VIDEO DIARY 15/10/2014: TRIBUTE TO HR GIGER - WORK IN PROGRESS

A belated upload of these clips from Autumn 2014. It was something different, and a challenge, but made me think about expanding into doing some more purely pencil work in 2015.

BIG DISCLAIMER! In the second of these two clips, I make the off-the-cuff remark that the makers of the film Prometheus 'ripped-off' HR Giger, the originator of the macabre biomechanical / xenomorph look.

I am not aware, or informed in any way, of the background details of Gigers involvement - creative, financial, or otherwise - with anything to do with the continuing 'Alien' film franchise. 

I was merely expressing my vexation that such a significant and integral part of the first film's success, should suffer a watering-down through the subsequent films, while leaving the original master appearing as no more than a footnote in the franchise. I am not suggesting that the studio, or the producers and directors, or anyone else, in any way exploited or mistreated Giger. I am merely expressing a fan-boy annoyance that Giger wasn't a stronger presence in the rest of the franchise.

FROM FRIDAY 7TH NOVEMBER: TWO BIRMINGHAM SHOWS SIMULTANEOUSLY

Debuting on Friday night will be acclaimed artist Paul Newman's specially curated show of macabre art, featuring my HR Giger Tribute ( seen here as work-in-progress ).



MONSTER CLUB

 

 

Then, running alongside that, is the huge West Midlands Open, featuring my most famous work, 'Woman Disrobing'. Both are within a ten minute walk of each other, in a straight line. More details soon!

 

 

 

 

 





WEST MIDLANDS OPEN

NEXT APPEARANCE: MONSTER CLUB, NOVEMBER 7TH, BIRMINGHAM, UK

It's been a while, but after a tricky start, I'm in the middle of some macabre figurative art for Paul Newman's MONSTER CLUB show. It's reminded me how satisfying drawing is, so pencil art will definitely make a re-appearance in my repertoir over the next year.

 

Below: TRIBUTE TO HR GIGER ( detail ), pencil on cartridge paper ( Work In Progress ).

 

 

 

 

 

 



LATEST INTERNATIONAL SHOW: 'THE SILENCE OF ARMS', GROUP SHOW, CRETE

CURATED BY THANASSIS MOUTSOPOULOS & IOANNIS N. ARHONTAKIS

Could there possibly be a more beautiful setting for an art exhibition than the Venetian Church of St. Rocco, in Chania, Crete? In which case, it's also powerfully ironic, given the location, the subject matter, and that 2014 has been a year of global conflict and upheaval. My work ( see photographs ), is a series of digital collages. To make these, I took apart a schematic diagram of an Israeli-made Galil machine gun, and using duplication and repetition, created a series of exploding mandalas out of the various gun parts. You can see the work in more detail further down this article.

All photographs: Lamprini Boviatsou ( check out Lamprini's amazing art here ).

GUN DIAGRAMS: CLOSE-UPS ( Alexi K Artist, 2013 ).

Many thanks to Ioannis and Lamprini. The show looks great!

NEW ART PHASE: GLITCH ME QUICK

''London Glitch / Is fallin' down...''

My latest fad at the moment is to do some Glitch Art before I go to bed...unfortunately it's totally addictive, because you really don't know what you're going to get. So I end up being up til 4am. :/ Details of how to do it at end of this article.

Glitched Hannah.

Glitched View ( from Radisson Blue )

Glitched View ( from Radisson Blue ) II

Glitched Rotunda Birmingham

Glitched Scanner ( Vintage 94 edition )

Glitched Zurich Airport

HOW TO GLITCH IT:

1 ) Go through your archives, get a photo ( architectural ones work well ) and convert it to a bitmap.

2 ) Open it in WORDPAD, ( open > click rich text format > all documents ) then click on your file ( it'll appear on Wordpad as code ).

3 ) Press 'Save'.

Some people play with the code or delete bits before saving, but I find just pressing 'Save' is as good.

4 ) Go back to Photoshop to view the results...and hope for the best!

Don't get depressed if most look rubbish...occasionally it'll come out great!

CREDIT SWIZZ

I've just come to realise that my art - especially the drawings - is posted all over the place on the internet - sometimes not by me. If you've featured me, and credited my name, thank you, I really appreciate the support. X

If you've featured me, but didn't credit the art, please make the effort, it's only polite. ;)

Below: Featured in the FACEBOOK art group ART DREAMS, 700 likes and counting - and they don't even know who did the art! ( Needless to say, it was before I started to trademark everything ).

Update Oct 2014: This piece is to be featured in the West Midlands Open exhibition, at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, in November. Details soon.

GAZA: HUMANITY IS ABSTRACT

Pen & Ink drawing, scanned, repeated, deconstructed and filled-in using colours sampled from actual news footage coming from the area.

