As I mentioned, I’ve been sentimental lately, for lack of a better word. Stupid, trivial things began to strike me as beautiful or important or desperately sad. More so than usual. I think it’s wearing off now but here are some photos of a seashell, which seemed tremendously necessary at the time. 

Untitled, oil on linen. 19×33".

I think I might be nearly done with these abstract pieces. I’ve been in a weird mood lately and I just have not been able to articulate how I’m feeling about anything. The best way I can explain it is this. 

I went out last weekend, more because I needed to leave the house than because I wanted to socialise. It was fine because we went to a trashy nightclub. I didn’t have to form sentences, the music was too loud for conversation anyway so all I had to do was drink lots of drinks the colour of nuclear waste and flail around. And when I was on the dancefloor I saw something beautiful. It was a hen party recruit trying to put her shoes on. There I was, skinful of cocktails, standing still, struck by the unbearable poignancy of a drunk girl, wobbly and barefoot with her beautiful tousled blonde hair and ridiculous foofy dress, trying to balance on one leg while pushing the other foot into a sparkly white shoe that glittered under the lights like Cinderella’s goddamn glass slipper. It had fallen off while she was in some sort of centrifuge around the stripper pole. The whole scene struck me as being like some profound, allegorical Old Master painting. Like Susanna and the Elders, or something. 

So. I think you understand what I’m saying here. 

Figure drawings. (I tend to draw in nearly invisible 2H pencil, so I’ve upped the contrast in Photoshop.)

I have this strange urge to paper the walls of the studio with bodies. I picture the room teeming with figures, looming over the space, a bit like murals in some ancient tomb, except for some reason they’re all faceless and have no feet. I might be working on a potential installation that expresses something poignant about the human condition. Or I might just be drawing myself some company because I’m lonely.

…It can be both. 

Graphite on paper, each approx 4ft tall.

Back. Oil on paper. 

I’ve been trying to find a new way to deal with bodies. This was initially a lot smoother, more carefully rendered. Then I basically started torturing it with a palette knife and now up close it looks like the whole surface of the skin is bristling with static.