Couple Shower, Dressed in Light – Original (120cm x 100cm)
Couple Shower, Dressed in Light
Couple Shower, Dressed in Light is a large acrylic, painted on a 120cm by 100cm box canvas during 2014. At first I thought the figures where androgynous but it soon became apparent that they were male. The scythe in the sky? Well I wanted it set during a full moon, but as soon as I started to paint it in; there looking back at me was a scythe!
I don’t see it as foreboding. If anything I see as saying, ‘look I am here in the background, so make every moment count.’
A cavalcade of colour. This shower scene, cave painting, colorizes the grotto of rocks and water surrounding our two bathers. This shower scene, cave painting, colorizes the grotto of rocks and water surrounding our two bathers.
The Alan Mathison Turing Test -11101111000 or 1912
Alan Mathison Turing
The portrait of Alan Turing is not for sale for anything less than the asking price. The proceeds of the sale of this piece will go towards mental health, student and gay support charities.
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was a British pioneering computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, mathematical biologist, and marathon and ultra distance runner. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.
My title for the portrait is ‘The Alan Mathison Turing Test -11101111000. The number is his birthday in binary code and I asked for that to be used as the asking price for the portrait. The proceeds of the sale of this piece will go towards mental health, student and gay support charities. Now there are two ways to calculate this number…either take it at face value and pay £11101111000 or change the number from binary base 2 to decimal base 10 and end up with Alan Turing’s birth date of 1912. In my opinion the binary base 2 is the correct evaluation of this piece and the money would go towards charities and benefit individuals who work in difficult if not impossible conditions.
During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain’s codebreaking centre. For a time he led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic; it has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by as many as two to four years.
After the war, he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the ACE, among the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948 Turing joined Max Newman’s Computing Laboratory at the University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s.
Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, when such behaviour was still a criminal act in the UK. He accepted treatment with oestrogen injections (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death a suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is equally consistent with accidental poisoning.[8] In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way he was treated”. Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous pardon in 2013.
Moody Marty – Sure Does Have The Blues
‘Moody Marty – Sure Does Have The Blues’ is a 1m x 1m canvas of my dear friend Marty. It is painted in Windsor Blue, Titanium White and Mars Black acrylics. At present it is unframed although this can be accomplished here or at the purchasers prefered framers.
Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patti Smith striking one of her iconic poses. This painting was created after visiting an old friend a Patti Smith die hard, Debbi Marshal. The 1m x 1m acrylic uses Signal Black and white for the background and Paynes Grey and white for the subject.
Patricia Lee “Patti” Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses.
Called the “punk poet laureate”, Smith fused rock and poetry in her work. Smith’s most widely known song is “Because the Night”, which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen. The song reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978. In 2005, Patti Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, and in 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On November 17, 2010, she won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids. The book fulfilled a promise she had made to her former long-time roommate and partner, Robert Mapplethorpe. In Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Artists published in December 2010, she was in 47th place. She is also a recipient of the 2011 Polar Music Prize.
Bottled Matthew
Bottled Matthew
Bottled Matthew (30cm x 40cm) is a medium sized acrylic painting that shows the artist and his faults; drinking wine and chain smoking.
Birthday Boy – Bacon Roll
Birthday Boy – Bacon Roll
‘Birthday Boy – Bacon Roll’ is a small 20cm (w) x 28cm (H), self portrait translated from a photograph of my own son on his birthday. His birthday made me aware for the first time of the precious and all consuming love that one feels for ones children. The portrait I show here is ‘Bacon-ised’. (an homage to Francis Bacon’s distorted figures). I painted it as a bleak contrast to the photos of the birth of my own son. (see also the paintings of my son as ‘Dorian Grey.’)