Exhibition - Blackpool and Beyond

Solaris Centre, New South Promenade, Blackpool, FY4 1BB
8.30 - 5.00 weekdays, 10.00 - 5.00 weekends
2nd to 27th November, Entrance Free

Blackpool is a town trapped between its history and its future, decay and regeneration. Familiar memories, fading signs, torn posters, peeling paint, cracked walls and crumbling façades. Happy memories fading into uncertainty.

The work is intended to provoke thought and ask questions about our history. A reminder of how easy it is to pass-by aspects of our everyday surroundings without even seeing them. The work could be seen as a metaphor for the way we view the older members of our community. Something decrepit and insignificant to be ignored and taken for granted. Rather than something valuable, to be respected, cherished and enjoyed.

I have been recording the changing face of Blackpool for many years. I find beauty and inspiration in the fading infrastructure and glitzy façade. My current work endeavours to capture the feeling of deterioration, dilapidation and decay that lays just behind the flashy frontage.

The work employs an intriguing mix of photography, digital interpretation and experimental fine art process.

You can view my work here www.alistairparkerart.com

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Tips For Artists Who Want To Sell

A quote from Time Out magazine 15th October......

• Generally speaking paintings with light colours sell more quickly thay paintings with dark colours.
• Subjects that sell well - Maddona and Child, Landscapes, Flower Paintings, Still Life (No morbid props like dead birds), Nudes, Marine scenes, abstract and Surrealism.
• Subject matter is important, it has been said that paintings with cows and hens in them collect dust. ....While the same paintings with Bulls and Roosters sell.

Interestingly one of the most common motifs at the Affordable Art Fair was cows ........

Affordable Art Fair

Suckers Tram

According to the Guardian the 2009 Affordable Art Fair proves to be a recession buster, sales exceed £100 million. Not sure how much of that is coming my way but Wills Art Warehouse managed to shift at least 4 of my pieces of work by mid-day Sunday, and the fair does not close till 6pm, so fingers crossed. The work proving most popuar was my Blackpool stuff, "Suckers Tram" was the first sale. You can see the work on sale at alistairparkerart.com.

Now it is off to Amsterdam for the next Affordable Art Fair, next week, more fingers crossed.

Frieze Art Fair 2009

My first visit to the London Frieze Art Fair was interesting and inspiring. Here is a video clip courtesy of Art Review which shows a few of the bits you may have missed, well I did.


Find more videos like this on artreview.com


By the way you can subscribe to Art Review and read the whole magazine online saving you a small fortune in subscription costs.

BIG DRAW EVENT- Video

BIG DRAW EVENT- Blackpool Art College

INVITATION
To ALL FE and HE students in ALL Departments
You are invited to take part in the BIG DRAW - MAKE A MARK event

Starts 10am Wednesday 7th October and will continue untill 15th October
at
GALLERY SPACE
Palatine Road Building

Draw, Scribble, Write, Doodle - Make a Mark

Drawing areas will be divided in to Male and Female
Alistair Parker is organising this event as part of a Feminist Studies assignment
This is an equal opportunities event

See images from the Make A Mark mural on Flickr

Exhibition - Accidental Art

Accidental Art - Layers of History: An unusual exhibition of mixed media pieces. Inspired by fading signs, torn posters and decaying buildings found in the local area. The work is mainly large format and uses recycled materials such as corrugated cardboard from cartons, newspaper, household paints. The project was triggered by my interest in the ephemeral impermanence of Street Art and draws a parallel with our inclination to ignore the elderly and their contribution to our life and history.

For many years I have photographed fading signs, torn posters, cracked walls and peeling paint. These images have now been incorporated into my artwork. I am fascinated by the layers of history represented by the urban landscape. The changing architecture, peeling paint, typography, fading and peeling layers of paint, torn posters all serving to portraying the passage of time, reflecting a history of which many of us know little.

Ever since man made his marks on the walls of a cave he has left evidence of history all around us. The work in this exhibition is based on the remaking of mans marks on the urban landscape. Using an experimental printing process which echoes the feeling of deterioration, dilapidation and decay. Likewise use of recycled corrugated packing cases as the ground for artwork adds further to the feeling of impermanence.

The work is intended to provoke thought and ask questions about our history, reminding us how easy it is to pass by aspects of our everyday surroundings without even seeing them. The work could be seen as a metaphor for the way many of us view the older members of our community. Something decrepit and insignificant to be ignored and taken for granted. When we should be considering them as a valuable members of the community and a reflection of our history.

