Black Herds of the Rain – Dublin

I’m home in Ireland for 10 days painting a few walls and making another short film with Monsieur Andy Telling. Its a lil different this time, no soldiers or colonial garb. I decided to do a project a little more relevant to what’s going on in Ireland at the moment. For those that aren’t aware, Ireland is balls deep in a recession thanks to the Holy Trinity of Irish corruption – the politicians, bankers and developers.

I’ve always thought that we have a certain cowboy mentality in Ireland, maybe because we’re on the wild west of Europe or maybe because of our strong links to America over the centuries and I think its that cavalier bandit attitude that got us in so much trouble.

So I decided to paint cowboys. It ties in with my usual blurb about masculinity (blah blah blah) but I particularly like this image of the rodeo rider being thrown off his bull. In his 1936 poem ‘The Lost Heifer’, Austin Clarke refers to the Irish struggle for Independence as being like a cow wandering in the rain. So for this set of pieces I like the idea of the bull in all its wild and beastly glory representing the new Ireland while the cowboy represents the politicians who lost control of the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wild West

 

 

 

LA – Day 4

Day 4, and my search for a reasonable cup of coffee in America continues. After I was here the last time I sought advice from the guys at Nude Espresso. They’re based on Hanbury St right around the corner from my studio and I think they possibly do the best coffee in London. They’re one of the leading lights in the 3rd generation of coffee shops in London, taking a more boutique and specialized approach to coffee after the years of caffeine rape by the unmentionable high-street chain cafes (I take this shit seriously).

Anyway, when I got back from the Eurotrash show in June,  Sasha at Nude recommended I check out  Intellegentsia Coffee and that I did.

We reached their Venice spot on Abbott Kinney with a short que in front of us. The coffee didn’t disappoint.

They also recently collaborated with Madlib to develop his own blend of espresso.

And on to the beach for a lil nature before the show opens.

There’s always going to be food involved.

Opening time. Get your game-face on.

Chloe and the Budman.

LA – Day Two (Day One was fly fly fly, sleep sleep sleep)

Pulled up at the printers to see Chloe’s prints. Nice work on the outside by London Police and Buff Monster.

And on the the gallery to see how the show is looking.

Happy girl.

All they do in LA is drive.

Interesting photo thingy in the lift in our hotel. This city loves filming itself.

And then on to dindins. This was special. One of Jose Andres’ restaurants, he trained at El Bulli in Spain so you know this is going to be ridiculous.

Making Chloe’s nitrogen cocktail.

Chloe in LA

We’re off to LA tomorrow morning – sweeeeeeeeeet! –  for Chloe’s show at Corey Helford (already sold out). I get to go along as her +1, nice nice.

The piece above is a banger – Silver-Tip Symphony, at a whopping 6ft x 8ft.

I hear its raining at the moment, LA sort it out.

Achtung Baby

Just as the bold and the beautiful of the art glitteratti descended on London for the annual Frieze circus, I took Chloe away to Berlin as a surprise for too nights (what a guy). It was her birthday so she got to follow me around cold and wet Berlin while I took photos of graf.

We stumbled across this fantastic Mac and Kofie collab piece up by Prenzlaur Berg. I’d seen it online when it was done during the summer but nothing beats seeing the real thing especially when you’re not expecting it.

These Blu pieces were down the road from our hotel. East Berlin was made for Blu.

And we also popped in to catch Jaybo‘s new show at Circle Culture.

Eurotrash – Show Pix

One week on and here are a few flix of the Eurotrash show, currently running in LA. All photos thanks to Ian at Wallkandy of course. I’ll be back soon with shots of my individual pieces from the show.

Bethlehem – The Wall

I’m back from my Israel/Palestine adventure 2 weeks now, and it already feels like a dream. I’ve been interested in the area for a while so I thought it would make a good trip, and an even better film (Andy is slaving away in the editing suite of Conor HQ as we speak).

My paintings are about power structures and opposing elements (blah blah blah) and we certainly got that taste of difference with painting in both Tel Aviv, the Israeli capital of cool, and Bethlehem, Palestine’s walled-in birthplace of some dude called Jesus.

Dheisheh Refugee Camp, Bethlehem

Beit Sahour

I did this small piece in a field in Beit Sahour, a neighbouring village to Bethlehem. I tried to include the Arabic script as much as possible, I believe it refers to the PLO.