BLACK BOX

When in doubt, just paint over it...but save a little bit from the previous iterations, just in case.

Acrylic On Canvas, 50cm x 50cm

DETAIL SHOTS

U.S...AIN'T

Experimenting with random shapes, saw a familiar form trying to emerge, so ran with it. Fans of Philip K. Dick might be especially appreciative - PKD is a big influence on a lot of contemporary artists. Not that you'd know that if you go by what academics write, but you can usually spot aficionados a mile away, just from the art they produce.

Below: Alt History Flag, Vector Drawing with texture, 2017.

WELCOME - Здравствуйте - Bienvenue - こんにちは - Wilkommen - 你好 - Χαίρετε

My name is Alexi K. I am a contemporary artist, based in Birmingham, in the UK. My art is all about abstracting the everyday and speculating the future: architecture, people, diagrams, data, and bright colours. I'm inspired by Cubism, Futurism, Bauhaus and Constructivism. I love straight lines. Enjoy!

Below: The Alexi K SUPERHIGHWAY CHAIR, courtesy of Valley Forge Fabrics.

ARAB...ESQUE

Apologies for my lack of visibility at the moment. Experiencing network issues at the studio, which will hopefully be resolved soon.

In the meantime, please enjoy this new experimental piece.

Below: Experimental Work, Digital Vector Drawing, 2017.

CHEQUERED PAST

Love the tape on this info obelisk.

Birmingham, 24 / 5 / 2017.

SAMPLER

Busy experimenting with shapes and colours. I'll post some examples as soon as I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

LOOKING UP

...is something I often forget to do, while working on new art.

In this pic, my pieces are the ones with straight lines. All the others are by Zarina ( link to come as soon as she's finished updating her website ).

Today at the Studio

[ANOTHER] KIND OF BLUE

The great thing about being an artist is that even when you bunk off work, you are still technically at work. I finally got to experience some 'British Summertime' today, so I absolutely made the most of it.

YESTERDAY [ 09 05 2017 ]

Below: Current work-in-progress, photographed with bright sunshine coming through the studio blinds.

TODAY [ 10 05 2017 ]

Found this amazingly huge ceanothus bush just off a busy road in Worcestershire.

Studio colleague and my blue Kona bike.

My variation on a Greek salad: Slice loads of grapes and blueberries and throw those in with the leaves, olives, feta cheese, olive oil and vinegar.

SEE ALSO: A KIND OF BLUE [ MAY 2014 ]

[ AIR ] MILEAGE: WORK IN PROGRESS

[MORE] SURFACE TENSIONS: CURRENT WORK IN PROGRESS

Okay...so what happens when the piece you are working on, no longer looks any good, but isolated areas look beautiful? This piece has been constantly evolving - on and off - for two years. It's a 60 by 60 acrylic on canvas, and I don't know whether it's because of the size or proportions, but despite scores of revisions, it has never looked satisfactory to me. 

You've seen from previous posts that I am fascinated by what is happening on the surface of my paintings. I love holding a painting in my hands, and playing the light across it, reading it from side to side like an engraving, or a piece of lazer-etched nanotech, or a 3D topographical map. To me, they look like buildings, cities, or even worlds.

This is how minimalism probably started: Cameras got invented, and artists inevitably would document their work, focusing on details of interest, and then come to the same conclusion that I have - that the details look better than the actual painting.

I used various new techniques to get the paint to behave differently. I like to degrade the surface to keep it from looking too smooth. I want it to look both rigidly uniform, but weathered, like a piece of modernist architecture that hasn't been maintained.

I asked my studio colleague for her opinion the other day, and apart from finding the current colours 'revolting', she observed that it's not the composition that seems to interest me, but the lines on the surface. She said it's no longer a painting, it's an installation. 

I find that perhaps it's more like a sculpture, because I'm constantly attacking the surface with a knife, or peeling bits off, or waiting until the paint is like a kind of plastic cement, and trying to mould it.

Since these pictures were taken, the painting has changed again, which is why I won't show photos of the whole piece. And also because I assume people will find it as anticlimactic as I do.