The exhibition will be at the Village Walks, Art SpOt, off Teanlowe Centre Car Park, Poulton-le-Fylde, from 22nd September to 31st October, Monday to Saturday 9.00 am to 5.00 pm, entrance free.

If you are interested in exhibiting at Art SpOts send a CV and proposal to Alistair Parker.

Van Project

As part of the Professional Practice module for the second year of my BA Fine Art course I will be using this van to promote the Art SpOt at Village Walks Poulton and hopefully my "Art in Empty Shops" project.

The van is shown decorated with a piece of street art by B.Toy one of my favourite street artists. This will shortly be replaced with my own work.

Local Garage in Flames

Samsung NC10 Sound Problem

I have a Samsung NC10 netbook and it is brilliant. The sound however has driven me mad. The speakers are tinny but worst of all the sound was horribly distorted even with earphones. After much fiddling I eventually found the solution. I opened the Realtek Sound Effect Manager in Control Panel. Under the Sound Effect tab there is a Karaoke icon, make sure that there is no X showing in the circle. If there is click to turn off. Make sure all the equalizer sliders are on Max and the environment is set to or Padded Cell. Success sound back to normal!

Freaky Photographs

An exhibition of photographs of Victorian Fairground Freaks and other photographs from the archives of Liverpool Photographer and Tattooist William Turner together with work by local artist Alistair Parker. At the Village Walks Art Spot, off Teanlowe Centre Car Park, Poulton le Fylde, from 4th to 29th August, Monday to Saturday 9.00 am to 5.00 pm, entrance free.

William Turner (1869 - 1937) was a Tattooist and Photographer (above) in Liverpool at the turn of the century (1900) he was also my grandfather. He had a studio at 44A Lime Street in the heart of Liverpool. His clients were many and varied, from bare knuckle boxers to circus freaks. And he was tattooed from his neck to ankle.

This exhibition has been created from the remnants of his archives. A mixture of original glass negatives and photographs from my mothers photograph albums.

The exhibition is in three parts. A selection of Carté Visité, photographic visiting cards, which would have been given to him by his wide and varied clientele, in this case fairground "freaks".

A selection of personal studio photographs from the original half-plate glass negatives (plates). You will note that long before Photoshop was thought of he was experimenting with the ghostly effects of multiple exposures.

The three larger pictures are part of a project I am undertaking for my Fine Art degree using experimental printing processes. These images have been created from photocopies transferred using an experimental acrylic transfer process.

The original material, which was not in very good condition was digitally scanned. Retouching has been kept to a minimum as I feel the marks of time contribute to a unique history.

View the exhibition on Flickr

Photo Tampering Throughout History

An interesting article for the photographers by Hany Farid, Professor of Computer Science at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA.

• Photography lost its innocence many years ago. In as early as the 1860s, photographs were already being manipulated, only a few decades after Niepce created the first photograph in 1814. With the advent of high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and sophisticated photo-editing software, the manipulation of digital images is becoming more common. Here, I have collected some examples of tampering throughout history.

• Just days after Sarah Palin’s selection last August as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, a photo of a bikini-clad, gun-toting Palin blitzed across the Internet. Almost as quickly, it was revealed as a hoax — a crude bit of Photoshop manipulation created by splicing an image of the Alaska governor’s head onto someone else’s body. From start to finish, the doctoring probably took no more than 15 minutes. We review the impact of digital photo manipulation, and recent advances in digital image forensics to detect such manipulations. more........

Bring Street Art to Blackpool

As we are about to demolish most of Blackpool, in fact the demolition is well under way in the Northern Gateway area around Talbot Road bus station and the Station. May be we could take a leaf out of what has happened in other parts of the world and make use of some of the buildings before they bite the dust to host a major Urban Art Fest. I suggest Talbot Road Bus Terminus for a start, what do you think?

One particular example of such a Fest is at 11 Spring Street in New York, a building popular with Graffiti and Street artists was used to host a major event before it was renovated by the famous Wooster Collective.

Check out the video below and the Wooster Collection website here.

Vhills- Scratching the Surface Exhibition - Lazarides

I visited Lazarides Gallery in Soho last week to see an exhibition by Street Artist Vhils - Portuguese-born Alexandre Farto, age 21.In the context of current offering from the art work this is some of the most exciting and stimulating work I have seen in the past few years of hammering around galleries of all sizes and persuasion. As a fine art student I find Vhils experimental use of materials and media very exciting.

Of late he’s taken to creating works purely from in situ materials. Advertising hoardings are torn to make fresh images, and plaster drilled and chiselled away until the remaining relief forms the work. He is experimenting with ink and household bleach, rusting steel, stencils and industrial resins. His use of found material like old painted doors is particularly interesting. A far cry from graffiti and mindless tagging.

