02/07/26
A bumper Late Night Art Belfast after missing out on the last few sessions.
05/07/26
‘A Brush with Pio Abad’. Seduction through experience. Spent the first half of the studio day working on little commission. Plenty of textures to keep it interesting.
Second half was building up layers, colour swapping and facial details added on the now titled ‘First Encounter’- and yes, it might be the first meeting between a woman and a child OR that i recently watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind recently.
Bit of both perhaps.
Evening time and stumbled on an interesting video that explored haptic vs optic visuality. Yes, it might have been looking at it in terms of film, but it’s struck a chord with where my head is creatively at present.
Got me thinking (dangerous, I know) some of the best work lands in a space of psychological tactility and there’s a unique indexicality (new words). Brushstrokes aren’t just visual marks, but a physical imprint and ‘trace’ of a moment/touch/memory.
Will try and lean more into this new notion of sensual/tactile weight.
07/07/26
Lest.
Lunchtime dandering through the Golden Thread to see ‘The Ignorant Art School: Outside the Circle x Belfast’ curated by Sophia Y Hao from Cooper Gallery. Wonderful use of the space and kept finding little gems/artefacts/text that meant you could keep coming back and pick up something new.
08/07/26
Sketchbook studies tonight
“The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul.”
Andrei Tarkovsky
12/07/26
Boiling Hot! Commission finished I think.
A good go at ‘First Encounter’ too. Actually, a couple of minor tweaks and it could be there.
Submitted to RUA - it’s an even year so worth a go given track record since 2020.
16/07/26
18/07/26
The first overcast day in over a week and I get sunburned.
19/07/26
‘First Encounter’ finished in the studio today.
Less is More
21/07/26
No RUA this year. There goes my ‘lucky’ even year streak.
26/07/26
Studio and new beginnings on a couple of small canvases and then the palette was in dire need of a clean.
30/07/26
Two MAC openings this evening. ‘Reconstruction: A Room for Mike Kelley’ by Mary McIntyre and Robert Anderson. Performance, documentation and memory - recreating Kelley’s studio environment minus the human. Liked how the room was shaped; almost like following the camera’s viewpoint from the initial source photos.
