I’ve been working on some new “Stick em Up!” works for a series of upcoming shows, This is by far the most ambitious one to date, 23 stencils and over 40 colours. I started this over a year ago and have been playing with the idea of gaffa taping objects to walls for a couple of years now…Then some loon in Basel Miami, stuck a banana to a wall and sold it for a ridiculous figure, and suddenly everyone was gaffa taping stuff to walls to take the piss. So i shelved the project waiting for the hoo-ha to die down. This is my reply.
Thankfully a couple of years ago we built a studio in the back garden, so when the news came of the Lockdown my work suffered less than many in the UK. i could still make stuff, but the thought of making a show that would probably not be seen, left me having to reevaluate what to make in these uncertain times. I settled on a series of experimental works using the motif of a kid painting smiles on well loved works of art. It kind of made sense to have these three rude kid characters , Astrid, Indigo and Edgar painting, stuck indoors like the rest of us.
I am sure i was not alone in taking to the bottle during lockdown. The news and social media streams confirmed it. During the drunken haze that was the first few weeks that included my wedding anniversary we were sent a two bottle box of wine to help us celebrate. The box was just too cute to throw away.
I didn’t want to do something 2d or canvas based, and with my only 3d gig Glastonbury cancelled (i am the art director Unfairground) i thought i’d try and make these little boxes into stage sets where i could pop these three naughty children and up cycle this little wooden box.
Each box has its own RGB remote control so that the lights can change to whatever colour you require, there are preset programs with fading , jumping and flashing between different colours. The back panel is laser cut wallpaper out of birch ply, The frames are 24k gold leaf. I will be making a small edition of each light. Video of them working to follow.
Excited by these cute little lamp works I’ve also made some larger scale wall based works, at the time of writing this only one is finished and i will be posting some more updates as they are finished. The below version has interchangeable works that you can swap out depending on your mood.
These will be one off works, still no idea how to show them, where they will be available. hopefully work that out when they are all finished. To get your name on a waiting list for the Lockdown wine boxes email seesix at gmail with the subject Lockdown wine box
Totally slipped my mind i hadn’t posted something on my whistle stop trip to Laos in February this year. Myself and Ben Eine headed off to Luang Prabang the religious capital of Lao on the Mekong River. Part of an ongoing art project at Nam Khan Project. Artists are invited to stay a week and make works inspired by the NamKhan Ecolodge. It’s a green sanctuary along the Namkhan river located in Luang Prabang, Unesco World Heritage city.
Surrounded by the farm, jungle and riding stables. A big thank you to the kitchen staff who cooked a storm up for us. Although they did owe me as i brought a top of the range ice cream maker with me from London and those things are NOT small…lol
Had a cracking week, Camping by the NamKhan. Boat trips up the Mekong, note to self, don’t jump off a moving boat in a fast moving river! Life there is so relaxed, the guys at the Lodge made everything possible. Hard to look at this as work at all, well fed , well watered and in the jungle by a river.
Guest house kitchen
Ben adding the outlines
accross the gardens
Otto lines out some William Morris wallpaper
Dog goes for a ride
We even managed to paint some pieces in town, a big thank you to Jean Marc and Danni for giving us the walls! A great trip out with a 13 hour stop over in Bangkok , meeting up with friends and trips to the tattoo parlour, what could of possibly gone wrong…just leaving this there.
Smile for the NHS jigsaw, available from tomorrow morning at 10am Saturday the 9th of April on sale for 10 days.
It’s hard to make a difference during the lockdown if your medium is the street. It’s like Christmas day out there all week! As any writer knows Christmas day and its deserted streets are a gift that keeps on giving. But should you as an artist take advantage of it? I did an early straw poll, a few posts online, at a half hinted enthusiasm for getting some new work out there; i was unsure, i did a peer review and found the answer was a resounding NO!
What could i do to help? What use is art on a deserted street anyway? “Why don’t you make a puzzle out of one of your works that people can do at home” the wife suggested. I could make it in halftone i thought and make it fiendishly hard, Burn some furlough hours round the kitchen table for those stuck at home.So i have, it’s an old Dotmasters favourite with a framed Mona Lisa with a blue NHS smile. Completely made out of half tone dots with very little help from the picture on the lid of the box.
Proceeds will be donated to the NHS and hopefully this 500 piece puzzle can help while away some time for those stuck at home. Music by The Buzzcocks.
We’ve been talking about painting this new container park development for a while now, Sheik Abdulla and i. Working out what to paint, where the finished works would go, it’s a new thing for this mountainous corner of the UAE… new ground, corrugated surfaces and a different type of vibe. It’s the first part on a series of works for Grove village that will grow year on year…Watch this space…Grove Village
So this is first solo show in Paris, it was in the mid 80’s i first saw stencil work on the streets, Nemo, Blek le rat and others. These heroes inspired me to take up the scalpel and paint on the street. Paris has always had a rich stencil history, from 1968 till today and it is a great honour to show in this city.
A bit about the show written by the gallery
“Mind in the Gutter” is the name Dotmasters gave this exhibition. It evokes for him dubious intentions, ambiguous actions, all these unsavory and yet jubilant things. Faithful to the vandal and provocative essence of urban art, this title captures the artists’ state of mind, who, jovial and lucid, enjoys taboos, contradictions, new gods and the absurdity of our contemporary lifestyles.
The exhibition offers several levels of reading: one can appreciate it as a pop, offbeat and impertinent visual experience or read in it an ironic critique of today’s society. Dotmasters develops the concept of “high-end waste” with brass sculptures of chanel paper bags. Through this realization, he takes note, reinforces and plays on the ambiguity between marketing and works of art, between single piece and disposable goods, between aesthetic value and commercial production.
Second theme dear to the artist, rebellious and cheeky cherubim populate the works of Dotmasters. Made from photographs of her nieces, nephews and friends, these stencils bring a mischievous and indocent hue to the exhibition. The turbulent and transgressive little angels who speak out or show their fingers to the spectator remind us of the joy that arises from disorder, the creativity generated by chaos and especially the importance of not being earnest.
Where there’s muck there’s brass, Painted cast brass sculpture
GCA Gallery PARIS – 2 place Farhat Hached – 75013 – Paris du mardi au samedi de 11h30 à 18h30 Tél : +33 6 09 07 75 99
Just back from Japan, i had a great time! First off a week in Tokyo with Gypsy eyes showing me around town, helping me find walls and the gallery Kawamatsu for a show on the 8th of October. I first visited Kawamatsu 4 years ago when i first had a show in Tokyo. The owner is a keen street art fan and had one of the only walls that you could paint legally in town. 4 years later i was exhibiting inside. Thanks to everyone who came, bought something and drank a little too much Asahi beer, it was a great night!
photograph Yuki Loroi
Finding walls to paint in Tokyo is tricky, Its a dense city with complicated wall ownership and a young appreciation of art on the street. However Gypsy eyes pulled it out of the bag with this stunning newly renovated cafe/bar soon to open calledKitsune (fox). A weird shape and full of windows with only the stencils i came with to work i think it worked. God knows it took us a couple of very long days to finish! Thanks to Taro who was an incredible help thorough out the week and to Murao who drove like a crazy man to get me around! Thanks all you made a fantastic visit!
address of the cafe
inside
outside
quick skateboard during the night.
