#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.

 ***

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.

 ***

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.

 ***

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.

---

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).

 ***

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.

 ***

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.

---

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).

 ***

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.”

 ***

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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#138: The Treachery of Words

Oil on canvas.

A canvas upon which is written, in black cursive writing on a bleached bone background, “Cette toile est vierge.”

 ***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 16th 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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#249: If you look hard enough you can see anything (After Stephen Hobbs)

Stare at the blank space until you see something in your mind’s eye.  

What do you see?

 ***

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

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#098: Bringing out the light to dispel the dark

Oil on canvas.  At the centre of the canvas a woman can be seen taking an orb of light from an open box and is in the process of giving this orb to a group of people on the right of the picture who are waiting patiently to receive it.  Behind the woman at the centre is another version of herself, but naked and sitting with her head on her knees, hugging her legs and with her back to the rest of the scene.

The scene as a whole is very dark with the orb of light providing almost the only source of light, lighting the front of the woman and the crowd well/brightly and leaving the woman on the left, and the left hand edges of the painting, mostly in the dark.  The scene takes place inside a stone building with one small window and a door visible on the right behind the waiting crowd.  These allow a little more light on the right hand side of the painting behind the crowd.

---

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).

 ***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 23rd May 2022.

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#060: Man is forever a stranger and alone

Oil on canvas.  A figure stands in the centre of the (portrait) canvas, visible to just above the knees, their arms and hands at their side.  The figure is in a city street scene with people and cars bustling behind them.  

Hovering next to and surrounding their head, obscuring their face (from the bridge of their nose to just below the chin), is a pine wooden picket fence.  At the centre of their forehead a remote cabin is pictured.

 ***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 28th June 2021.

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#246: The shore between Fantasy and Reality 1 and 2 (After Barbie)

1:

Oil on canvas.  Someone is standing in the middle of the painting with different landscapes stretching out to either side.  To the left (as the viewer sees it) is a landscape made up of all their fantasies and dreams, while one formed by their reality stretches to the right.  

(You could imagine these as your fantasy life, and your real one - or the fantasy and real lives of someone else, maybe a fictional character).  

The footballer, the actor, the musician, Wing Island, another life.

2:  

Oil on canvas.  A landscape of all your desires and hopes and dreams, everything you want to be.

Text along the bottom of both paintings reads: 

Is it easier to fixate on something you can never be when the world wants too much from you?

---

See also: Marquette, Katie (2023) "Ordinary Barbie:" Greta Gerwig's Love Letter to Women. Available at: https://bornofwonder.substack.com/p/ordinary-barbie-greta-gerwigs-love  (Accessed 18th-19th May 2024).

 ***

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

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#020: Are you there?

Imagine how you see all, or any, higher being(s) or power(s).

You have now created your own imaginary religious art.

 ***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 12th October 2020.

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#244: The Portraits All Around You - Right Now

Look around.  In the gallery, right here and now at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (and, later, if you like, as you leave through the  courtyard or while walking along Piccadilly, then at the station, in the shop, on the bus or train, in a traffic jam or queue... look around and see the portraits all around you.  

How are people portraying themselves?

In any given moment, how do they look?  

What impressions do they give and how do you see them?  

If you know them, try to imagine you do not, and try to see them with fresh eyes: do you recognise the person you know from a brief glance?

If no one is around, or even if they are, find a mirror or reflective surface and ask the same questions about yourself.  If you are in public, and you will be if you are still at the exhibition, imagine how everyone might be thinking about you right now.

 ***

This an edited/new version of #152: The Portraits All Around Us, posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 19th December 2022.

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#054: Adulthood (Life's impossible game)

Oil on canvas.  Two people sit at a table in a plain room playing chess.  One, on the left, is in normal clothes while the other wears a billowing white shroud with a hood covering much of their head but showing a full, healthy face bearing a broad grin.  The player on the left has only black pawns while the player on the right has a full set of white pieces and is poised to take another pawn (they already have four on their side of the board).  

 ***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 17th May 2021 and is part of the A View of Life Series.

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#078: Relief

Watercolour of a figure walking along a beach, looking ahead.  The tide is out and the flat sand extends to the horizon.  Beyond the figure, the sunlight is reflecting off the wet sand, giving the impression that there are large patches of golden water beneath the clear blue sky.

A simple frame surrounds the picture.  Along its bottom edge is engraved: “that tranquil moment / when it all comes together. / the space that opens.”

The figure is me.

 ***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 22nd November 2021.

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#047: The Impassable Place

Three dots arranged horizontally.

                                                    One           (horizontal)          line.

One dot.

 ***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 29th March 2021.

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#057: The Negative Zone

Oil on canvas.  A person walks across an arctic landscape of nothing but ice stretching for miles, edged with tall mountains.  Dark clouds fill the sky, storms rage above the mountain range.  Behind the person walks an angry-looking polar bear who leans its head down to talk into their ear.  A cloud of breath emits from the bear’s mouth, slightly obscuring the head of the person.  The ice throughout the landscape is littered with their footprints.  

***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 7th June 2021.

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#051: Always and Throughout

Oil on canvas.  A figure stands on a path.  Before them the path forks off into different directions time and time again, stretching out before them all the way to the horizon.  The paths are made up of rooms, all individual, each with at least two doors leading out of them to a new room, or path.  On the distant horizon are many final rooms and doors.

***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 26th April 2021 and is part of the A View of Life Series.

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#241: Your Best Painting (Imagine it here)

Imagine the best painting, or piece of art, you have ever created being on the wall of this gallery in the space before you, or on display elsewhere in this exhibition. 

If it is already then please jump in the air and holler.  

 ***

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

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#240: What would you have done?

If you had made something for this exhibition, what would it have been?  

Imagine it in the space before you.

 ***

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

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#006: Telling it like it is, or Setting the record straight

A picture of a white shape with a black outline made up of four equal sides and four right angles.  A caption reads, "Rectangle."

Open up the door and see a truth totally or largely kept from the world - it could be personal or an aspect of history or literature, or any subject, buried by those to whom it is uncomfortable.  

Continue every day until the new world is born.

***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 6th July 2020. 

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#011: High Tea (Formal to the end)

Oil on canvas.  

A couple take high tea at the top of a high cliff being crashed into and eaten away by enormous waves.

***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 10th August 2020. 

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#018: The Creativity of the Mind

A white canvas that features two lines of simple black lettering.  

The first line larger than the second, they read:

“A pen.

This is not a picture.  But do you see one?”

***

Originally posted on The Haberdashery of Imaginary Art on 28th September 2020. 

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