ABSTRACT LIFE: RHAPSODY IN BLUE

This spontaneous photo of a street scene ( Floodgate Street, Birmingham, near my studio ) is exactly how I would like my abstract works to look. Simple and uncluttered. At some point I'd like to compile a blog of real-life abstraction from my photographs.

ABSTRACT LIFE: ARACHNOPHOBIA

I'm starting a photography blog soon, dedicated to real-life abstraction. Here's a pic I took yesterday. I was walking through an underpass in my hometown, and noticed that around each light was an enormous, dense spider web. I put my camera up as close as I could, and took a snap. Inadvertently, it looks like I also captured a drug deal going down at the other end!

LAWYER-UP, PEOPLE!

No, I'm kidding, I should be flattered.

I was just watching a report on San Diego Comic-Con, and they quoted a Forbes Online article. I noticed that my own article for FUTURE-ROCKER, regarding the re-boot of DC Comics' WWII superheroine ( and co-opted feminist icon ) Wonder Woman, had been getting a lot of hits in the preceding few weeks...now I know why.

There's a slight similarity in their analysis..! ( See below ).

FORBES ONLINE, 27th July 2014: ''But if Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman isn’t used well or doesn’t come off well, Zack Snyder will be forever known as the guy who screwed up Wonder Woman and that will be the film’s enduring legacy''

ME, 13th October, 2013: ''Unfortunately, the longer Warners/DC wait, the more pressure there is to deliver a massive hit. No executive wants to go down in history as the guy that killed the Wonder Woman franchise''

LATEST WORK-IN-PROGRESS

Not bad...not great either, but what the hell.

LATEST PAINTINGS: A SHORT MOVIE

Another successful show for The Cobalt Blue!

On the clip you will see a 2-minute 'walking tour' of my two latest pieces, filmed at The Custard Factory, Birmingham, as part of the Digbeth First Friday event. The droning noise you can hear in the background is Stourbridge artist Paul Gittins' guitar installation, where the guitars played autonomously, throughout the day. The constantly-changing sequence of abstract musical motifs provided a perfect soundtrack to the entire show. Beautiful!

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

Below: Our friends and associates of The Cobalt Blue

Stephen Earl Rogers: Portraitist and associate of The Cobalt Blue.

( Detail )

Wayne Attwood: Impressionist painter and member of The Cobalt Blue

( Detail )

Hannah Honeywill: Sculptor

Paul Gittins: Sound artist

Nita Newman: Art & Installations

Our organizer, and The Cobalt Blue CEO, Zarina Keyani, in front of her new time-based experimental piece.

MK 78

Current abstract ( centre ). This is the 78th iteration of the same piece, and it is still not finished. You see the blue & white striped section? That's gone. That was the only concession to 'chocolate box' and it stood out like a sore thumb. Everything else is entirely ad-libbed. I'll do an article on all the different versions of the same piece next week. Until then, you can see the finished 'final-final' version at The Cobalt Blue show on July 4th at the Custard Factory ( scroll down for show details ).

Note: Art at top of pic, by Robert EV Walsh

NEW SHOW: FRIDAY JULY 4TH & SATURDAY JULY 5TH , CUSTARD FACTORY, BIRMINGHAM

Arts Council money spent, per head of population in London = £70

Arts Council money spent, per head of population in the rest of the UK = £5.

Arts Council money, or any other funding, spent on exhibitions by our art group The Cobalt Blue = £0. 

We are self-funded and occasionally aided by discretionary contributions from visitors to our shows, and sales of art. We don't answer to funding bodies, or institutions. This weekend, we are inviting other collectives from around the Midlands to exhibit with us. We are against cliques and elitism, and we simply want to expose the people of the area to as much great art as we can.

NEXT PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT: KOREAN CINEMA TALK, CUSTARD FACTORY, SATURDAY 28TH JUNE

I'll be on a panel discussing the movies shown during the Korean Film Festival at The Custard Factory. Join us!! For more of my pontifications on pop culture, go here.

SURFACE TENSIONS...my paintings, in detail

I've copied this over from my other blog. These extreme close-ups of my art's surface textures and patterns have influenced the next phase of my work.

Below: Hyperion & Astyanax, Acrylic on Canvas, 76cm x 101cm

Alexi K: HYPERION - Acrylic on canvas, 2012

Close-ups, below:

Alexi K: QUARTERLY PROJECTION - Acrylic on canvas, 2014

Below: Finished Painting, 76cm x 101cm 

Close-ups, below:

Alexi K: SUPERHIGHWAY - Acrylic on canvas, 2014

Below: Finished painting, Superhighway, 76cm x 101cm

Close-ups, below:

All artwork, copyright Alexi K, 2012 & 2014

Alexi K's homepage

Alexi K Twitter

Alexi K Facebook