'Transmission Members Show' Glasgow - July 2013
'brush'
digital photograph,
Nikon D50
2013
digital photograph,
Nikon D50
2013
'Earth Hour' 23rd March 2013
lightworks
'Postgraduates exhibition' March 2013
'receptacle' installation
beeswax, soil, jute string, wood frame, and organic essential oils (frankincense, rosemary, rosehip seed)
beeswax, soil, jute string, wood frame, and organic essential oils (frankincense, rosemary, rosehip seed)
February 2013
landing
January 2013
supporting structures
golden section - April 2012
NATURE
Adolf Zeising, found the golden ratio expressed in the arrangement of branches along the stems of plants and of veins in leaves. He extended his research to the skeletons of animals and the branchings of their veins and nerves, to the proportions of chemical compounds and the geometry of crystals, even to the use of proportion in artistic endeavors. In these phenomena he saw the golden ratio operating as a universal law, in 1854 said
"the universal law in which is contained the ground-principle of all formative striving for beauty and completeness in the realms of both nature and art, and which permeates, as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures, forms and proportions, whether cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or optical; which finds its fullest realization, however, in the human form"
Many of his studies were followed by Gustav Fechner and Le Corbusier, who elaborated his studies of human proportion to develop the Modulor.
PAINTING
The drawing of a man's body in a pentagram suggests relationships to the golden ratio.
The 16th-century philosopher Heinrich Agrippa drew a man over a pentagram inside a circle, implying a relationship to the golden ratio.
Leonardo da Vinci's illustrations of polyhedra in De divina proportione (On the Divine Proportion) and his views that some bodily proportions exhibit the golden ratio have led some scholars to speculate that he incorporated the golden ratio in his paintings. But the suggestion that his Mona Lisa, for example, employs golden ratio proportions, is not supported by anything in Leonardo's own writings.
De Divina Proportione (1497)
Two versions of the original manuscript are extant, one in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, the other in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire in Geneva. The subject was mathematical and artistic proportion, especially the mathematics of the golden ratio and its application in architecture. Leonardo da Vinci drew the illustrations.
The book consists of three individual manuscripts which Pacioli worked on between 1496 and 1498.
The first part, Compendio Divina Proportione, studies and describes the Golden ratio from a mathematical point of view and also studies polygons. The work also discusses the use of perspective by painters such as Piero della Francesca, Melozzo da Forlì, and Marco Palmezzano.
The second part discusses Vitruvius ideas on the application of mathematics in architecture.
The third part, Libellus in tres partiales tractatus divisus, is mainly an Italian translation of Piero della Francesca's Latin writings On [the] Five Regular Solids ("De quinque corporibus regularibus") and mathematical examples.
The book contains illustrations in woodcut after drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo drew the illustrations of the regular solids while he lived with and took mathematics lessons from Pacioli. Leonardo's drawings are probably the first illustrations of skeletonic solids which allowed an easy distinction between front and back.
Salvador Dalí, influenced by the works of Matila Ghyka, explicitly used the golden ratio in his masterpiece, The Sacrament of the Last Supper. The dimensions of the canvas are a golden rectangle. A huge dodecahedron, in perspective so that edges appear in golden ratio to one another, is suspended above and behind Jesus and dominates the composition.
Mondrian has been said to have used the golden section extensively in his geometrical paintings.
The drawing of a man's body in a pentagram suggests relationships to the golden ratio.
The 16th-century philosopher Heinrich Agrippa drew a man over a pentagram inside a circle, implying a relationship to the golden ratio.
Leonardo da Vinci's illustrations of polyhedra in De divina proportione (On the Divine Proportion) and his views that some bodily proportions exhibit the golden ratio have led some scholars to speculate that he incorporated the golden ratio in his paintings. But the suggestion that his Mona Lisa, for example, employs golden ratio proportions, is not supported by anything in Leonardo's own writings.
De Divina Proportione (1497)
Two versions of the original manuscript are extant, one in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, the other in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire in Geneva. The subject was mathematical and artistic proportion, especially the mathematics of the golden ratio and its application in architecture. Leonardo da Vinci drew the illustrations.
The book consists of three individual manuscripts which Pacioli worked on between 1496 and 1498.
The first part, Compendio Divina Proportione, studies and describes the Golden ratio from a mathematical point of view and also studies polygons. The work also discusses the use of perspective by painters such as Piero della Francesca, Melozzo da Forlì, and Marco Palmezzano.
The second part discusses Vitruvius ideas on the application of mathematics in architecture.
