Visible Boy Hiding Bird

Above: The other day in the studio I started absentmindedly copying part of the human body illustration from the old Yugoslav children's encyclopedia (which I have posted here before). I decided that I liked it as a motif, especially when combined with relatively benign elements: a dressed body, an idealised landscape sketched from a tin of Italian beans, and a bird. The boy ended up disturbingly reminding me of someone I know very well. Oh, the magic of art making -- cliched but true!

Monkey is a Lung

I moved into a real studio recently. I was a bit nervous about what to do on my first day so I decided to decorate my white walls with some strange new pictures. A Japanese book on Swedish children's interiors (from work) reminded me of those great games where you assemble a person from different cards showing heads, bodies or legs. A clown's face might have the body of a policewoman and the legs of a prince, etc. I love to play with anthropomorphism. Even when disparate elements are put together, the mind creates a story. I think that's amazing. I dipped into my slew of books and tried to get as silly as possible with these, to see how far the mind would go in creating beings out of ridiculous combinations. Above, yes, Monkey is a Lung. Badly photographed on the wall where it now lives.

Above: Chicken is a Fork. (My titles are not very imaginative).

Above: Man is an Orange. I think that one is quite profound, actually. I'm not sure why I am so into the cheesy Mitre 10 Man, but he has appeared again in my work.

I have been away from the blog for a couple of months. Thank you to all of those lovely people who have been looking and commenting -- both online and in person!