It was such a massive massive (massive!) relief to actually get to hang a painting or two on an actual white wall after all this time! X Marks The Spot and a last minute Xmas flavoured pop in show. There wasn’t really time to do more than grab the last minute opportunity pretty much a solo thing, the Shipton Street space is only a short walk from my East London studio (it is only a little thing that people should only visit if they can safely walk there). And yes whenever I do something solo, I do like to give a little space to guest artists. It is mostly a case of my recent Ten paintings, fresh leaves, fruit, skylines, pomegranate  and some of what I have been painting this year though. The guest artists this time are painter and I guess sometimes fashion designer Susan Diamond and (power pop) musician and sometimes photographic collage maker Pete Bite. A carefully policed masked-up socially distanced event (although some did object to masks and thus weren’t allowed in). it really was mostly about the sanity of putting some art on a wall and exhibiting it, to be able to see some of the Ten paintings that have up to now just been painted and then sold on line, to actually stand back and see them on a gallery wall (I really did need that)

There has now been just over 150 of the daily concluded 10cm square Ten paintings, around 100 of them have already left the studio via the magic of the on-line shop and mailorder, I really did need to see some of them together on a wall in a gallery before they too were gone. The  open-ended series does go on and after ten months it really was a relief to get out of the studio and show some of them alongside some of the other recent pieces of art.  

Of course the weather was awful, of course we couldn’t have an opening night and all that that involves but it was a relief, it is hard to keep painting day after day and then just put the finished painting on the shelf with the others. And yes! There is a desperate need to make money and sell art to pay the rent and the rest of the bills now (at least you musicians have Bandcamp!). The rain poured, the wind blew, the demand for masks caused friction, but it was such a massive relief to just get to put some art on the wall for at least one weekend (or maybe two, not clear where we stand for weekend number two right now).

Here’s a badly photographed image or two, do click on a photo to enlarge or to run the slide show… 

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