#254: Keep imagining (or, A little something for the future)

Whenever you see a blank space or empty area, imagine a work of art there.

Take this idea wherever you go and create works of art in your mind to sit on your walls at home or at work, on empty spaces in your neighbourhood or town, in buses and trains and planes, at stations, airports and bus stops, in galleries and museums, in shops and shopping centres, on cinema screens and billboards and so on and so forth wherever you may be and wherever there is a blank space.

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A piece of Imaginary Art created for this Imaginary Art Space.

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#172: I just get in the sea

Oil on canvas.  A woman swimming in the sea as seen from the pebbly beach.

Underneath is the following text: 

“What I’ve learned, when my mental health is bad, I just get in the sea and I feel better.” - Angela Barnes.

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Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 1st May 2023.

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#151: It’s MY body

Imagine an artwork to go with this title.

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Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 12th December 2022.

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#142: Change is an ongoing project

Canvas with hair (that has been cut off in protest for, and in solidarity with, the women of Iran), the fabric of removed hijabs, and the ashes of those burned in protest, have been stuck on to form the words: 

See how things are now.  

They were not always so.  

They will not always be so.  

And there will always be more to fight for.  

Be brave, stand together, forever.

In all ways.  

Always.

On the frame are painted the words: ““We are not scared. We are outraged. People think that we are the previous generation – that if they do this we’re going to just stop. We are not going to stop. This is a one-way road for us. They will take even more people into custody, torture them, rape them. This is not the end.” (Unknown Protestor)” and ““O, you martyr, / hold my hands / With your hands / Cut from earthly means / Hold my hands, / I am your poet. / With an inflicted body. / I’ve come to be with you / and on the promised day, / We shall rise again.” (Tahereh Saffarzadeh).” The two quotes run alongside one another, rather than one before the other.

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See also:

Bromwich, Kathryn (2022) A vibrant celebration of Iranian rebel women – in pictures. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2022/sep/24/a-vibrant-celebration-of-iranian-rebel-women-in-pictures (Accessed: 10th October 2022).

Foumani, Maryam (2022) Two decades of Iranian women’s street protests – in pictures. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2022/oct/07/two-decades-of-iranian-womens-street-protests-arash-ashourinia-in-pictures (Accessed: 10th October 2022).

Hessel, Katy (2022) Guns, veils, unflinching stares: the banned work about Iran’s female rebels. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/10/veils-banned-iran-mahsa-amini-shirin-neshat-rebellious-silence (Accessed: 10th October 2022).

Jones, Jonathan (2022) Soheila Sokhanvari: Rebel Rebel review – vivacious paintings of liberated Iranian womanhood. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/07/soheila-sokhanvari-rebel-rebel-review-barbican-london (Accessed: 8th October 2022).

Neshat, Shirin (1994) Rebellious Silence [Photograph]. Available at: https://reinterpellations.web.unc.edu/about/neshats-rebellious-silence/neshats-rebellious-silence-essay/#:~:text=Rebellious%20Silence%20is%20a%20photograph,small%20opening%20for%20the%20eyes and https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/global-contemporary-apah/20th-century-apah/a/neshat-rebellious (Both accessed: 10th October 2022).

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Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 10th October 2022 but as a part of #137: A Child’s First Visit to a Gallery : An Imaginary Graphic Short Story (An imaginary entry for The Faber/Observer/Comica graphic short story prize 2022).

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#139: The gulfs between humans and the hopes for the future

Oil on canvas.  

A deep ravine, its sides high, rocky and steep. Across it has been built a bridge upon which people from either side of the ravine can meet.  

In the bridge are cracks but there are also people from both sides ready to plaster them, and scaffolders and builders ready in case it falls. 

At the bottom of the ravine is dynamite and at the sides of the bridge are people holding burning torches.  

From either side, people are making their first, tentative, steps to meet in the middle.

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Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 19th September 2022 but as a part of #137: A Child’s First Visit to a Gallery : An Imaginary Graphic Short Story (An imaginary entry for The Faber/Observer/Comica graphic short story prize 2022).

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#136: "For every ounce of light, there is darkness"

Oil on canvas.  

The canvas is taken up with a portrait of the subject’s head and shoulders.  Upon their forehead is painted a scene: A candle lighting up an otherwise dark place.  Within the candle’s flame can be seen an angel bearing the face of the subject.  In the dark at the edges can be seen many demons, also with the face of the subject, crawling towards the edge of the light - their hands, with long fingers and claws, reaching toward the light and the angel.

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After: Jones, Jonathan (2022) Interview: ‘An apparition came towards me’: Tracey Emin on seeing a ghost and building a new life in Margate. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/25/tracey-emin-ghost-apparition-new-life-margate-cancer-nudes (Accessed 25/4/22).

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Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 12th September 2022 but as a part of #137: A Child’s First Visit to a Gallery : An Imaginary Graphic Short Story (An imaginary entry for The Faber/Observer/Comica graphic short story prize 2022).

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#135: The meek will inherit

 Oil on canvas.  

The canvas is divided into 64 equal, and square, parts.  32 of these feature a word, or two words, either painted black on a white background, or white on a black background, with the pattern alternating to form a chessboard (starting black on white in the top left hand corner).  

The words, written along the top two rows and the bottom two rows are: 

Row 1: confusion, pain, dread, dust, sand, fear, shame and mumbling.  

Row 2: low pay, low confidence, low spirit, low status, low hope, low light, low resilience and low ness.

In the central white four squares of the central two rows (4 and 5), alternating between those rows (ie, B4, C5, D4, E5, F4, G5), white on white, reads: living burial- life above their heads.

Row 7: loneliness, quietness, vicariousness, slowness, rudderlessness, listlessness, opaqueness and fecklessness.

Row 8: shadow, insularity, inability, rocks, stones, invisibility, cells and cold.

On the reverse of the canvas is written, in black pencil, “Or they will be happy with their lot; quite possibly happy with everything they have got.”

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Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 5th September 2022 but as a part of #137: A Child’s First Visit to a Gallery : An Imaginary Graphic Short Story (An imaginary entry for The Faber/Observer/Comica graphic short story prize 2022).

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