A wall made entirely from old house-bricks found in the River Taff.
Margate t-shirts /
A series of printed t-shirts that reference the key businesses of my Margate youth (most of which aren’t there anymore), in the way people covet vintage stores selling old American utility workers shirts etc:
Brandybucks, Martell Press, The Kent Hotel, Pisces, The Cottage, Franks, Thorleys, Club Caprice, The Golden Curry, The Ship Inn, The Nayland Rock, Baba Kebabs, The Badge Shop…
Dreamytime Escorts /
A written agreement/contract to visit someone in their dreams and take them on an adventure.
Immigrants t-shirt /
A t-shirt boldly stating ‘IMMIGRANTS’ on the front of it, with illustrations of key/essential plants and vegetables now grown/growing in the UK that were imported from elsewhere.
Googie Signs /
A series of Googie-style signs designed for places/businesses that don’t exist (but sound like they might). Possibly then rendered in Blender or other-such 3D software.
“Dinosaur World”
“Jimmy’s Dogs and Valet”
“World of Chicks”
“Bowsher’s Automotive”
An artwork that is fascinating... /
A series of text poster-works describing disappointing artworks, such as…
“An artwork that is fascinating on paper, but that you don’t need to see once you’ve read about it.”
“An artwork that is fascinating on paper, but that doesn’t deliver in real life.”
Who Needs Enemies... /
Every episode of the US sitcom ‘Friends’ recategorised to describe what the episode truly contains, using the established format description of ‘The one with…’
Such as…
in S2E10 - The one with Russ - Monica begins dating ‘Fun Bobby’ again and the gang realise he’s an alcoholic (hence why he’s so much fun). So they convince him to stop drinking and he becomes boring, so Monica breaks up with him.
So, ‘The one with Russ’, gets recategorised as, ‘The one with judgement of an alcoholic’
Champagne /
A multi-screen video (wide-screen monitors, installed portrait, to create a tall tower of screens).
On the top screen is a full-frame shot of a flute of champagne standing on a tray. The tray wobbles, causing the flute to fall from the tray.
In slow motion, the flute falls towards the floor, moving from one screen to the next, until we see the glass smash on the floor.
Once it has come to rest, the audio of a room full of people cheering plays.
The end.
My Empire of Dirt /
A two part project/sculpture/installation, existing concurrently.
One part involves the purchase of a standard single burial plot in a cemetery. The plot is then dug, as if ready to receive a burial.
In the other part, the earth removed from that burial plot is exhibited as a mound in a room/gallery somewhere else (logically, within the same city/town).
Both spaces can be visited by the public.
Memory Tree /
An adolescent tree sapling planted as a communal public artwork, where local residents are invited to come and tie or chain items of sentimental value to it.
As the tree grows, the items will slowly become consumed by the expanding tree and become part of its fabric, forever. A living time-capsule.
Little Echo /
An architectural/housing development of a handful of Spanish-style bungalows/shotgun shacks set around a small body of water with a water-feature based on the hi-jets in Echo Park Lake, Los Angeles.
The artwork is the endeavour of building the bungalows and doing the landscaping, but once they exist they can be run as residency live/work studios and low-cost housing for artists.
Blackboards /
Fill a room/gallery with blackboards, so it looks a bit like an exhibition of Joseph Beuys blackboards from his lectures, but the diagrams on the blackboards are copies of blackboards from scenes in films, such as when Lieutenant Harris is writing on a blackboard in front of the new recruits in the first Police Academy movie.
Ceramic Heart /
Make some full-size human hearts out of clay and glaze them a bright, sticky, blood-red.
Piano Squawk /
Get a pianist to write the score from a short video I have of my daughter, aged about 2-years old, randomly pressing keys on a piano in the corridor of a local arts centre and making squawking noises to listen to the echoes.
Then have that score performed by professional musicians.
Etched Zine /
A hand-printed, hand-made, publication based on the aesthetic of Louise Bourgeois’ ‘He Disappeared into Complete Silence’.
A series of short autobiographical stories, typed on a typewriter, on the left hand page, with an etching that illustrates that story on the right hand page.
Include stories such as when my uncle went boat-fishing and caught a 6ft shark, but when he got home my auntie wouldn’t let him in the house with it, so he went to the local park and dumped the dead shark in the kids paddling pool.
Or when my family went on a package holiday to Spain and on an evening excursion my Dad got drunk with a friend he’d made on holiday and then proceeded to break into the coach that had taken us there. In the process, they turned on the windscreen wipers and couldn’t turn them off again, so there was just our two families sat on the coach waiting for everyone else to arrive back at the end of the night, with my Dad and his friend creasing up laughing about the windscreen wipers.
Or the time I was out playing in the ashes of a large bonfire with my brother and some friends and I picked up a breeze block and threw it and it hit my brother in the back of the head, so he ran indoors and told my Mum and Dad I’d thrown a lump of wood at him, and I thought it best not to correct him that it was a breeze block.
Or the time a teacher at school pinned my friend to the wall by his throat and pulled his fist back to punch him, before catching himself on, because my friend belched in class.
Or the time I was on a last train back from Birmingham with my wife and singer called Bob Catley walked past and I said, “Didn;t you used to sing for Magnum?” and he replied, '“Still do!”, so he sat with us until Burton-on-Trent where he was being met by Girlschool’s manager. But then after Burton-on-Trent, he reappeared, as he’d expected the doors on the train to open automatically and they didn’t, so he missed his stop.
Or the time I went to L.A. with my friend and we got drunk at The Rainbow on The Sunset Strip and had to get a taxi all the way back across L.A. to our hotel, Downtown, and whilst I ran up to the room to get the money to pay the taxi, the cab driver pulled a gun on my friend.
Or the time Patrick Smith and Nicholas Smedley had a fight at break-time and Nicholas Smedley spat in Patrick Smith’s hair.
Knuckleball /
Learn how to throw a knuckleball, as referred to in baseball.
“A knuckleball or knuckler is a baseball pitch thrown to minimise the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion.”
Luck Favours the Brave /
A single channel video/projection of a multi-multi-split-screen image containing film of matadors being gored by bulls.
Battle Jacket Fiction /
A ‘battle jacket’ (cut-off denim jacket covered in band patches worn by heavy metal fans) covered in patches of fictional heavy metal bands.
Hiraeth /
A digital screen/monitor attached to a computer showing every tweet, in real time, that contains the word or hashtag ‘hiraeth’ in it.
Hiraeth is Welsh word meaning a deep longing for something, particularly one’s home.
Often described as an untranslatable word, as there is no direct translation in English, I’ve just translated it for you.
Walk on the Wild Side /
A performance, that becomes a video, of the drummer from a Mötley Crüe tribute act riding on The Scenic Railway at Margate’s ‘Dreamland’ funfair, with their drum-kit strapped onto the ride, playing along to Mötley Crüe’s song, ‘Wild Side’.
The original video for the song famously features Tommy Lee playing his drum-kit in a hydraulic, revolving, cage.
As a former resident of Margate, employee at Dreamland, and (then) aspiring rock star, this work also contains autobiographical meaning.