Another piece left under another bridge…

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#365ArtDrop18 – 365/16, a leaf left in East London

Another #365ArtDrop18 piece – 16/365 – A leaf painted, the 16th of 365 artdrop pieces that, all being well, will happen in 2018, a 16th piece painted on and in a recycled found frame, a small red frame that had a photo in it and the glass still intact when I found it and pulled out of a skip and hopefully rescued from landfill. The frame is now black, the glass cleaned up, a leaf has grown inside it and…. And last night it was left hanging on a wall under another bridge in East London, left there on the way home from a rather impressive Lennie Lee exhibition, left hanging next to a Thierry Noir piece for someone to take should they wish to. The hashtag is on the back, will it be taken? Will the hashtag be used? Will it find a home or will it end up in landfill anyway? The hashtag is important, we would like to know where these pieces go, I believe part five is now somewhere in Belgium? 

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#365ArtDrop18 – 365/10, a leaf left in East London

Part ten, a pieces painted on a block of wood, was left under a different railway bride a few days back, part fourteen was left by a cash machine in East London on the same day. Part thirteen, fifteen and seventeen are still in my bag waiting for the right time and place, there’s a couple of dozen finished pieces waiting to be numbered here in the studio, waiting for the spring to kick in and weather to be more in line with the notion of hanging art out on the street without it being blown away.  I anticipate an outburst of drops as soon as Spring arrives (I can’t move in my studio).

Click on an image to enlarge or to run the fractured slide show

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The art of dropping art, the latest parts of a year-long piece of work…

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The art of dropping, the ongoing notion of (another) year-long piece of art in 365 parts, 365 paintings on things found on the street, things recycled, reclaimed, saved from landfill, used as a canvas, painted on, and then left back out there, hung back out there on the street for people to take should they wish to.  And as we’ve said before, people taking part, posting photos of themselves with their found pieces is a big part of this piece of work that, all being well, will go on throughout the year.  Today several pieces were carefully places (never dropped) around East London – 365 will go out this year, that doesn’t mean one a day,  today six were left out there, tomorrow there might be more, they’ve been building up here in the studio waiting for decent weather…

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#365ArtDrop18 – 365/6, a leaf left hanging in East London

#365ArtDrop18 6/365 – A leaf or two left, the 6th of the 365 artdrop pieces of 2018, this is another of the daily concluded paintings from 2017 painted on a recycled piece of hardwood and now left on a street corner in East London for someone to take should they wish to.

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#365ArtDrop18 – 365/7, a leaf left hanging in East London

#365ArtDrop18 7/365 – A leaf left, the 7th of 365 artdrop pieces of 2018, painted on a recycled piece of hardwood and now left on a street corner on Brick Lane, East London on a busy Sunday afternoon…

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#365ArtDrop18 – 365/8, a leaf left hanging in East London

#365ArtDrop18 8/365 – A leaf left, the 8th of 365 artdrop pieces of 2018, painted on a recycled piece of hardwood and once again left on a street in East London for someone to tale should they wish to, left on Fashion Street actually, a street covered in paste up pieces…

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#365ArtDrop18 – 365/9, a leaf left hanging in East London

#365ArtDrop18 9/365 – A leaf left, the 9th of 365 artdrop pieces of 2018, painted on a recycled piece of hardwood floorboard picked up off the street in Hackney and now left back out on a street in East London for someone to tale should they wish to do just that

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#365ArtDrop18 – 365/11, a leaf or two left in East London

#365ArtDrop18 11/365 – A leaf left, the 11th of 365 artdrop pieces of 2018, painted on a recycled block of wood and now left on a window ledge on street just off Brick Lane, East London for someone to tale should they wish to (number ten is still in my bag, I expect it will find a wall tomorrow)
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#365ArtDrop18 – 365/12, a leaf left in East London

#365ArtDrop18 12/365 – A leaf left, the 12th of 365 artdrop pieces of 2018, painted on a recycled hardwood piece of floorboard, a rather big piece of board, and left hanging on a wall in East London for someone to tale should they wish to, which indeed they did, we just this second saw a photo left by someone called Kitty Kat on Instagram..

