Laphroaig Cairdeas 2011

I opened this up to celebrate the Hackney Wicked Festival, although the Wicked was pretty bad the drink made it all the better.
On the nose wafts of heather and grass, followed by a sweet smoke. first creamy over the tongue, when it glides down vanilla is replaced by strong medicinial TCP and bandages, quite dry finish with a hint of bitter melon at the end. I wasn't sure at first, quite dry but I grew to love this expression and it gets sweeter with every mouthful, very agreeable for an 8 year old.

Driller Killer Remake?

There has been much speculation that there is going to be a remake of the great Abel Ferrara's Driller Killer. What a shame in the most pointless fashion to take a movie which is just brilliant for it's low budget, heavy acting, distorted sound, grinding sound FX  and drawn out monologues then bring it into the digital age. Possibly a disasterous idea, until my wife said she wanted to make a remake of Driller Killer. Now that's an idea! Especially as I get to play the lead as Reno - now I am excited!
We will make a autobiographical account of the film and shoot it straight to VHS, a nice nod to the video nasty fiasco. It is set in E2 London and will feature my own artwork as well as the real life difficulties of living in a communual environment with other so called creatives. It is a no budget film with people pretty much playing themselves.
Driller Killer E2 will be a smart blend of reality and fantasy addressing the issues that a struggling artist encounters today - as like Reno when the anxieties of never becoming successful become so torturous it feels like a maniac drilling into your brain. AAAAAGHHHHRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!

WATER

Yes it has been a while since I last blogged; that is because I have been drinking way too much booze, going out to private views, gate crashing expensive parties, beaten up by friends and generally being hung over, bruised and abused. Well That's it folks, I am quite fed up with this lifestyle - it doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere, but hey I've tried it out for a very long time.
So my drink of the week this week is WATER.
I'M GOING CLEAN LIKE CHARLIE SHEEN!

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Liam Scully’s Spring Mackerel Spaghetti:

Serves one

Makes a great lunch in 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Salt and pepper

Sliver of scotch bonnet chilli, chopped

3 x garlic cloves, crushed

1 x medium Courgette, chopped

Half a small white onion, chopped

1 generous pinch of flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 generous pinch of dill, chopped

1 generous pinch of coriander, chopped

Knob of butter

Splash of white wine vinegar

1 tbsp good olive oil

1 fillet of mackerel

Wholemeal Spaghetti

Tsp Salt

Method:

Bring water to boil, meanwhile prepare ingredients and heat olive oil in pan, add Courgettes, garlic, onion, chilli, salt, vinegar and pepper to pan, fry until soft but not brown,  add herbs and a knob of butter stirring in .

Remove from heat and blitz ingredients with a blender until rough, leave aside and add pasta to boiling water.

When pasta is cooked al dente drain then return to pan before adding the puree to pasta, add a drizzle of good olive oil, mix up well and serve piping hot on warm plates. Dress with the mackerel fillet and some Parmesan shavings, season.

Great!

Why can't I go to Rome?

Another yet failed proposal was my application for the Abbey Painting Scholarship in Rome. Maybe I don't fit the criteria for Rome, perhaps they think my paintings are shit, do I not know the right people? or it could be that my proposal read as ridiculous. Like many others I received a flimsy photocopied piece of paper sealed in my own self addressed envelope. It read something like the usual bollocks - unfortunately on this occasion your application has been unsuccessful due to the high volume and high quality and all that high crap, basically you are rubbish! Well I am not rubbish I am brilliant! So at least give me the decency of writing the rejection on nice paper; i mean I did pay £25.00! of which I do not have! you said around 90 applicants got rejected that is 90 sheets of nice paper at a cost of about £4.00 when they paid a total of £2'250 - you still get £2'246!
Anyway take a look at my proposal and see if I deserved a rejection on a decent piece of paper.

Abbey Scholorship in Painting Rome Rejected Proposal

Robert Johnson met the devil at the crossroads where he handed over his guitar; the devil tuned his guitar, played a few licks and returned it to Johnson. In exchange for his soul Johnson became one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

In the movie There Will Be Blood, Daniel Plainview needs to get an oil pipe through someone’s land. It is explained by the landowner that this can only happen on the condition Plainview surrenders to the local church, where he suffers a humiliating baptism by the bizarre preacher Eli Sunday. This secures his final Hurdle of obtaining an ocean full of oil thus reaping riches beyond his wildest dreams.

