#276: Art to Aid Meditation

Imagine a piece of art that would be perfect to have in front of you when meditating.

#275: Another Christmas Scene

The scene we have been brought up to avoid and not think about: the discomfort, pain and mess of giving birth in a stable.  

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Hessel, Katy (2024) The great women's art bulletin: There’s nothing meek or mild about childbirth: why have male artists sanitised the Virgin Mary? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/dec/20/virgin-mary-sanitised-paula-rego-esther-strauss (Accessed: 20th December 2024).

#274: A Christmas Scene

Create a Christmas scene in your mind: your favourite of all time, perhaps, or a fantasy, or future, you would like to see, a landscape, a city scene, an activity, a food still life, anything or everything you consider to be Christmas, or Christmassy.

#273: Journey and talk with your teenage self

Journey with your teenage self on your shoulder.  

How would they see the world now?  

What would they think of your life?  

What would you say to them?  

Would they listen to you?

What might they say to you?

Would you listen?

What would happen?

Maybe retrace a journey your teenage self often did.

How have things changed?

How do you like the changes? 

How would your teenage self like them?

How did you see the route back then?  

How do you see it now?

Where were you going then?

Where are you going now?

Or reflect on an event from those years.

How did it affect you?

How did it change you?

What would you have said to your teenage self in its aftermath that no one said to you at the time?

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Smith, Zadie (2023) The Fall of My Teenage Self. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/27/the-fall-of-my-teen-age-self (Accessed: 23rd November 2023).

#272: Talk with your teenage self

Imagine a conversation with your teenage self - what would you say to them?

Hold on.

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Smith, Zadie (2023) The Fall of My Teenage Self. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/27/the-fall-of-my-teen-age-self (Accessed: 23rd November 2023).

#271: A one-sided story, or The Vocal and the Silent

Oil on canvas.  Painting of an artist creating art from the lives of others - whether friends, family or strangers - without consultation or research.

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See also: The Haberdashery of Silly Rhymes: The Vocal and the Silent.

Burke, Kelly (2024) Jamie Oliver pulls children’s book from shelves after criticism for ‘stereotyping’ Indigenous Australians. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/10/jamie-oliver-pulls-childrens-book-from-shelves-after-criticism-for-stereotyping-indigenous-australians-ntwnfb (Accessed: 11th November  2024).

Liu, Rebecca (2023) Interview

Rebecca F Kuang: ‘Who has the right to tell a story? It’s the wrong question to ask.’ Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/rebecca-f-kuang-who-has-the-right-to-tell-a-story-its-the-wrong-question-to-ask (Accessed: c.20th May 2023).

Mangan, Lucy (2023) One Night review – Jodie Whittaker absolutely soars in this mystery drama. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/nov/24/one-night-review-jodie-whittaker-absolutely-soars-in-this-mystery-drama (Accessed: 24th November 2023) - “Who owns a story?”

Poirier, Agnès (2023) Like the rest of France, I couldn’t wait for Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. Then I actually saw it. Available at: 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/24/france-ridley-scott-napoleon-french-history (Accessed: 24th November 2023).

#269: Tasteful Nude

Oil on canvas.

Word painting consisting of the following words and phrases:

Abstract
Active
Agency
All possibilities?
Alt life / Lifestyle / Alt lifestyle
Anti-porn
Anything goes
Assertive
At ease
Author 
Battleground
Belonging to no one but her[your]self
Body positive
Bottoms
Celebrating 
Challenge
Challenging
Change (minds)(hearts)(thoughts)
Collaborative
Comfort
Comfortable
Confidence
Conserve
Constricted
Constrictions
Conversation
Defiance 
Determination
Dialogue
Dignity (sometimes after decades or centuries (if not now, when?))
Discover something hidden
Elegance
Emotionally nude
Equal opportunities 
Equality
Explore (yourself)(her)
Exhibitionist
For you
Framed
Free
Freedom  
Free from shame
Frank realism
Fucked-up
Fun
Funny
Gaze (glaring) (outward)
Gives-no-fucks
Holding the power (who does?)
Honest
Honour
Humour
Identity

