#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.”

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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?

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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.

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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).

 ***

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?

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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.

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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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