Tribute to J.G.Ballard

I first discovered J.G.Ballard when I bought a battered second-hand copy of Hi-Rise from a bookshop many years ago. The book was unlike anything I had ever read, the understandable immortailty of the characters was a shock to the system, cognitive dissonance from the written page, this was new and exciting! This lead to me reading many other Ballard books over the years, the highlight probably being Crash, which I still don’t understand but enjoy unlocking the puzzle a little bit more everytime I read it. Just reading about the people that he influenced has been an additional bonus to me, this has opened opened new worlds of art, books and music. The Ballard community is a wonderful framework of sanity to ground myself against in an increasingly crazy world, one that he predicted through his books. Everytime I’m affronted by celebrity “news”, survellience and new consumer fetish cults I have a group of people to turn to who are equally bemused and angry. To new readers if you asked me what book to read first, I would say his autobiography, Miracles of Life (2008). From this gripping, warm and honest book you will get a true measure of the man that was J.G.Ballard.

Doll - New Sculpture

Beautiful in her own way, visceral, creepy, this is no children's toy.

Found object sculpture mounted in stained wooden box, with paper mache, tubes and electronics.

Sweet dreams :-)

Nude Photo Studies - Monoprints

I have been experimenting today with photo monoprints. I have printed my own semi-abstract photos onto good quality photopaper and then painted on top of these with acrylic paint. The overall effect is interesting. So far I have only used acrylic paint water and brush but the next step will be to use sandpaper and other abrasives to add more scratchy effect. I am also considering scanning the monoprint in again on a flatbed scanner, processing in photoshop, printing and then adding more paint etc in a cycle of "n" times, where "n" is a large number :-)

Hope you like


Nude #4 Monoprint


Nude #3 Monoprint


Nude #2 Monoprint


Nude #1 Monoprint

Doomstone

doomstone
Originally uploaded by garbleart

This is a 12th century carved stone slab kept in the crypt at York Minster.

It depicts the day of judgement, with demons supporting a cauldron in which the damnedd are being pushed into and tortured.

Neal Stephenson on Anathem

Over at "The Word" magazine they have a good "Backstage" podcast featureing the  author Neal Stephenson talking about his acclaimed Baroque Cycle and new book "Anathem". Worth a Listen, my favourite Stephenson book is The Diamond Age, cracking stuff

Hawkwind Tour 2009

Hawkwind are touring! Dates at http://www.hawkwindmuseum.co.uk/tour%20dates.htm

Organo-phonogram

A new sculpture



In an endless pointless pursuit for perfection
we seek mutilation and union with synthetic technology
For no purpose as nature has a design for all living things

The Times: J.G.Ballard Crash - Cover Design Competition Update

Last year I entered a design competition to to create a new book cover for the re-issued version of J.G.Ballard's Crash. The competition deadline last May came and went with no convincing updates from the Times. I emailed the Times of couple of times and put a few comments on the competition page but heard nothing. Snooping around the Harper Perennial website I located the email address of Siobhan Kenny, the Communications Director, next day I received the following response, the end is in sight? They have yet to update the website. Also announced this as at Ballardian

“Dear Mr Buxton

I do apologise for the lack of update on the competition to design a cover for a special edition of JG Ballard’s Crash. Unfortunately, changes to our publishing schedule resulted in our not being able to put the special edition into production in 2008 as planned. Instead therefore we hope to publish the new edition, complete wtih the winner’s artwork, as part of the series of events celebrating the 25th anniversary of 4th Estate in 2009. As soon as the details are finalised, we will of course inform the winner and publicise it more widely togethr with Times Online.

We are sorry for this delay but we hope that the greater prominence the book will receive by being part the 25th anniversary of 4th Estate will give the winner and the book more public profile.

Best wishes
Siobhan Kenny, Communications Director

Four Score Years and Ten

Four Score Years and Ten is one of my more personal paintings, taking several weeks to develop with multiple layers - it expresses personal beliefs about mortality, religion and being human.  As with other paintings and sculptures in this series its purpose is to remind myself and hopefully others,  to cease the moment and make the most of relatively short time that we experience consciousness as a bi-product of our biological function.

Main View

Detail 

Detail

Philip K Dick

Over on Ballardian.com they have a good article on Philip K Dick and a pointer to a downloadable podcast (from Pirate Cat Radio) celebrating his novels.

See http://www.ballardian.com/happy-birthday-philip-k-dick

Worth a listen