In nature
Intimate
Intimacy
Imperfection
Joyful
Life
Life affirming
Lives
Naked, rather than nude?
Natural
New or other scenes
No arseholes
No bias
No class bias
No gender bias
No preconceptions 
No politics
Non-conformative
Non-objective
Non-representative (Doesn’t have to be real)
Non-sexy
Non-violence
Normality
Not an exhibition
Not an exhibitionist
Not (in his hands)
Not destroy
Not just meat
Not rude
Other
Other lives
Ownership 
Opposites at the same time
Performance
Personal
Playfulness
Political
Poise
Positive
Power
Pretty
Practical
Precious
Progression
Private
Protect
Protest
Queer
Queer lives
Real(istic)
Represent
Representation
Representative of all (but not all at once; across everything)
Revealed (who by? how?)
Same sex gaze
Second nature
Streak
Sexuality
Scare
Self-empowerment
Self-view 
Sexy
Shameless
Sheela-na-gig
Shock 
Silly
Sincerity
Strength
Strip 
Stripping of the mind, internally naked
Surreal
Tension
This and that
Topsy Turvy
Turn the tables
Ugly
Unabashed
Unashamed
Unstoppable
Visibility
Vulnerable
Vulnerability
You
Yourself

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#270: Tasteful Nude Reading List

#268: Walk through the heather

Get out of your comfort zone (never to return, or perhaps, with the aim of not returning) and explore something you would love to do but which has eluded you, or you have been too scared to take the first step towards.

Walk through the heather until you find yourself on the other side looking back, satisfied.

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Carter, Daisy (2024) English Teacher: Home is where the heart is.  Available at:  https://diymag.com/interview/english-teacher-this-could-be-texas-march-2024 (Accessed: 13th September 2024).

English Teacher (2024) ‘This Could Be Texas’, This Could Be Texas [5885311]. UK, Island Records.

English Teacher (2024) ‘The Best Tears of Your Life', This Could Be Texas [5885311]. UK, Island Records.

#267: Nothing

Everything.

#266: An escape

A bust of a person, their eyes closed.  In the person’s forehead is the opening to a tunnel which continues into the head, tapering to a point, a small light at the end.  At the start of the tunnel is a small figure walking into it.

#265: Ever the Embryo (Self-therapy)

Oil on canvas.  A copy of Ever the Embryo: a painting of an adult inside an egg.  An egg, though, has been painted over the chest in this version.  Inside this smaller egg are scenes showing why the adult feels like they are ever the embryo.  

What scenes would be in your egg (if this resonates)? feelings of safety, never feeling like you have grown (small child with man’s face at work?), feelings of separation, of not belonging, not being able to belong, feelings of being apart from the world, communicating and living separately, little things showing the same over and over?

#264: Ever the Embryo

Oil on canvas.  Painting of an adult inside an egg.

#263: Your Psyche

A full length-mirror on a wooden stand. 

Carved into the frame above the mirror is the following text:

Search for yourself.  Your true self.  

“So much subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of blazonry or clock-face for it.” - George Eliot.

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Gonzalès, Eva (about 1869-70) The Full-Length Mirror (La Psyché) [Oil on canvas]. National Gallery, London.

Jones, Jonathan (2024) Insight! Sensitivity! Genius! Our critic picks the top five masterpieces in the National Gallery. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/may/08/national-gallery-top-five-five-masterpieces-van-gogh-blooms (Accessed: 9th May 2024).

#262: Spiral Staircase of Moods

A three floor spiral staircase into which the only natural light comes from a skylight at the very top.  There are round lights running along the wall at intervals to the bottom but these are not very bright, and the doors on each floor only allow a small amount of dim light through at the best of times (often there is none as the lights are activated by movement sensors and will only switch on when there are people around).  There is shining bright light at the top but at the bottom it is dark.  Not pitch dark, there is always some light but there is always the danger that you could bump your head on the underside of the stone steps if you wander into the empty space to be found there.

#261: Inspiration and Theft and the Bases of Creativity

Me cutting and pasting little parts then creating something new without much thought to the original or holding true to the original intention.

#259: Blank Space (Entry for the Faber / Observer / Comica Graphic Short Story Competition)

The winner and runner-up have now been announced, so above is what I printed out and entered as the first physical Imaginary Comic.

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Initial post:

Has been entered and will appear here when the winners are anounced.

Previous attempts at Imaginary Comics:

#026: If I was brave enough

#137: A Child’s First Visit to a Gallery

#258: You should see my armoury (Self-portrait XX)

Oil on canvas.  A sort-of still life in the style of the Dutch Golden Age showing all the skills you possess.

