Making The Cut edit

New edit of myself creating my latest paintings for my recent solo show at The Arches, Glasgow.

Carbon & Chemicals Show #2

It has again been a crazy few days, before I begin on the madness that was The Nottingham stop of the Xynthetic Carbon & Chemicals tour here is a couple of commissions I finished recently.



So the Nottingham show opening was on Friday 21st of March so I drove down with all my work the day before to meet up with Gav Strange, Pone and Dan and Norm from Waste at their studio which was a pretty cool place.



Norm with his printing gear on.



Arty farty photo of Pone.

Dan and Norm still had plenty of work to do to get their screen prints done so Gav, Pone and myself headed off to Ikea to get some supplies. Gav may look like he was in a stressed mood but he wasn't really, we were getting a bit carried away in ikea with all the cheap goodies they have giving us ideas for the layout of the show.



We returned to the gallery with frames and candles after a detour to Derby thanks to Pone's navigation skills, time was passing fast but we got all the work out and some of the prints frames ready to hang before Gav and I headed over to his to make a start on getting the photos clipped together.





Prints by Waste




Gav and I stayed up until after 1am clipping Lomo photos together whilst watching the last episode of The Sopranos but I struggled to sleep so I woke up at 4am and finished clipping all 500 photographs together.

3 hours later and it was time to head to the gallery to get set up, which was locked up and we had to wait up in the studios until Norm showed up.



Getting our 'Dragons Den' steez on.



And so the hanging began, with so much to hang and do everyone had a job to do.









All was going so well until a pipe from the the toilets above the gallery burst cause a shit load of water to go all over, thankfully nowhere near the prints or artwork but still. It was strange that Gav didn't seem to show any signs of panic compared to setting up other shows, I went kind of silent for a bit with "WHAT THE F*@k!!!" shouting in my head.





Thankfully it was sorted soon and Nom could start setting up the projector with the 8mm footage played on one of the two brand new DVD players that Jonny bought, he got two cause the first one was broken right after he bought it and then replaced with another broken one. An electric shock or two later and we got it running.



Finishing touches before show time.



The Goody Bags for the first 30 visitors.



Big G dawg labeling the work.



And so we were ready to rock and roll.

The Decks.



Waste Prints



RichT painting



Gav's print



Pone's print



Pone's other print



Deck by Waste



RichT Deck



My Deck



Mr Jago's Deck



Pone's Deck



Pone's other Deck



Deck by Waste


It was not long before the crowd started to get bigger and enjoy the fine beer and wine that was complimented by some classic beats mixed by ED 209.









Some live art was happening as the party continued, Mr Jago, the Waste boys, Pone Gav and myself hit up the wall throughout the night. No stencil work for me sadly so I had to get my sketch on.











The finished product.



Signed



My attempt at a B-Boy stance, see what booze does to you kids.



Gav giving his thanks to the crowd.


Then off to The Orange Tree for even more drinking action and a great way to end the night.

Jonny and Gav showing there was love in the room



Dean and Gaz



Pone and his lady



And so that was the opening night of the second Carbon and Chemicals Show, the next one os only just round the corner down in Bristol at Workshop, hope to see you there if you are in the area. Nottingham was a great show and thanks to Gav's parents and Norm for putting me up for the two nights I was down.

The Opening Night

After so many hours of cutting and spraying it came to the point where I could do no more as the opening night of my solo show at The Arches was upon me. As well as a few older paintings featured in my Bristol show I created new paintings of my home city of Glasgow shown below.
There are more photos than text in this update for your viewing pleasure and I am in the process of making an edit of the build up and opening night so look out for that.


'Central Tracks'


'Paddy's Jeans'


'Through The Wire'


'Aston Lane'


'Escape on Church Street'


'Back Alley'



So Friday the 7th of March was the opening night and I was asked to hang the work first thing in the morning, getting up nice and early I headed off to get the van I rented for the day. The rain was not shy that day but I made it to The Arches to hook up with my friend Mike Amato of UpUp Design and the legend that is Rob Gunn who drove 100 miles to help out, thank you both so much for all your help.



The space.



The Arches is situated under the platform of Glasgow Central Station and has three of these tunnels acting as a club/gig space and below this area is a restaurant/cafe bar.
We unpacked the work and began to get an idea of where the work was going to hang and how which took the longest time especially figuring out how to support the weight of 'Central Tracks' but thankfully Rob has a good knowledge of knots.







Mike took most of these pics, the one below was a favourite of ours.







Not much light in in the space other than the spot lights for the paintings.



Rob showing his mad skills with knots.





Finally we got everything hung and cleared up with a couple of hours to spare, 'Central Tracks' was a tough one but we got there in the end.



I loved the way the paintings seemed to almost hover off the brick wall and as the venue is dark all the lights were focusing on the paintings. Perfect.













And then it was 6pm and the people just kept coming through the doors greeted with a whiskey.














The space became overflowing with bodies, finger foods and drinks, it really was a good opening night, an overwhelming night for me infact and I thank everyone who made it to the opening night. If you didn't make it the show is on until the 9th of April and I would like to thank Mike and Rob as well as Lj for all her help in making the show happen.