The paintings on this blog are written, not drawn. As the human face tells its story in the lines that write themselves on it, so the lines in these paintings tell their stories, though the style may seem clumsy.
For these paintings do not come from any Art School Tradition, are not professional or commercial. They come out of themselves, creating their own form out of the compulsion to craft and comprehend. Hopefully they make a distinct arrangement that demonstrates the existence of a coherent if unskilled style. Not naturalistic, not cartoon, not calligraphy, not abstract, not Real or Unreal, not anything as such, they are just Not Art, which is why I call them Plain Paintings, and leave it at that.
1) The painting above is called Storytime – Two girls listen to Daddy’s bedtime stories. (2004)
Sammy Eight-leg Spider
(“What Dear? Yes I know the wind is raging outside so I thought I’d start off with a storm to distract them!”)
The storm went swish-swash-swush. It was between the 3rd and the 4th season (“what do you mean,daddy?”)Well it’s the 20minutes between Autumn and Winter. It’s called Auter. So in that 20minutes Sammy 8legs Spider went out to see what he could see. Now his legs were very tired, being 8legs, because most people have 2legs, so it follows he was 4 times as tired. He borrowed 4 bicycles (“why did he need 4?”), because he’s got 4 pairs of legs. And he cycled past cars and busses and ships and aeroplanes because now he’s 4 times as fast (“But you said...”).Dont be worrying about that now, worry about this. He lost control and went into a wall because he had no arms to steer the bike, like this, see? Bang! (Squeeze and squeal).
That gave him a sore head. Then a big lorry splattered him flat as a sheet of paper. Bang! (Squeeze and squeal). Then the wind picked him up higher and higher so that he was very flat but also very big, big enough for air traffic control to pick him up on their radar too! He was blown over the mountains and motorways till the wind dropped him in the middle of a lake. When he touched the water he soaked up like a sheet of blotting paper and bounced back to himself, only a little bigger. And he was homesick but also worried because he had grown bigger and might frighten the children.
Luckily the morning sun was very hot and it shrank him back to his normal size, so he was able to creep back through the crack in the wall to see if the girls were asleep before curling up himself to dream of his great adventures. (“Which crack daddy? This one?”) Yes, that one. And mind you tell Mammy to leave him be in the morning if she finds him there. He had a tough time of it last night.
Harry Glueface Hamster
Longer than long ago, on a building site in south west London, as the last builder went home for the night, Harry Hamster climbed in through the window, crossed the floor and walked up the plank left behind, but there was a pot of glue in the way. He banged (squeeze and squeal) his head on the pot and it fell on top of him, covering him with glue. See that’s how he got his name, Harry Glueface Hamster (giggles).
But it doesn’t end there. He walked up the plank but he couldn’t see where he was going so he walked straight into the wall and banged (squeeze and squeal) his head again. As the plank fell to the ground he was left suspended like this (gestures),half way up the wall, wriggling.
Next day the builder returned and saw Harry stuck on the wall. He called in the Interior Designer who thought it looked rather good (posh accent), asking the builder to get 123 more Hamsters and 4 pots of glue. The builder asked Harry to help him by calling up relatives and friends on his mobile phone. (“Don’t be silly,daddy!” giggle). The builder put lots of planks against the wall and the next day 123 hamsters arrived, got covered in glue and then ran at the wall, banging (squeeze and squeal) their heads against it and sticking there, wriggling.
“Much better than wallpaper” said the Interior Designer, “Thankyou”.
Mind, there were no animals harmed in the telling of this story, just children! (Squeeze and squeal).
