Light!

Let there be light! That is all.

Mum, Michelle and me

The photo on the table is of Mum, Michelle and myself. I'm about four/five years old in the picture. It's one of my favourite pictures from childhood. The table lives at my sister's house in Leeds.

Yarmouth Pier

Yarmouth Pier on the Isle of Wight as seen through a cafe window. Not as steamed up as the one in Hackney but you get the picture. Again taken on the modified pinhole camera.

Pinhole shot (the first of many)

Taken using a pinhole camera especially adapted to use colour film. This shot is through the window of a restaurant on the Kingsland Road in Hackney. I'm really happy with this one. I'm thinking of doing a series of photos (and maybe a film) taken through steamed up windows.

Every text she ever sent me

For those of you lucky enough to have been at the Drawers Gallery last night for the openin gof La Petite Muerte will have already seen this. For those of you not there here's my most recent work Every Text She Ever Sent Me.

Every Text She Ever Sent Me is a sculpture containing a mobile phone sim card encased in a block of resin. The sim card contains every text sent and photograph taken from a two year relationship. The data is preserved but also trapped.

Thanks to Adam Beale for helping to create the sculpture, and to Kirsty Harris (aka Lazy Susan) for organising the exhibition.

Review - Bad Behaviour

Here's an extract from the review of the recent Bad Behaviour exhibition at Brixton East by Paul Luckraft (who is the curator at Modern Art Oxford).


Paul Stanley’s two works on display are highly personal and autobiographical, centring around memories linked to his own family.  Past Tense (2012) comprises three small frames, with the middle one containing a 35mm slide subtly backlit by an embedded light.  The frames on the left and the right of this contain photographs of the artist as a young child with his mother and father, presented alongside short texts.  These texts, written by Stanley, are succinct and moving.  They universalise emotional memories of childhood, and carry just enough information without revealing too much.  In the upstairs space Stanley shows a projected slide show of further photos, these being found by the artist under his mother’s bed after her death.  Simply projected onto a low white screen, the images are shown deliberately blurred, adding a Richter-esque separation.  This blurring works to give the viewer permission to look at the images, without the sense of encroachment on something too personal to be shared.


Thanks Paul! I thought the review was very good, clear and balanced, and not just because you said nice things about my work (although that helps)

Carousel

Next up we have Carousel. And yes, I did get the title from season one of Mad Men. 

Carousel is an installation made up of a series of slides I found under my mother's bed after she passed away. Continuing on the themes stated at the start of Pulling at Threads the slides are projected blurred onto the screen, giving a tantalising glimpse into the past, close, almost formed but just out of reach.