Collect Art Drawings – A Special Edition Publication Vol 17

Collect art is a cultural organization with multiple departments, founded in January 2020 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Everything started by representing, promoting, and supporting local artists and nowadays organization offers a new interpretation for national and international artists, including private artistic management, exhibitions, seasonal and special editions of magazines, and artistic books.

The primary goal is to bring together emerging and contemporary artists, engage and establish creative cross-cultural experiences and raise awareness in the Art sector.

I was invited recently along with a group of international artists to be featured in the drawing edition of ‘Collect Art’ to feature the ‘Bringing Down the Moon’ series (2022).

Click on the image below to view the publication.

Bringing Down the Moon

It is an impossible promise to give the moon, and yet the enormity of love can seem impossible to express. It is a declaration of enormous hope and love. The giver willing to sacrifice something or everything.

This premise makes me think of relationships of all forms that I have ever had or no doubt will have. How sometimes I have felt hopeless to address problems of such magnitude I would long to pull the moon down like a miracle could happen if I did and all the wrongs could be righted. All the lost moments recaptured, the chances not taken returned like a gift from the impossible place. I would vanquish all monsters if I could just bring down the moon.

Art in the Pen 2022

Let me give you a little history on Art in the Pen. It started running in 2005, so it’s been running for nearly 20 years and has become a well established fixture for artists and art lovers alike. It now sprawls across the entire Skipton Auction Mart and attracts a huge amount of visitors. And, this year I was accepted to be a part of this amazing event!

I started getting prepared months before, ensuring everything was perfect. On the day, I’ll be honest, I was excited, overwhelmed, happy, anxious and everything in between! We took a full half day getting set up, and it was swelteringly hot, but it was completely worth it.

Over the weekend I had so many people come to visit me, who had not before heard of me, or even been exposed to art like mine, and it was such an amazing opportunity and an absolute pleasure to talk to so many like minded artists and art appreciators! If I saw you there and we had a chance to have a conversation, or you came in and had a look, and if you bought something, I just want to say thankyou! Thankyou for supporting local artists, thankyou for helping the world be a more unique and creative place, and thankyou for helping me on my journey!

And to those who did not manage to see me at Art in the Pen, or did not have the time to stop and say hello, don’t worry, keep an eye on my social media pages, I have many more events just like this coming up.

Convenient acquisition

Image of 'convenient acquisition' drawing - Doors in a Silver Birch Forest.

I recently completed a new piece I have titled ‘convenient acquisition’ about the destruction of forests and green spaces, and in particular this work seeks to highlight the controversial building of the High Speed 2 railway. The HS2 seeks to bridge the North-South divide with improved transport connections between Manchester and London, but experts agree that historically these connections between major cities just serve to concentrate wealth in the Capital. Not to mention the continually increasing costs being footed by the tax payer, which once again has a greater impact on the poorer communities in the North. This pointless build destroys the forests and wild communities that are already so heavily impacted by us.

In this work you can see the forest is densely populated with silver birches and the ground heaves with the roots and the many organisms that together have formed a symbiotic relationship. All life supporting the other from the large silver birch trees, to the tiny mycelium, each would not be able to thrive without the other. This gives some insight on this very complex and interesting reality, a living world with many life forms all supporting each other.

The doors here symbolise the ease of access and ownership humans believe they have to the forests. And how easily they choose to step through those doors and destroy the natural and fine balance for their own gain.

I seek to highlight these struggles visually, my thoughts becoming the pencil marks on the paper, and hopefully trigger similar thoughts in the viewer.

Completion of a New Drawing – Rook

Rook image

I have just completed ‘Rook’ (graphite & carbon. Approx. A3.) I considered their ‘self’, I think eyes are very important when showing the gaze of a living being. We perceive the life within. Their intelligence is renowned for they are are incredibly inquisitive. They can form relationships with us that is not bonded by food. They appear to enjoy our company.

Birds such as these have been vilified throughout agricultural history as a nuisance and takers of the grain. But take a closer look and you can see how astonishing these animals are. Corvids are adept with tools, or can solve a puzzles. Interestingly they have no distinctive difference between the two sexes; no difference in size or colouration, no difference in strength or ability. I return again and again to drawing corvids.

There are many reasons to draw all animals but corvids are special. Underappreciated, often maligned or depicted as portents of doom when that is not the reality.

This drawing is available as a Giclee print in the shop, take a look. Maybe they will spike your curiosity.


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