle is likely to come up with some incredible and provocative pieces at the last minute but it will definitely be worth seeing! It's current title is 'Cock'n'Bull'  but I'll keep you up to date with it's development as we go along.

A Revolution: Part I

My first solo exhibition was last November at the Nucleus Gallery in Chatham. As I'd only been taking my art seriously for a year I was worried I'd been  ambitious to attempt to fill a gallery. (OK, it's easy to fill it, just with what? For a while I was very keen on the idea of just throwing all my sketches and scraps of paper into a heap in the middle and calling it 'Incineration).

I'd originally wanted to call it 'Piss like a Princess'. An childhood friend of mine was brought up by her mother to believe that all bodily functions were disgusting. The mother used to stand outside the bathroom door, listening to check her daughter didn't wee too loudly. If she could hear tinkling she'd shout 'Don't piss like a peasant, piss like a princess' at her. There's a whole conceptual show in that.

Well, one day I'll get back to that idea but I was sidetracked by my obsession with the French Revolution. Years ago I read Hilary Mantel's novel 'A Place of Greater Safety' which really obsessed me for a while (to paraphrase my favourite quotation from it - 'Marat has escaped from the building disguised as a human being' ). Then I came across Marge Piercy's novel 'City of Darkness, City of Light' which is about five women who played important roles within the revolution and yet are forgotten.

This novel was the real starting point for my show - the role of women in revolution. The role of women in the Arab Spring movements seemed so close to that of those French women from two centuries before. I started painting and without realising it, this became the theme of my show.