The third part, Libellus in tres partiales tractatus divisus, is mainly an Italian translation of Piero della Francesca's Latin writings On [the] Five Regular Solids ("De quinque corporibus regularibus") and mathematical examples.
The book contains illustrations in woodcut after drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo drew the illustrations of the regular solids while he lived with and took mathematics lessons from Pacioli. Leonardo's drawings are probably the first illustrations of skeletonic solids which allowed an easy distinction between front and back.
Salvador Dalí, influenced by the works of Matila Ghyka, explicitly used the golden ratio in his masterpiece, The Sacrament of the Last Supper. The dimensions of the canvas are a golden rectangle. A huge dodecahedron, in perspective so that edges appear in golden ratio to one another, is suspended above and behind Jesus and dominates the composition.
Mondrian has been said to have used the golden section extensively in his geometrical paintings.
bear - February 2012
blue square - January 2012
hands aren't finished with the light
prop
stills from 'probe' - an experimental video piece lost on an old hard drive
Pet Portrait Commissions - Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the central Scotland belt area.
A variety of images can be taken from observing and interacting with all kinds of pets - from cats to snakes and all creatures great and small inbetween. I seek to add to my photography portfolio with a collection of animal portraits. Here's the inspiration behind it all, pictured left, Dollie the cat, a tuxedo shorthair.
Email me if you would like a Pet Portrait taken.
[email protected]
A variety of images can be taken from observing and interacting with all kinds of pets - from cats to snakes and all creatures great and small inbetween. I seek to add to my photography portfolio with a collection of animal portraits. Here's the inspiration behind it all, pictured left, Dollie the cat, a tuxedo shorthair.
Email me if you would like a Pet Portrait taken.
[email protected]
September 2011
As part of the 'Vault Art' fair in Glasgow this September (2011) I designed a flag that joined 14 fellow artists' designs upon a series of silk scarves, bunting and tote bags printed and produced by 'Bespoke Atelier' commissioned by 'The Mutual' co-operative for which the flags were designed.
You can purchase one of the gorgeous silkscarves via the Culture Label online shop
http://www.culturelabel.com/silk-scarf.html
Below image:
the flag I designed for The Mutual scarves, bunting and tote bags collaboration with 14 fellow artists.
Happily this image also appeared in the
September 2011 issue of
'The Skinny ' newspaper :)
September 2011 issue of
'The Skinny ' newspaper :)
Below are some images of the scarves, bunting and bags on The Mutual stall at 'Vault art fair.
Work produced as part of ' Vault Art' fair in Glasgow 2011
right image - is the final piece of work entitled 'Buddleja & Chips'
which appears in a pamphlet produced by The Mutual Glasgow.
which appears in a pamphlet produced by The Mutual Glasgow.
about 'Buddleja & Chips'
A photographic series of colour digital slr photographs. This work was produced in response to a brief given by The Mutual collective in Glasgow for the Vault Art fair 2011.
I first approached this work by going to the east end fish market to see how it now exists, and to find a way of transmitting this moment exploring this place into an artwork. The idea of using something like a fish as an object aesthetically had appeal but lacked intrigue, so I sought to look at my own relationship with fish for further material. Going on a long walk beside the Clyde in the city centre to look around for environment triggers.
In amongst the discarded chippy boxes of white polystyrene that seagulls, pigeons and ravens forage into are hues of purple and yellow weeds and wildflowers. The purple ones are 'buddleja davidii' aka 'butterfly bush' or 'summer lilac' is a species of plant that grows in the most hardy conditions and has a honeylike smell that attracts butterflies and bees. It occurs in open and disturbed sites like railways, the edges of roads, walls, cliffs, building sites, wastelands and ruins.
It was after this walk I discarded including fish in this work, although making a sculptural fish supper did appeal but after trying out making fish it occured to me that it was what has happened since the fish market was at the Briggait that the work should be about.
Thus, I replaced the fish with a 'buddleja davidii' wherein I could juxtapose with the chips (sculpted specially for this work) to serve conceptually as symbolism of the everyday regeneration experiences of Glasgow. This work focuses on places left out of this where the buddleja and chippy boxes colonise. It's very much like the human behaviour of commercial developers who fastiduously build and expand shopping centres already filled with things that compete for our monetary faith. There are these plants that sprout where the land is left alone, and disappear where the land is covered by human concrete endeavour. An opportunistic nature that maketh us humans and plants not so different.
AUGUST 2011
WILDFLOWERS IN THE WASTELAND
A collection of photographs taken prior to creating the work above ('Buddleja & Chips'),
featuring yellow and pink wildflowers in a wasteland of west Glasgow.
featuring yellow and pink wildflowers in a wasteland of west Glasgow.