#257: Information Overload [Warning: Contains flashing images]

Scroll down for Information Overload.
Warning: Contains flashing images. Well, text.

#256: The Future

#255: You are your own experience

#252: Black Dog Ideas I and II: Black dog's a-coming tonight and His Black Dog

Black Dog I: Black dog's a-coming tonight

Oil on canvas.  A painting of a man who is frozen still, his eyes shut tight.  A recording of a dog running and painting, getting nearer and nearer, can be heard.

Black Dog II: His Black Dog

Oil on canvas.  A painting divided into four panels in the style of Man with a Newspaper by René Magritte.  A man is seen sitting in an easy chair positioned in a living room in each panel, in the same pose each time.  Only his face shows any change in the man.  The room itself is seen from slightly different perspectives in each panel.

In the first panel, we see the man only, sitting passively, looking out at the viewer.  In the second, we see the man, his eyes looking to the window, his face concerned.  In the third, we see the man, again sitting passively and looking straight out at the viewer but now a black dog is present, standing on its hind legs behind the man, its front paws on his shoulders.  In the fourth panel, the man is sitting, serenely, the black dog lying at his feet.

#251: I am a work in progress

A TV screen mounted in a portrait/mobile phone orientation.  A photo of the artist taken that day appears on the screen and is changed for a new one at least once a day.

Post-death, a second screen is added and, in due course, becomes two works: I was a work in progress and I am no longer a work in progress (with appropriate numbers).  The former re-shows all the photos collected for the original piece in a one-a-day loop while the latter shows a daily photo of the artist's grave or memorial for as long as people can be bothered.

#250: If you can’t stand up for people in life don’t do it in death

Quotes from articles and obituaries about Sinead O’Connor following her death that form the words No One Compares 2 U.

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See: Geraghty, Hollie (2023) Lily Allen “incensed” by “spineless” tributes to Sinéad O’Connor. Available at: https://www.nme.com/news/music/lily-allen-incensed-by-spineless-tributes-to-sinead-oconnor-3475673 (Accessed: 3rd August 2023).

#248: Real Surreal

A surrealist painting but your dreams are really humdrum.

#247: Anti-Racist Black Square

Oil on linen.  A black square with white border painted on a square canvas.  Etched into the black paint of the square are the words: “What we want is no one fighting in any place or at any time and we will take steps to ensure an anti-racist future, a future where discrimination does not exist.” 

And so what will I do next?

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Resource List:

Dunne, Carey (2016) Art Historians Find Racist Joke Hidden Under Malevich’s “Black Square”. Available at: https://hyperallergic.com/253361/art-historian-finds-racist-joke-hidden-under-malevichs-black-square/. 

Grovier, Kelly (2018) The racist message hidden in a masterpiece. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180312-the-racist-message-hidden-in-a-masterpiece (Accessed: 1st April 2023).

Shatskikh, Aleksandra (2017) Inscribed Vandalism: The Black Square at One Hundred. Available at: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/85/155475/inscribed-vandalism-the-black-square-at-one-hundred/ (Accessed: 30th March 2023).

Spira, Andrew (2022) Precedents of the Unprecedented: Black Squares Before Malevich. Available at: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/black-squares-before-malevich/ (Accessed: 31st March 2023).

Tolstaya, Tatyana (2015) The Square. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-square (Accessed: 21st February 2024).

Vakar, Irina (2019) New Information Concerning The Black Square in Lodder, Christina (2019) Celebrating Suprematism : New Approaches to the Art of Kazimir Malevich. Available at: https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE5MjM5ODRfX0FO0?sid=06827ef3-d2a0-45f7-a118-ea34aa1fcade@redis&vid=5&format=EB&lpid=lp_11&rid=0 (Accessed: 31st March 2023).

von Zinnenburg Carroll, Khadija and Gusejnova, Dina (2017) Malevich’s Black Square under X-ray: A dialogue on race, revolution and art history. Available at: http://www.thirdtext.org/malevich-blacksquare (Accessed: 30th March 2023).

Wikipedia page before Pencil inscriptions section was removed: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Black_Square&oldid=1218618957 (Accessed: 15th July 2024).

#245: A hot drink will make it all better

A simple picture of a mug with steam lines above accompanied by the words: A hot drink will make it all better all in upper case.