As a child I remember my father who lived away asking my protestant mother to have me baptised and send me to catholic school. These requests fell on deaf ears and I went through Church of England school and I never received a christening. Until recently this never seemed a priority.

10 year after my fathers passing and in light of this project I wish to fulfil my late father’s wishes. It is on this Rome Scholarship that I wish to become baptised and build a body of painting in response to this enlightenment. My baptism in Rome will empower my work in ways

I cannot yet foresee. Through partaking in this ritualistic experience alongside the most astonishing religious art anywhere in the world - I will be sure to undertake an incredible body of work.

My plans for Rome are to utterly immerse myself in the city and its practices. I am eager to be hypnotised by the scent of frankincense and invigorated by the sound of church bells. Here I will learn the language, comb the archives and walk the streets absorbing the historic, religious and artistic power of the eternal city.  

Caravaggio transcended all religious painting that went before him. He used the streets, real people and flesh to realise his astounding work. 400 years on and as a promising painter I am interested where religious painting can go now? Can one still produce masterpieces in the light of religion? With dwindling church numbers can this type of painting still be relevant? Or should it be left to the outsider artist (Howard Finster, Reverend Jesse Howard)? The Abbey Awards Scholarship is the perfect opportunity for me to ask these questions and investigate in depth the relevance of religious painting beyond 2011.

Embarking on this exploration I hope to open up new passages of painting, threading my own sensibility, outsider art with that of the masters. The studio and financial freedom will enable me to commit to this project on a most intense level. It is this concentrated 9 months that will conclude my desire to make great painting.

Exhibition Proposal

Mountain of the Cannibal God/Goddess!

This promises to be a multi-faceted show, celebrating Sergio Martino’s 1978 classic, Mountain of The Cannibal God, starring the beautiful Ursula Andress.

Accompanied by an 80’s synth soundtrack, two aspiring white artists (Simon Ould and Liam Scully) and a gorgeous blonde/supermodel (yet to be announced) journey into the dark and difficult terrain of Papa New Guinea, hoping to find truth. The destination is a mountain that imposes itself on the lush landscape. The cannibal natives say the mountain is cursed and guard it with their lives; the difficulty will be avoiding these savages and making it to the top.

MOCG questions where savagery lies. White explorers exploiting natives for their resourses, or natives with their cannibalistic practices? Simon and Liam use the movie as a metaphor to question where exploitation resides in our contemporary creative landscape. Everyone wants to see Ursula Andress undressed. She gets paid. The people who pay their money are the stupid young people who give a lot of money to Oxfam. Half the Oxfam money goes to the wealthy young white people. Diamonds and pearls and platform shoes in the jungle, that’s the power of it. Let’s give it to Ingrid tonight. It’s a good jungle of thought. It’s something to go on. Shall we change the font to jungle font? This looks like it’s from the Foreign Office. Stop.

Expect Mountain of the Cannibal God/ Goddess to serve up a show of, sex, death, fashion, masks, bamboo, affordable art, jewellery, Goldman Sachs, weapons, politics, Terry Richardson, nudity, midgets, cannibalism, cardboard, Prada, Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, rotting flesh, cutlasses, optimistic synth soundtracks, POP, PCP, Gaffa tape, Vogue, I.D., Dazed and Confused, crystal maze, man traps, and much more…

Art Dogs Assult on Martin Creed

Thursday night was one to remember, at least until I lost much of my memory in the later hours. The art was great! A big monstrous sculpture of the illuminated word Mothers spinning around and around gaining momentum then slowing to an almost stop. Monstrous, silly or just really important? Three possible angles you could take - I think take them all.
First encounter made me think "fucking hell! Money is no object Martin" But I also thought this is money well spent. Big powerful Hardcore art!
Mothers is many things and everything to all, Mothers can also be a massive weight spinning around your head most of the time, like my mother.
Grabbing two beers and walking around to the next door there is over forty underwhelming paintings, some framed some are not. They are underwhelming in a good way, like an antidote to the revolving mothers next door. Of course these paintings are Creeds bread, butter and jam but they are also economically brilliant, doing just enough. Many people don't like his paintings but I think they are right and I think Creed knows they're right.
The photographs of dogs are OK, but I don't think they belong in this show - it is just too much. It is unusual for Martin Creed to do just too much, but the show would've been perfect with just the Mothers piece and the paintings.
On to the important bit, when I approached the nice lady behind the desk and asked for a map to the party.
Armed with a map to the party, Vanessa, Harriet and I made our way from Savile Row to Greek Street ,while many art dogs left for a show in camden.

