Badly Taken Christmas Photos

Victor and Fauve preparing for our Christmas feast. The photos were taken on the last of the Fuji Superia 200 film I had left in my camera. Technically not great photos but I kind of like the strange, slightly trippy, feel they have with the clear foreground and blurred background.

This is a metaphor for... oh lets say... the true meaning of Christmas

Man Ray OK

It has all gone a little Man Ray

Totnes

Are people from Totnes called Toties?

Another Mistake

From our recent trip to Totnes. This was taken near the Sea Trout Inn (renamed the Old Trout Inn through a combination of my dyslexia and 'humour') where we were staying and close to the River Dart. To be honest I think I may have deliberately aimed the camera into the sun to see what effect it would have. This one could easily be a metaphor for... hmmm... lets say the absence of God.

And Finally

This is the last of my photos from Iceland (unless another undeveloped film turns up)

A River Runs Through It

Here's where those icebergs float down to the sea. There's some pretty glistening of the sun off the ice and ripples in the water. All very nice. It's just crying out for some poet to use as a metaphor for... oh lets say... growing up in small town America... or something

On the Beach

A beach of sand made from volcanic ash and ice melting from a glacier

Now in Colour

...but sadly missing the duck...

Red Sky at Night

Reykjavik at 2am in June

My First Review

I have been reviewed in the likes of Circa in Ireland, mentioned in Cabinet in New York and made to look (momentarily) cool in Dazed & Confused but here is where it all started

(I'm the one on the right, just in case you were wondering)

Closed

A closed petrol station at about 2am in the suburbs of Reykjavik. That is all.

I'm back (again)

So the picture. I think it's my favourite of the many pictures I took in Iceland; it was taken on a night shoot on the golf course behind the residency building. The building I was staying in was out in the suburbs and the suburbs of Reykjavik have a strange otherworld feel to them (feeding into my fantasies about living on a terraformed Mars).

The sprinkler system had come on (as if to provide a useful metaphor for the excesses of the cheep credit/boom years) and was causing a thin mist to cover the golf course and hug the residency building (providing a metaphor for… oh lets say… the environment)

Ah yes, the beauty our species can create by combining the mundane, the clearly unsustainable and the pointless.

I'm back!

Some very beautiful scenery and one duck with a very cold bum

and B&W = Classy

(especially for the duck with the cold bum)

Farewell to Iceland

Well it's farewell to Iceland today. As I sit here with my bags packed in sunny Reykjavik town (14 degrees, heatwave!) waiting for Kristjana to come give us a lift to the BSI buss station my thoughts turn to London and new opportunities.

See you in the pub kids!

Randoms

Photos taken by friends in Iceland

Photos taken by: Shona MacPherson, Lauren Camarata and Jessica Frelinghuysen

Paul Stanley ræðir við listamenn

Paul Stanley er gestalistamaður SÍM í Júní, hann býður listamönnum að kíkja í SÍM húsið í kaffibolla og ræða um myndlist. Sjá lýsingu hér að neðan. 

I am an artist from London currently on a one-month residency with SIM here in Reykjavik. As part of my current project I am offering to sit down and listen to artists tell me about their practices here in Iceland. As an artist, writer and curator I believe that art is about discourse, an attempt to find what is common as humans in our separate existences.

By listening to other artists, discussing the links and shared ground in our different practices I hope to give something back to the art world. In a capitalist society where we are encouraged to consume more and more, where consumption is the only means of expressing identity and humanity then an act of generosity is arguably one of the most subversive acts we can do.

Hægt er að hafa samband við Paul í gegnum tölvupóst á netfangið: paulstanley66@yahoo.co.uk

Einnig eru allir velkomnir á opnun gestalistamanna SÍM, föstudaginn 24. júní milli 17 og 19.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=234327419930606

The Two-Hour Show

Poster designed by Elisa Vendramin

Just back from a stay over in Hofn, the Icelandic capital of lobsters (although their little Lobster Parliament was closed that day)

We spent part of the summer solstice looking at Icebergs breaking off from the Vatnajokull glacier and floating into the sea.

Fun Fact: Vatnajokull is so big it covers 13% of Iceland

I Just Like This Photo

Funny how sometimes a badly taken photo can be more interesting than a well taken photograph.

In my opinion

Solo Show

I am having a very tiny solo show at the SIM exhibition space in downtown Reykjavik on the 28th June. I am inviting Icelandic artists to come and talk about what they do, here's the invite:

Invite to Reykjavik Artists

By Paul Stanley

I am an artist from London currently on a one-month residency with SIM here in Reykjavik. As part of my current project I am offering to sit down and listen to artists tell me about their practices here in Iceland. As an artist, writer and curator I believe that art is about discourse, an attempt to find what is common as humans in our separate existences.

By listening to other artists, discussing the links and shared ground in our different practices I hope to give something back to the art world. In a capitalist society where we are encouraged to consume more and more, where consumption is the only means of expressing identity and humanity then an act of generosity is arguably one of the most subversive acts.

Who Ordered the Pizza?

I have been using my old 'analogue' camera as my digital camera died on me a while ago. The camera already had a film in it, half used, from before I moved down to London. There were twelve pictures already taken, some of old friends, one of my ex Lisa and a couple from a performance I did just before I split up with Lisa. There were also these three photos of a pizza. Why I took three photos of what looks like the dullest pizza ever I have no idea but here they are.