A new artistic departure?

Gek with some of her latest works, a miniature Turner Series in oil on canvas.  Still a few more canvases to christen but at least the frames are ready.  No pressure, honest.

In the back room, the Degas Series, water colour on paper.  How did the wandering monk get in there?

 Monkey, his colleague on the quest, clearly does not appreciate impressionist art works.

Both our favourite so far is Gek's impression of Turner's 'Yacht Approaching the Coast, 1840'.  I did not make the frame.  Don't you just love them?

Where Art meets Craft, Gek meets David

Gek now has a gallery to call her own, even if it is in 1/12th scale,

 with her name in silver over the door.

The ground floor is to display her Chinese Art, with the first floor reserved for her European art.  My bit is at the back, the cafe, the kitchen and the toilet.

Back on the Pearl

Now back on the Pearl of the Orient and ensconced on the 19th floor of our 1-Sky apartment, it is back to playing with miniature house settings as opposed to renovating life sized rooms.  And aren't I the untidy one?  As a toolmaker, this should never be but getting in the mood needs clutter!!  Mind you I always retract the modelling knife blade before I lay it down, no need to ask for trouble.   Picture frames are in demand at the moment, as Gek is into painting in miniature.

Book - The Story of Archaeology

Well, I did say we were making the best use of the Singapore National Library!!  Archaeology first came to my attention when our family visited Skara Brae, a 5,000 year old  neolithic stone-built village in the Orkney Isles, when I was but a young boy  This book connects the human timeline across our the planet, making it clear that peoples everywhere were doing it for themselves but in very similar ways.  Recently  'cave art' in Indonesia has been dated to around 40,000.

"It was previously thought that Western Europe (Spain) was the centerpiece of a 'symbolic explosion' in early human artistic activity, such as cave painting and other forms of image making, including figurative art, around 40,000 years ago," said study leader Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at Australia's Griffith University. "However, our findings show that cave art was made at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world at about the same time, suggesting these practices have deeper origins — perhaps in Africa before our species left this continent and spread across the globe."

Or was it a parallel development in human tribes that could not possible have been in contact with one another,  as shown by later parallel developments out lined in Justin's book?  Hummmm.

Book - We shall fight on the beaches

Histories again.  Two quiet different conflicts but both with one of our  European neighbours.  A very detailed setting out of the preparations taken in the UK against the threats of invasion, much of which can still be seen along the southern English coast in the form of old castle works and pillboxes.  I particularly enjoyed the telling of why defences were laid out in the the way they were, often second guessing the likely actions of our enemies built on intelligence gleaned from diverse sources.  It was ever so , as today the country sets up it's defences of a different nature against terrorist attacks..

Book - Previous Convictions

In the days of yore I used to read Mr. Gill's pieces religiously every weekend in the Sunday Times and I am sure I have read this book before, but couldn't swear to it.   Previous Convictions book is a selection of articles he wrote from assignments he undertook both at home and abroad.  He doesn't go where the average tourist goes and with his sharp awareness of the environment around him, his writing puts you right there with him.  The article on Haiti  had me disturbed for a couple of days.  BUT,  I would never have put Mr Gill and Mr Clarkson, of top Gear infamy, in the same room never mind on a 'holiday' together.  Truth is stranger than fiction,

Book - George Orwell

Being back in Singapore, Gek and I made very good use of the National Library.  First up to read, Bowker's Orwell.  I have read other Orwell biographies but this is the first one that really gave me a feel for the sort of chap George was beyond the 'he did this, he thought that'.  You will have to make your own mind up but Bowker highlights the contractions in the man, a man playing at being a tramp, a colonial policeman or a soldier at different times but never really being any of them.  Still, makes for a full and interesting life assuming as many characters on this world's stage as you can handle.

Singapore Home

After a weeks worth of scrubbing & polishing and new day and night curtains hung to frame the view, Regent Heights is ready for our return.