#243: Self-portrait with TV and living room (Self-portrait XIX)

A portrait of you in your living room with the TV (if you have one) on.  

What is playing on the TV?  

What else is in the room?  

How much of you is in the room?  

How does each item in the portrait represent you?

#242: You're beautiful

#239: Your Imaginary Art Space

A space on a wall is marked with masking tape.  Underneath this, centrally, is a panel with the following text and a QR code to take you to an accompanying website: 

This is your own Imaginary Art Space: think about what you would like to see here right now and just imagine it…

It could be a landscape, a portrait (self- or a group-), a memory, an idea using the making space theme of this exhibition? …

or you could use a different prompt - check today’s headlines, listen to a song, look around the room for inspiration -

or you could even scan the QR code for more ideas (https://yourimaginaryartspace.blogspot.com/ - this pool will grow as the exhibition carries on)

Just think of something to fill this space and place it above by using your imagination.

Whatever you do, however or whatever you imagine, it will be a unique experience and a one of a kind artwork.

Feel free to share your own prompt or a description of your idea using #imaginaryartspace

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Unentered idea for the 2024 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the theme of which was making space.

Click here for a background twitter thread.

#238: Idea comfort blanket

To help you deal with how uncomfortable things are.  A cloaking device for your mind.

#237: Your Shadow(s) (After Robert Rauschenberg)

One very large white monochrome painting is on the wall.  A spotlight is trained on the painting and the viewer is encouraged to stand between the light and the painting.  The spotlight can be moved around the space and gels are available to change the colour of the light - or the viewer can use their own light source.  The viewer is also encouraged to use props and record their work with photographs or video.  

#236: Achy but good

Crying to feel better.

#235: Close your eyes and it all comes rushing back

Try to transport yourself to a happy place in time, just for a while.

Use triggers if you like - photos, objects… or go to the place itself and fix on the things that haven’t changed.

Then close your eyes and…

#234: Nothing I-IV

I

A blank canvas.

II

but your thoughts

III

not up to anything

IV

and no one else

#233: Sit outside

Sit outside of society, of everything, of your own life even, for a while; sit outside of the place where you are right now, as much as you can - imagine you are behind a veil that keeps you separate and experience life as if from the outside.  

Wait.  

Watch.  

See.

Record your findings.

#232: The Hands of Control

Oil on canvas.  All white paint on a black background.  Hands with lightning shaped arms reach towards a body curled up and helpless.  Text on the frame reads: the hands of control / over both bodies and minds / massage just themselves.

#231: a, or the, Religious Experience

A picture of a group performing the same, or joint, activity; or all in attendance somewhere together, their focus in the same direction.  All seem comforted and happy to be there - although they might not show this in the way you would expect.

(or an ornate sword - one edge sharp and plain, the other blunt but beautifully carved). 

#230: Mine alone to disgrace

A name is written on a wall (for example, Taylor Swift) which is protected completely by a locked frame.  The means to deface this artwork is placed in a locked cabinet underneath.  Only the person whose name it is (for example, Taylor Swift) has means to access the artwork and cabinet and they (for example, Taylor Swift) have an open invitation to come and deface their own name, should they wish to.

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Snapes, Laura (2024) Breakups, fantasies and her most cutting lyrics: inside Taylor’s Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/19/taylor-swift-album-the-tortured-poets-department-lyrics (Accessed: 19th April 2024).

Swift, Taylor (2024) ‘But Daddy I Love Him,’ The Tortured Poets Department [602465081343]. US,Republic Records.

Although the title and idea comes from a lyric in the above Taylor Swift song, it is thanks to the above Laura Snapes article that this idea came about.

#229: Society

A cage that we are all locked in together and cannot escape from.  

Imagine a fight breaks out.

What happens next?

How do we carry on?

#228: Homely Sounds

Close your eyes and think of home.

What do you hear?

#227: A Perfect Place to Grow

Your preferred environment.

#226: Proustian Window

A stained glass window in the shape of a madeleine.  The window depicts the triggers that would take you through and the memories you would discuss on the other side.

#225: Happy black days, this here’s the summer (here's the summer)

Oil on canvas.

Scene of someone in a terrible state (their eyes dark, their skin pale and sallow, their hair long and bedraggled) exiting a building into bright sunlight.

#224: You are not alone

Picture of the interior of a library.

#223: Which boxes fit in you? (Or would you rather burn all the boxes and their labels?)

