Performances

I have made about 220 live performances over the past 20 plus years. Performance for me is not a theatrical experience. It is akin instead to a shamanic process of image making except one uses the body as a tool instead of a brush or camera. Performances tend to be durational and evolve throughout time incorporating painting, writing, slow motion movements, balance motions, music, spoken word or sound making, etc… I have given performances throughout the World and the list of venues and countries is too numerous and diverse to form any tangible reflection of my activities. Finally, the images are all that remain in photographic documentation and these serve as triggers for an unreliable memory to ponder.

• See also:
• Exhibitions.

Handmade Books

I am constantly searching for books to recycle and transform into art works. Since the mid 1980’s I have made over 100 such books from found or abandoned publications thrown out by libraries and schools. I also buy books from second hand shops, to cut up and collage. I spend a lot of time trawling the flea markets and thrift stores searching for photographs and other visual material to incorporate into my books. Each book is entirely unique and may evolve over a period of months but more often it is years before a book is complete. I work on many books simultaneously and allow them to germinate as an organic element gradually adding material as time goes by.

Works on Paper & Canvas

I have made over 3000 water colours, gouaches and paintings on paper over the past 20 years. The works featured on this site are derived from my intensive study of ice age art and my visits to see the cave art in South Western France. I work fluidly with the paint and the forms evolve rapidly defining and redefining themselves as time passes. Paintings are seldom worked on more than once as they lose their potency for me if I have to return to the image.

Polaroids

I have been experimenting with Polaroid photography off and on since 1977. I am always delighted with its unpredictable nature and intense colour saturations, particularly with SX 70 film. The square format is a unique window or frame in which to encapsulate my interests and preoccupations. I am not a straight photographer and have no notion of how to take a good picture or how to create a deliberately contrived image. Instead, I like to play with found objects and materials and create a photographic collage and often employ unexpected interventions and chance occurrences to obtain a fleeting and transitory image. Finally, no matter how much one desires a specific type of image the film and the temperature dictate what effect and result you will get with Polaroid film. Its magic lies in its affinity with early colour photographic processes and its propensity for instability (subject to fading and striations of chemical spotting) all of which go to make a dream like picture.

Exhibitions & Installations

I have approximately 25 solo and group exhibitions of my paintings and drawings since 1985. in recent years I have exhibited at the Sheridan Russell Gallery in London (2001 and 2003), at Galerie de Meerse in Holland (2006) and at bookartbookshop London (2007). My works are in numerous public and private collections including: The Outsider Archive Dublin, The Beth Rudin de Woody collection, New York, Paranorm collection, Bonn, Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, the Alban collection, Amsterdam etc...

• See also:
• Performances.

Publications

Photographs of my performances have appeared in many journals, newspapers and magazines. Sensoria of Mangajin Books in Toronto printed two features on my work during the 1990's. There are also a number of international catalogues and booklets containing images of both my paintings and performances. Stewart Home's book, The Assault on Culture, carries an image of one of my performances on the front cover. most recently my work is featured in colour in the CAT SHOW Catalogue (2007). My work has appeared in film too, Shaun Caton - performance artist (Linda Entwistle, 1992) and Paranorm Audio Visual in Germany (www.paranorm.de) distribute dvd's of at least 5 of my main performances from 1987-98. I have also produced CD's with C.o.Caspar of sonic poems - Maze and selected poems.