Medal ribbons.......

....
I made these on the last day of term. I don't have enough medal ribbons to make the 'Defence Nets' I devised a couple of years ago and I didn't want these sitting around doing nothing. There's no structure to how they've been laid out. If I had thought more about it, I could have done something to resemble the naval alphabet backgrounds which is still possible as I have bits and pieces left.

 

Looking at them from a distance so to speak, they have a kind of Marsden Hartley look to them but in a more of a 'portrait of war' as opposed to a portrait of a specific officer. They could also be seen as a portrait of service or sacrifice.

 

 



 

Not entirely sure what to do with them but looking at them is giving me ideas about using gesso and model soldiers, maybe even 1/6 parts to create something really textured and verging on sculptural.

 

 

 

 

Any suggetions on a carrier pigeon please.



Wipers and the Sentry

Another commission piece for the same customer I did the Artillery memorial piece for. This is a remake of another Charles Sargeant Jagger sculpture called 'Wipers' which was the Tommies' name for Ypres.

Research:

The Wipers figure doesn't have the same rigid symmetry as the Artillery figures have and he's much less stylised although he does look like he's been working out or taking steroids.

This figure has come together really quickly. He comes from the same humble beginnings as the Artillery trio in that his head started life as Jason Statham and his body is one of the huge body builder torsos.

 

He's sporting a combination of DiD, Sideshow and Tony Barton items along with custom parts such as the over-trousers and rain cape. When I secure him to his plinth, I'll set his legs slightly further apart to give him a more 'None Shall Pass' look.

 

 

The primed stage has been my favourite of these projects. I like the way the grey makes everything uniform and monochromatic.

Just reminded myself that one of my ancestors was killed at the start of the third battle of Ypres in 1917.

Will hopefully have the time to get him bronzed today.

 

Bronzed and 'Dullcoted'. Looking at the original base it became clearer that the helmet at his feet is a Pickelhaube which dates the scene to no later than mid 1916, when the Stalhelm was issued. This meant that the box respirator had to be replaced with a PH Hood bag which was still being issued in 1916. It also became more apparent that the figure's left sleeve was in tatters, exposing his muscular forearm......



 

 .....so a bit of revision was required:

 

 

War memorial

Some work revolving around the symbols of sacrifice. This is work in progress but the first piece is reaching a conclusion.
I'll have more to say on the matter at some point.

 

 

This piece has been inspired by several sources. I think it's an off shoot or extension of the 'Plastic Armies' ideas that can be seen earlier in the blog. That idea was pretty tricky to realise although I might give it another go now this is complete. I don't think this would have come about if it wasn't for seeing the work of Kris Kuksi, Jake and Dinos Chapman and revisiting Renoir's 'Gates of Hell' piece. I originally wanted this to be white as it was meant to resemble a forces graveyard cross but the idea for it to be more of a religious icon quickly took over.

 



 I've lost count of the number of packets of soldiers and weapons and bottles of superglue it took to make this. It can stand up on its own as if placed on an altar but ultimately I would like to place it in a deep box frame as if it's a relic.

 

Ideally I would have liked to have this piece electroplated but you can only electroplate certain plastics and there are definitely several types contained within the sculpture. I doubt I could have afforded it anyway and the gold paint I've used here has worked pretty well.

I'll be using ready built soldiers for the next in this series. I think the grenade will be an effective piece.

Open mouth, insert foot.........

A few pieces which will be reworked eventually that are made up entirely of quotes from members of the Bush administration. When you put them together it becomes quite a frightening discourse. To think that these phrases came out of the mouths of some of the most powerful politicians in the world at the time and whose actions affected huge numbers of innocent people. The colours used represent the colours of the Iraqi flag. As I've said in this blog before, I'm no apologist for Middle East dictators but when the reasons for going to war are erroneous and false, our leaders' duplicity and stupidity should be noted and brought to a wider audience.

An interesting point from a Telegraph commentator today; Why aren't the hundreds/ thousands of children that are killed by drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan by western forces given the same news space that the children gunned down in Connecticut have?

Five Afghani girls were killed the other day by a landmine as they were foraging for firewood. I wonder if it only reached the news over here becaue it was most likely a Russian landmine leftover from the war in the 80s that killed them. Bad Russians.

The Arab Spring

 A few more ideas along the lines of the 'False Flags' series in that it's inspired by the political situation in the Middle East.
After the optimistic start to 2011 and the domino toppling of long standing dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, etc and the death of Colonel Gadaffi, it seemes the Middle East was about to enter a new phase in its political history where the people were to be allowed their say and democracy would replace tyranny. Fast forward to almost two years on and the optimism has been replaced with despair and the old dictatorships have been replaced with more of the same; power hungry administrations, bent on imposing their will on the populaitons by any means possible.....usually violent means.
The term Arab Spring refers to the time of year in 2011 when these revolutions began. It also has connotations of a well bringing new life. I've used it here as a negative pun relating the 'spring' to the firing mechanism of the ubiquitous AK47 so readily seen in news footage from the Middle East. Here I'm symbolising the turn around of events that now favours the dictators and tyrants again, whilst the people suffer, again.
I would like to make a sculpture of a full size AK47 using real Kalashnikov springs but it would cost a small fortune. One day maybe.

 

 

 

At the moment these are tracing paper and paper printout overlays and collages. When I get the time, I'll put them into Photoshop and make a better job of them.