A room full of boxes.  The majority with genders, age ranges, nationalities, religions, professions, sexualities, generations, races, cultures, etc written on them - the sort of words used in surveys to build you in their eyes, or to pigeonhole someone.  

Factual, kind, hateful or nasty.  All you can think of are present.

Larger boxes in the centre of the room have You written on the side.  These are big enough to fit a number of the other boxes in, once flattened.

Also in the room: a stanley knife, lighter fluid, matches and an incinerator bin.

#222: A note (What I’ve been thinking about today)

A blank postcard with the following typed on the picture side:

The mind transcends over all mediums

 - 

but something aesthetically or auditorily pleasing is best.

#221: Scratch off the surface and there is nothing there

A run of mass produced scratchcards.  The cards themselves are black with a white area that can be scratched off.  Above this area are the words, in white, “Scratch off the surface and there is nothing there…”  Scratching off the white area reveals nothing but black underneath, extending the border to the centre.

The reverse has a white background with black text reading: 

scratch me how you like: 

obliterate or create, 

or just imagine.

#220: The Current State of Things (Are there any absolutes in art?)

An artwork to be reproduced just inside the entrance of any gallery in the world, using their own collections in a potentially ever-changing display.

Six works of art hang on the wall in two rows of three with writing on the wall above the top row, below the final row and in between the rows.  (Or works and text are arranged in a way that suits the art being displayed).  None of the pieces are labelled in the traditional way, but instead with just one word that represents the current attitude to that work.

The text at the top reads:

David: "Is it all just… fashion? Are there any absolutes??" Mira: "Sure! In here…[she points to her chest]" Ollie: "Just not out there." from The Sculptor (2015) by Scott McCloud, p. 204 panels 1-2.

The three works of art in the top row are labelled, from left to right: Anti-fashion, In-fashion and Out of fashion.

The text across the middle reads: 

“God, it all seems… so shallow, though.  Like it’s all just about celebrity.  Not about the art at all.” The Sculptor (2015) by Scott McCloud, p.401, panel 7-8.

The three works of art in the bottom row are labelled, from left to right: Kitsch, Classic and Celebrity.

The text across the bottom reads: 

“Art is beyond taste. Leave your prejudices behind when you want to be uplifted.” from Kitsch art: love it or loathe it? (2013) by Jonathan Jones, published in The Guardian.

#219: Small black flowers that grow in the sky

Oil on canvas.  

A view of a bright blue sky, dotted with a few clouds, the sun shining in the corner.  Vines with flowers grow across the scene along the bars at the top of a cage.

#218: Self-portrait XVIII / Joint Self-portrait V

A film of you in a karaoke booth singing the songs that you feel most represent you and your life.  Or with your friends and/or family singing the songs that unite you and represent you as a group.

#217: I looked inside myself once and there was nothing there

A tumbleweed tumbling through a deserted desert town but in your mind.

#216: Lament for the weak for they will be crushed vs The weak die young and right now we crouch to make them strong

Oil on canvas.  

The painting split into three parts: two are alongside one another and feature separate images while a third contains words and runs along the bottom of the canvas below the two previous sections.  

The image on the left is of someone lamenting.  

The image on the right shows someone heroic lifting a platform on which many people are sat on the edge or standing behind.  

The text along the bottom reads, “Which would you rather?”

#215: Bliss

Oil on canvas.  A family sitting and watching television together.

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Clarke, Patrick (2021) A Quietus Interview: The Atoms That Made Us: Manic Street Preachers Interviewed. Available at: https://thequietus.com/articles/30411-manic-street-preachers-nicky-wire-interview-the-ultra-vivid-lament (Accessed: 15th November 2023).

#214: Love (Tom Allen)

Oil on canvas.

Black words on a white background, reading: Security.

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See: Greenstreet, Rosanna (2023) The Q&A: Tom Allen: ‘At an early corporate gig, they opened the buffet in the middle of my set – everybody left’. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/nov/25/tom-allen-interview (Accessed: 25th November 2023).

See also.

#213: Love (Paul Auster)

A well-cared for tree or plant.

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See: Wroe, Nicholas (2023) Interview: ‘This might be the last thing I ever write’: Paul Auster on cancer, connection and the fallacy of closure. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/18/paul-auster-on-cancer-connection-and-the-fallacy-of-closure (Accessed: 18th November 2023).

See also.