Polite Dada and coffee-table Surrealism On the night of February the fifth one hundred years ago, in Spiegelgasse 1, Zurich, a group of provocateurs took to the stage and danced and roared “Dada, Dada, Dada!“ The Cabaret Voltaire was a melting pot of nationalities and genres, it was provocative, subversive, iconoclastic and innovative, which dissolved the boundaries between life and art. This anti art movement reeled about the violence and immorality of the First World War, they blame the middle […]

One hundred drawings i As noted in the previous lesson, I have suggested to students that they should do a hundred drawings. This was usually met with some incredulity. But that’s twenty drawings a day, ten in the morning and ten in the afternoon, leaving the evenings and weekends to yourself, totally possible and in some cases I let them do it over two weeks, so that’s just five drawings in the morning and five in the afternoon. i Of […]

Good advice i I once met an ex-student who complemented me on my advice when he was a student and that it had stayed with him all these years as good advice. Wondering on what this memorable piece of wisdom might have been, I pondered the profundities of “let each line hold its own weight of its content.” Or, “Do  hundred drawings“. i In reality, my actual advice was – “Get drunk and use a big brush!“ i Not the sort […]

Why paint?   I stated in 1983 that if you wished to paint today that you have to have special reasons for doing so. If this was true in 1983 it is even truer now.   Exercise, Lesson 17: Write down why you paint. i i i i i

Paradox   In 1983 I said that, “Paradox is the dialectic of life”.   Exercise, Lesson 16: Do something contradictory. i i i i i

Life drawing   Today, life drawing is either the most reactionary thing to do or the most revolutionary.   Exercise, Lesson 15: Do some life drawing. i i i i i

Ten years ahead Being ten years ahead of everybody else is as bad as being twenty years behind. i i i i i  

More is more I A lecturer giving a tutorial once said that the student’s painting was “a bit all-over“. The meaning was that there was no focus, or knot of activity, and that the weight was distributed evenly all-over the surface of the painting. I The student nods in agreement with some understanding as to what the tutor was getting at. I As the student did not defend his position, which was in essence that it is perfectly reasonable to […]