Somehow we’ve tumbled into an alternate dimension where id-iom are the only name in the art world and we’ve had to resort to writing inspirational messages to ourselves to try and keep it real. ‘Never forget your roots’ we tell ourselves as we think about dropping the cardboard piece on the streets like we used to do then realise we could make far more with a celebrity auction in LA.
We’ve all seen it happen to celebrities – first they start off humble and happy to be on the national stage but slowly they morph into globe-spanning self-facilitating media nodes. Well, despite our dip into another dimension it’s not happening to us. We remember our Manx roots. For now at least…
“I’m surprised that no one’s mentioned yet that the reductive quality of the purity of line seems very disturbing in light of the eloquence of this piece” said the The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator when I asked it about this work. A truer word has never been spoken. Probably. No one really knows what the spheres are up to anyway so it’s as good a guess as any.
This piece was done in collaboration with the inimitable @background_bob. Cheers for letting us get involved and best of luck with the project!
I thought I’d give myself a bit of a mission and cut a striped halftone image (if that is what such a thing is called). It did not go entirely to plan. You can see what I intended to cut and you can see what the final outcome was. The work all got a little bit fine and some of the bridges didn’t hold.
Not to worry. Everyday is a learning day. And I’ve just learned that I don’t like cutting striped halftone images. Onwards and upwards… Cheers
In my mind there’s not much creepier than a disembodied doll’s head staring at you blankly with it’s huge eyes as you walk quietly by minding your own business. So I think if our goal was instil a sense of disquiet in you then perhaps we’ve succeeded.
I’d really love to know our intentions when this was created. Unfortunately we’ll now never know as those reasons have been lost to the mists of time. All we’ve got is this so it’s time to spread the love..
So we have decided to revive a bit of graffiti that was found all over the Isle of Man when we were growing up and bring it to the mean streets of London. FSFO apparently meant ‘Financial Sector F**k Off’ and was daubed on walls in the 80’s purportedly in response to the increasing growth and power of the Island’s burgeoning finance sector. Personally I always preferred the other definition of the acronym- which was that it stood for ‘Free Sex for Onchan’ (which is a small town on the Island) and the idea that sexual liberation was one thing they were willing to fight for. FSFO!
I realise this picture is a little saucy but then again we are going to need it if we are going to win the campaign for ‘Free Sex For Onchan’. It is a simple yet profound piece about sex with Onchan’s new motto emblazoned proudly across the top. In fact that’s given me a thought. Maybe we should have got some rainbow colours on there?…
You’ve heard of Tupac? Well here we’ve got Tenpac. The origins of Tenpac Shakir remain a mystery, even to us, who (assumably) created him.
He was just there one morning after an evening which ended in an agreeable state of inebriation. We felt he was too bad to live but too young to die so we decided the only decent thing to do was leave him on the street to fend for himself. The hanging 10 pack sign is a nice touch that we somehow pulled off pretty well all things considering…
You know those rare occasions when you’re on tip top form and nothing can possibly stand in your way? You may even be in just your underwear like our celebrant.
Well, we thought we’d try and impart that feeling of ‘looking good, feeling good and talking fun stuff’ into as many people as possible with this placement. A bus stop seemed as good a place as any. If it brings just one smile to one face then I figure we’ve won. I can’t imagine this one will last very long in situ however…
‘If there’s hell below, we’re all gonna go’ sang Curtis Mayfield on his 70’s soul classic. If he’s right I guess I’ll see you down there at some point…
For our second street drop we were determined to find somewhere that would take a good shot and we lucked upon the red tags so just whacked it up right over the top, took a snap and let it get on with it’s new life.
Sometimes you have to go searching for inspiration and sometimes the inspiration comes to you. There I was quietly biding my time whilst waiting for dinner when my housemate pops in to the lounge with a load of scraps of coloured paper from a project she was doing with some children. That was enough to get the muse engaged. Bored with painting in the traditional sense I decided to get out the PVA, the scraps of craft paper and some cardboard and go a little off piste for the day. ‘Happy and Happy’ is the result.
Now, Arthur (for that is his name) might look like he’s just done 10 rounds with Mike Tyson but that’s just makeup as he was at Carnival all weekend and hasn’t been to bed yet. He’s currently very happy with it all. Although I’m not sure how he’ll be feeling later…
My cat is sad because I had to swap her for a woodend stunt cat as she wouldn’t sit still long enough for my highly amusing photo shoot featuring a cardboard lion. Now she just stares listlessly out of the window thinking about the time she almost became a bigger internet star than Maru; the cat who will attempt to sit in any size box. Her sadness is compounded by fact that was irked by my repeating the mantra ‘big cat little cat cardboard box’ whilst setting up the shot and now she can’t get it out of her head.
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