So awesome to see the incredible Christopher Lee pick up the Bafta Academy Fellowship award. The quintessential British movie villain, from Saruman to Sith Lord, and of course for his many roles as Dracula in the Hammer Horror films. An incredible actor who has made an entire career from embracing the dark side. We at Freak Show salute you sir!
Just been sent the link to this nice little video of the work we did out in The Gambia as part of the Wide Open Walls project. It unfortunately doesn’t cover all the work out there, and they spelled my name wrong, but it’s a lovely little video non-the-less.
Posted in Art, Events, Nature, Stencils
Tagged Broken Crow, bushdwellers, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, Mysterious Al, The Gambia, Wide Open Walls, Xenz
There’s only 1 thing I love more than books, and that’s book covers, so I was pretty excited when the nice people at Stolen Space Gallery asked me to be part of their next group show ‘Never Judge…?’ In conjunction with Penguin books, the gallery will be filled with book covers created exclusively by a great list of artists and looks to be a great show.
Here’s my contribution, taken from one of my all time favourite books, War of the Worlds by H.G.Wells.
I wanted a simple but classic feel and decided to try my hand at a bit of paper cutting. Loved the process and the concentration needed and it’s something I’ll now be doing a lot more of in the future.
So if you’re in London and free on Thursday night, I’ll see you at Stolen Space. Click the image below for full details.
Posted in Art, Books, Events, Paper Cut, Sci-Fi
Tagged Book cover, H.G.Wells, Paper Cutting, Penguin Books, Stolen Space, War of the Worlds
First attempt at a pumpkin since I was a kid. Carved it whilst watching American Werewolf in London. What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
So I’m finally back from The Gambia after ‘curating’ the first every Wide Open Walls arts project. It was a tough few weeks, with many highs, plenty lows but the most important thing, lots and lots of incredible art.
I’m not sure where to begin with this one really, a million miles from anything I’ve been involved in before I’m not really sure what I expected. I guess I’ll start with the good stuff, the positives, because there was plenty of them. First of all, the team I got together was incredible, and I shall blow my own trumpet and sing their praises no end. It was a very tough job for everyone in many ways. The environment was challenging, the heat was relentless, humidity was high and sweat was never in short supply. Things were unpredictable out there, you never really knew what you was going to paint from one moment to the next and as soon as you’d finish one thing, you were guaranteed to have at least one villager leading you somewhere new to paint their compound wall or mud hut. It was difficult trying to keep everyone happy as there was so much wall space, all really spread out over quite a large area, we could only do so much, especially in such intense heat. But, with all that said, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, Matt Watkins, Mysterious Al, the Broken Crow boys and resident photographer Ian Cox handled everything that was thrown at them with such inspiring patience and professionalism that regardless of the problems we encountered, and there were quite a few, we were all able to stick together, help each other out and keep going.
The villagers we met and hung out with on a daily basis were also incredible. Friendly, kind and always ready to help in any way they could, even if it was just holding stencils or shaking paint cans. Not only did they make us all feel so welcome, they were genuinely excited and thankful for what we were trying to achieve.
It was an amazing thing to be a part of and an experience that I’ll never forget. I met some incredible people, made some fantastic friends, saw the most beautiful wildlife and worked out of my comfort zone. I painted pictures on trees, stood amidst a Baboon riot, saw snails as big as my fist and ate every night under the gaze of a barn owl who tried to shit on me.
Here are a few of my photos from the trip. I strongly suggest you head over to the Wide Open Walls Blog and the Flickr page for more amazing shots of what we did out there.
Posted in Art, Events, Graffiti, Nature, Painting, Photography, Urban art
Tagged Africa, Broken Crow, bushdwellers, Ian Cox, Kubuneh, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, Makasutu Culture Forest, Mysterious Al, The Gambia, Wallkandy, Wide Open Walls, Xenz
Decided to revisit an old friend and breath some new life into her for the W.O.W project. Thought it would be nice to give it an African twist and get it up and out there. I also quite enjoyed the process of seeing how my style has moved on slightly since I made the original back in 2008.
Here’s the new African version.
And the Original ‘Raven Haired’.
Posted in Art, Events, In the Studio, Stencils
Tagged Africa, Gambia, Raven Haired, W.O.W, Wide Open Walls
Was sent this photo today, the t-shirt is apparently being sold in Primark! I have a feeling this case can be placed into the ‘theft’ pile, I guess I could be wrong though.
Busy busy yet again and as a result my bloggage hasn’t been getting the care and attention it needs, poor bloggage. Still got a load of photos I need to sort out and upload to my flickr, more video footage I need to put together and if you haven’t noticed already, my website has been given a total redesign thanks to rndm.net which STILL needs more content and general ‘stuff’ doing. I’m hoping to start selling some very limited quality prints of some of my photography as well as some very affordable doodles, but all in good time. For something else is happening right now that is priority number 1, Wide Open Walls.
If you’ve been following the blog or my Twitter for some time you’ll know about this already but if you don’t (and you should), in a weeks time I’m flying out to The Gambia to transform the village of Kubuneh with spray paint in the hope of encouraging tourism to help with the poverty problems that the people over their struggle with on a daily basis. I’ve been curating the project alongside organiser Lawrence Williams of the Makasutu Culture forest and managed to twist the arm of 7 other artists who are also on board and ready to paint over a 2 week period.
The artists are Eine, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, Xenx, Mysterious Al and Broken Crow, need I say more? For more info and regular updates on the progress of the project PLEASE subscribe to the W.O.W blog and Facebook page and help spread the word about this incredible project. We really need everyones help on getting behind this so please tell your friends, spread the word and help the W.O.W project really get out there.
I’ll be updating this blog AND the W.O.W blog as often as I can whilst we’re out there to keep you all updated on how it’s going and include you as much as we can on the journey.
Posted in Art, Events, Nature, Painting, Photography, Stencils, Urban art
Tagged Ballabu Conservation Project, Broken Crow, Eine, Gambia, Ian Cox, Logan Hicks, Lucy McLauchlan, Makasutu Culture Forest, Mysterious Al, W.O.W, Wallkandy, Wide Open Walls, Xenz
Finally back and rested after a weeks onslaught in a blistering hot Brooklyn. Much fun was had, many French Bulldogs bothered, lots of stickers stuck and what should have been a 2 man show was turned into a solo show at the last minute. Can’t complain with that!
Thanks to everyone who came to check out the new work and party down in the yard, hope you all had an awesome time. Thanks to Rae at Brooklynite Gallery for allowing the madness to continue, Seth and Nick from Pawn Works for their awesome stickers and most importantly thanks to my man Mark from Up The Arts for his usual assistance, hard graft and moral support.
I’ve decided to teach myself the art of shooting and editing video (in the build up to bigger things), and below is my first ever production. It’s just a quick movie full of test shots taken with my Nikon D90 while we were out there, then edited together in iMovie 09. Amazed at how simple it was to put together, wouldn’t mind having a crack at Final Cut next for a more solid finish.
I’ll be putting together a different cut at some point over the next week, focusing more on the show and the work. Here’s a few shots from the night taken by the gang at Brooklynite and Clay Williams from Examiner.com
Posted in Art, Events, Films, Painting, Photography, Stencils, Travels, Urban art
Tagged Brooklyn, Brooklynite Gallery, Firestarter, NYC, Paradise Lost
Painting away in the yard at Brooklynite Gallery ready for the show opening this Saturday. Check out more photos as they get uploaded here.
Posted in Art, Events, Painting, Stencils, Travels, Urban art
Tagged Brooklynite Gallery, Firestarter