 

Click on an images to enlarge or run the fractured slide show of this Sunday’s drop action….

of dropping things, the ongoing notion of a year-long piece of work in 365 parts. 365 paintings of things found, recycled and

 

One piece of work in 365 parts, a year-long piece of work and the notion, once more, of 365 pieces carefully dropped…

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#365ArtDrop18 5/365 – A leaf left, the 5th of 365 artdrop pieces of 2018

One piece of work in 365 parts, a year-long piece of work and the notion, once more, of 365 pieces carefully dropped.  365 things picked up off the street, things saved from skips, piece of wood, frames, unwanted canvas, pieces of vinyl too scratched to play, and when things like that are thrown out then leaves will grow on them.  Another 365 Paintings on things found, things recycled, painted on, and then left back out there on the street again for people to take should they wish to.

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A #365ArtDrop piece from 2016 found

This year the hashtag on the back of the pieces is #365ArtDrop18 and once again as it was with the year-long piece in 2016 the hashtag is there for people to engage with the piece of work. Once again people are encouraged to post photos of themselves with the pieces they choose to take, encouraged to post on social media and use the hashtag, we’re looking to see where the pieces have got to this time and the photos of people with their pieces are very much part of the year-long piece again .  In 2016, pieces left most in London ended up hanging on walls in homes, bars, galleries and more all over the globe.  Why do it again? Well why not? the 365ArtDrop piece is 2016 was extremely rewarding, engaging, I found it exciting, I think others did as well, the e.mails and message suggest to us they did. There’s a certain pleasure to be found in hanging art on the street rather then in a gallery, why only do it once?

This year’s piece is under way then, pieces are being hung, never dropped, always carefully hung, placed, it isn’t one piece a day, it might be that several “drops” happen on a particular day and then nothing for a week, we’re not going to leave pieces out in the win and rain, I expect an outburst of pieces out there once winter starts to finally give way to spring, there’s a build up of pieces painted in January waiting for a decent day when they can be hung out with being blown away.  Some of the pieces will be newly painted pieces, some of the drops might be paintings from last year, some will have been painted on the same day that they’re dropped, all will have been painted on material picked up from the street, material recycled, things that were heading for landfill.  A year-long piece of work then, a piece of work in 365 parts, please do use the hashtag, the engagement is an important part of this piece….

Click on an image or to fun the slide show…

 

 

Found it at the welfare store, the war on perfection, surely painting is about the flaws, the energy of paint?

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SEAN WORRALL
Found it at The Welfare Store (2018)
Acrylic, spray paint, brushwork, gloss varnish on found canvas (125cm x 90cm) detail 

What is it about “perfection”? Surely it has to be about the beauty of paint? Surely it has to be about the emotion of a mark, about the flaw, the imperfection? if you want perfectly applied flat colour go get a graphic designer or better still, a computer. If you want your artists to be sterile and “perfect”, if you want slickness over soul then you loose the glory of a drop or a scratch, the energy of a mark made in that instant right there when palette knife sliced through or the brush slashed canvas, if it all becomes about slick technique rather than emotion then count me out. All these art galleries full of slick graphic design and people pouring over pieces looking for tiny “mistakes” in the painting. I want “mistakes”!, I want texture I want the celebration of paint, the humanity of a mark made in the excitement of the moment, I want to see the movement of at the mark maker, that instant discussion, that emotion committed, that gamble, that risk taken, the pure pleasure of painting, that pleasure found i moving paint and playing with colour. “Why don’t you ever paint properly?” he said as he closed in. I love paint, I love the way it moves, I love the way it reacts, the way it challenges, the way the paint defies you, dares you. If you want “perfect” then don’t come here, slickness is the enemy of art, is you want to anally pour over a bit of soulless graphic design this isn’t the place for you, paint is a glorious thing, art shouldn’t be perfect, painting is about emotion, why would anyone want perfectly flat colour?