This is just a small sample of the work on display and I am afraid the photography does no justice to the original works which are both large and tactile. You really need to visit the exhibition, 3rd July to 1st August, so get a wriggle on.

Find more work here, this is also one of the best Flicker sites for Street Art.

Scratching the Surface by Vhils - Video

Even if you are not into the Street Art of Vhils this is a cracking example of the video makers art and well worth a watch.

Music - Gustavo Santaolalla Work by Vhils http://www.Vhils.com/

Books On-Line

As a student books become a way of life as a result I have strained tendons in my left wrist from hauling weighty tomes around. So the idea of being able to access my books on line is a very attractive one. I have been researching possible sources. Here is a list of initial contenders which I have yet to research fully.

Books.google.com
This a site I have used and works well. Also known as Google Book Search, there is a wide range of free book and magazine content, much of it downloadable. Occasionally they allow partial download of copyright restricted books. I found it good for contextual studies literature.

DailyLit.com
Out-of-copyright classics, most are free.

FreeBookSpot.com
A source of downloadable textbooks, saved as PDFs, meaning that unlike most electronic book formats, the diagrams and illustrations are preserved. Most take less than 60 seconds to download over broadband.

Worldcat.org
Find items in libraries near you, lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands more around the world. Results link directly into citation software such as Zotero.

World Digital Library
Libraries and archives from around the world have come together in a project to share their collections of rare books, maps, films, manuscripts and recordings on-line for free.

Project Gutenberg
The first and largest single collection of free electronic books. From Karma Sutra to David Copperfield.

Eureka moment - Figure/Ground

Interesting how Eureka moments pop up quite unexpectedly! I was browsing Robert Motherwells work "Premonition Open, with Flesh over Gray" in the Bernard Jacobsons Gallery, Cork Street, London the other day.

I am vaguly familiar with Motherwell from an essay I wrote about Pollock and Abstract Expressionism. I have to confess I had dismissed his work as boringly repetitive. When you have seen three black lines in a variety of configurations painted on a coloured background the tenth version becomes repetitive if not boring! However I had only ever seen his work in books and on the internet and a bit like recorded music it is no substitute for the live performance.

Casually if not disinterestedly perusing Motherwells large canvases on the walls of said gallery I was suddenly aware of the subtly of these black painted lines. I could hear the monaural Yorkshire tones of Norman Travis ringing in my ears, preaching the theory of the figure ground relationship. There it was in graphic reality, Motherwells subtle smudges of background colour across the ubiquitous black lines immediately presents the dilemma, which came first the blackline or the smudge of orange? Which was figure, which was ground?

Mall Galleries Exhibition - Update

Visited the Private View at the Mall Galleries, London on Monday 6th July to receive presentation of my runner up prize in the Daler Rowney " Make Your Mark" art competition.

The works were hung in conjunction with the RBA 7th National Students Art Exhibition. An interesting feature of the exhibition is that the work was displayed alongside work by members of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA). My work was hung alongside a Peter Blake! How cool is that.

Update: Robin Dukes was kind enough to give me a mention in his column in the Blackpool Evening Gazette this evening.

Fine Art Exhibition - 1st Year BA

Fine Art Exhibition by the 1st Year BA students from Blackpool Art School. At the Village Walks Art Spot, entrance off Queensway or from the entrance alongside the Post Office at the rear of Teanlowe Centre, Poulton le Fylde. The exhibition will run from 29th June to 31st July, Monday to Saturday 9.00 am to 5.00 pm, entrance free.

A wide range of work from the end of year show. Artists exhibiting include Alistair Parker, Sue McAuley, Ann Charlesworth, Sue Godsiff, Claire Heaton, Anton Byrne-Carter and Rebecca Armitage.

Channel 4 Life Class: Today's Nude

For centuries, artists have taken inspiration from the naked body. From Leonardo da Vinci to Lucian Freud, life drawing has always been a way to understand the human form and ourselves.

Bringing life drawing to the masses Channel 4 is running a series of 5 programmes "Life Class: Todays Nude" starting 12.30pm, 6th July and for the next 4 days.

This week-long series gives viewers an opportunity to learn to draw through five half-hour nude life drawing classes, one a day, with access to a renowned artist tutor in each, Maggi Hambling, Humphry Ocean, Garry Hume, Judy Purbreck and John Berger.

The audience is invited to pick up a pencil and use the class to develop their skill or interest in drawing at any level.

Drop-in life-drawing classes are being organised in London, Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester and Southampton...