A few people were already outside The Union Club being checked off the guest list so we joined in. We were not on the guest list but I gave my name confidently, as she searched through again and again, Harriet stepped in and said "oh maybe Will put it under his name? Will Harvey" the clipboard babe quickly found this name and in we went.
Wow Brilliant! We hung up our coats and waltzed in amongst the few hundred already there, free bar and free meze's that is what we like! Martin's Band soon came on and we found perfect spots between a bar and the band. We drank up, danced and talked the night away and things get more blurry.
Will Harvey turned up and Vanessa admitted our crime, but all was completely fine he just walked in anyway. Dr Bombastic and his girlfriend also managed to walk in at some point. Harriet was sick, her boyfriend collected her and we trekked for two hours home, including Will Harvey who helped walk my bike while I fell, stumbled and crawled my way home with blurry eyes.
Anyway a big thank you to Hauser and Wirth and Martin Creed, Up the Establishment! Up The Art Dogs!

Last Drop Of Ardbeg

Last night was RAB Burns night when I consumed my last drops of Ardbeg. I brought this beautiful malt on my journey back from holidays Australia, and you may know when you buy a bottle in duty free you usually get a nice litre bottle rather than the stingy 750ml bottle.
I made this bottle last me four months which I hear you say "Liam you never!" But I liked the drink so much I savoured every drop and made it last.
I will just say if you fancy, bring me a bottle anytime.

Bunderburg OP Rum

At 57.5% I have consumed several glasses of Bunderberg OP rum with my wife. Of course we used a mixer which happened to be ice cold Schweppes lemonade. This episode took place whilst watching the first three episodes of Lost, Vanessa fell asleep after episode 2 so i leaned over and finished her glass. Somehow I attempted to watch episode 4 but it was too much, instead I decided to blog.
Looser!

Phoebe Unwin Man Made Bollocks Painting With No Guts

Phoebe Unwin - painter - currently showing at Wilkinson Gallery, London.
Wilkinson prides itself on copious amounts of space. On two levels we have a display of white space which is exhausting, insulting and vulgar - it does not help that the white walls are often covered in crap. Unwin's show "Man Made" is of no exception, the walls are sparsely littered with medium to large canvas's all which are about as engaging as a fart in a phonebox.
I walked around the space in a clockwise direction passing each painting quickly, I even stopped for a moment at a couple of canvas's hoping that I missed something, I didn't.
I climbed up to the upper floor and was greeted by another bunch of miserable paintings, I did much the same as on the ground floor, leaving the space feeling cold.
In situations like this I often have to pick up the press release and see what excuse is given by the gallery for the dross encountered.
reading through the press release at great speed, I found nothing but patronising bollocks. "Unwin references and explores a world we all experience visually, verbally, sensationally blah blah blah bollocks"
The text reads as vague as her paintings, we are given nothing to ponder, nothing to read, nothing to grasp. Unwin is a weak painter who lacks ideas and conviction it is rather like her "abstract? figurative?" works were painted by a snake.
This is yet another infuriating example of a so called artist who gets to paint and earn a living. Art presented by gallerists who know nothing about art and pushed on collectors who know nothing about art, to decorate walls that know nothing about art. Where will paintings like this be in a few years time? On the scrap heap! It is just a shame we might have to wait a few years.

Art Dogs

Art Dogs remain on the fringe of the high art establishment - often sipping free booze and filling our pockets with bottles of Becks, Carlsberg, Kronenberg, Corona, Ashai or Stella before moving on to the next watering hole. It's a hard life, because although the most interesting art in London is being carried out by these Dogs it is overlooked by the Fat Cats because Art Dogs are not taking the game seriously enough.

Why don't you take a look beyond the winkle picker, tweed jacket, battered converse wearing pretentious fakes and see where the real art is being produced? Here on Art Dogs I will be uncovering a movement happening right now.

Yes Art Dogs like a good drink but they also live to create! Art Dogs don't receive parent trust funds, art council funding, lottery funding, sponsorship, bank loans, prize money etc. Where would Art Dogs get the time to create if they were spending their time form filling?

I want galleries to seize operating if they do not agree to show real creatives! On Art Dogs I will be exposing the fakes and revealing the great creatives of London - so watch this space!