This piece has been evolving since the start of the year, a piece called “Found it at The Welfare Store” (2018)Acrylic, spray paint, gloss varnish on found canvas (125cm x 90cm). The canvas was found in a skip in Hackney last year, and when a canvas is thrown out then leaves and layers will grow on it, sometimes starz will as well (with a z of course, you’ve rock six times), the canvas had very little painted on the front of it but quite a bit written on the back. It was exhibited at the Intent show last week, I imagine nothing else will grow on it before it gets to be in a show again, but then a painting is never quite finished until someone takes it away.

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SEAN WORRALL
“Found it at The Welfare Store” (2018)
Acrylic, spray paint, brush work, gloss varnish, on found canvas

And so both parts of the Intent exhibition happened, the intent of an artist-led show at the start of the year…

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intent_opening_50And so both parts of Intent happened, there’s a review or some thoughts and a whole load of photos of the work from the other artists involved as well as the people who came and packed the gallery out last week. Intent (part two) happened, art excited, performance took place and well, read all about it over on the Organ pages  –   ORGAN THING: Highwaymen, circles and some sympathy for the devil, the intent of an artist-led group show in a basement in East London…    The thing about an art show in the heart of Dalston, a show just a minute up the road from all the beautiful noise and all the chaotic colour of Ridley Road Market, is that it feels so deliciously real in this part of town. No fancy coffee shops here, just people, people and people,… read the full review and explore the album of photos over on the Organ pages where are gets covered on a daily basis, read and see lots lots more here.

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Here’s some images in terms of the art I had in the show, I imagine I shall write down a thought or two in terms of the curating and the selecting and the hanging of it all on the Cultivate pages in the next day or two, something about how artists need to work together a little more and how it can’t always be left to just a couple of people to be the ones doing all the work and sharing the information and making things happen…

Click on an image to enlarge or run the slide show and get a flavour of my part in the show…

 

43 Paintings, 43 CD sized paintings…

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43 Paintings on cardboard CD sized envelopes, 43 paintings painted together, 43 pieces painted at the same time. the beauty of mass production and the repeating of an image.  Acrylic, brushwork, spraypaint, gloss varnish on glossy white cardboard, 13cm x 13cm, January 2018

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Back in the last century, besides being out there somewhere painting walls, writing zines, pasting things to things, we were running a rather busy record label.  One of the many releases was a label sampler called Organ Radio Eight (there were 21 Organ Radio compilations, there were the days before the internet really kicked in, things were still mostly physical), this particular release focused on the bands who were then releasing singles or albums via the label, it was 1999, running a record label was more exciting before the days of downloads.  We recent found a batch of the discs in the corner of the studio, too good to just throw in the recycle skip (nothing ever gets thrown out here, everything has a use), the discs nineteen tracks and a whole load of music that (mostly) still stands up nineteen years later. The label was always run in a defiantly underground alternative zine powered art-flavoured D.I.Y way, we’re still rather pleased with most of what it achieved.

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And so 43 glossy white cardboard CD envelopes were found, 43 blank white  cardboard CD envelopes. 43 blank canvas pieces were all painted together at the same time at the start of January 2018. Mass produced pop art flavours, red blue yellow and gold, black stars (and a disc that also feature my artwork). Each piece hand painted, numbered and signed on the back, each one with the CD and original insert inside. The 43 paintings/packages will all be on sale via the Cultivate on-line shop (and other outlets) with the discs inside.

Here in 2018 this one piece of work in 43 parts is about the paintings rather than the discs inside (damn fine disc inside though) . 

A leaf, #365ArtDrop18, a leaf left hanging in Hoxton, East London….

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A leaf, #365ArtDrop18 – 365/2 – a leaf left hanging in Hoxton, East London

A leaf – #365ArtDrop18 2/365 – A leaf left hanging, the second of 365 artdrop pieces of 2018, one of the daily concluded paintings of 2017 painted on a piece of found recycled hardboard and now left out by a door in Hoxton, East London left there for someone to take should they wish to do so