Sofa View, Singapore

Balcony it has not but view it has all the way into Malaysia.  Within 12 hours of arriving in the apartment Gek and I had the same thought - why don't we move back here for the last 9 months of our Asian stay?  OK, why not?  June should see us set up in Regent heights again ahead of moving back to Wales in early 2016.  The only constant in our lives seems to be change!

On The Road Again

On the way to Singapore by Aeroline coach via KL, with a nights stopover at the Corus hotel.  One of the twins from our hotel room window.  Good stopover all in all.  Met with two Gallery curators to try for a place to set up the FACES installation, one a no-go but with the other, we are on a list of other exhibitions being considered for 2015.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Video Maker.

Choon Ean setting up to video Gek explaining the art.  We hope that we can use the results to perhaps persuade another gallery in another town to host the installation so that we can take the show on the road.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Official Opening

The Exhibition's official opening was on the 19th, a Sunday coinciding with the street outside the venue being closed for weekly 'fun of the fair'.

Gek kicked off  the event with much deserved thank you gift of one of Gek's water colour landscape paintings to the organiser, Choon Ean.

A tour of the installation led by the artist followed, starting with the paintings of some of Gek's many friends.

The Emotions section  perhaps has the most abstract of the paintings in the show.

Visitors on the day include friends Yong Tai, Yoong Koy and Choo.

Gek's Third Exhibition - Seven Ages

Life's ticket is one way for all of us.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Emotions

What makes us Human, emotions.

Geks' Third Solo Exhibition - One Race

African, European, Asian, Indian faces. Multiple FACES, one RACE.

Geks' Third Solo Exhibition - Friends

Gek and her friends form the first of the four sections.  Interesting feature here is the back lit oil paintings of me ---- back lit feature is the special interest, not me!

Gek's Third Solo Exbition - Open

Gek as the receptionist with all eyes on her.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Model/Real

The real one,

The model.  Close, no?

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Just Before the Opening

 Setting the lights,

before the final act, topping out the stand with it's little black cap.

Gek with herself.  This is a very quirky exhibition!!!

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Ready to Open

The sails are set,

the banner is unfurled, for today we open the show.  I think we are so fortunate to have such a handy coffee shop so  near by and they serve my favourite nasi lemak on the whole of Penang island.  Sorted. Such a lucky fellow am I!!

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Assembly

Rebuilding the 20 over display frames with our new friend Sunn and me with a Mullet. Well a sort of Mullet.

With the help of Sunn, Choon Ean and Marni at the end of the first day's setting up we had only the sail paintings to put together.  Thanks guys.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Ready to Install

Suddenly this seems a big space.  Our kit has sort of disappeared in to it.  Now we have to reassemble and expand to create an installation.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - On the Move

A truck with hired help to get all the kit up to Georgetown.  These guys moved my two doll houses last year when we moved apartment without a scratch on either. Master Movers!!

Gek's Third Solo Exhibiton - Packed

Well, every thing is packed to go.  And if you are wondering where the art is, it is outnumbered by the 'props'.  The whole lot is about one truck load,  we hope.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - The Banners

We picked up the 6 banners today from the makers, all 7 foot tall, bring the number of art pieces over 6 feet high to 35.  The banners display poems and sayings to compliment the imagery.  Can't wait to put it all up in the same space. 

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - The Model

Things must be getting serious now,  I have made a twelfth scale model of Gek's exhibition layout!!!!  The real thing needs 1,500 sq ft to set it up in.  Every component is at least 6 foot high.  Gek, of course, is 5 foot nothing!
 

 There are four separate but related parts,  the progression through the art work being in a clockwise direction.

 First you meet Gek and a small selection of her friends.

Second is the rest of the world, Faces of peoples from different parts of our planet forming an enclosed, 12 ft diameter circle.  We have laid this out for real and I have to say, the effect of standing at the centre with 12 pairs of eyes on you is quite weird. Perhaps we need to have smelling salts available just in case we have a fainter!!!

 Thirdly, you come across these multiple emotions images, emotions that we all have from time to time.
 

Included in this part is a  stack of paintings showing moods, happy on the top of the pile, troubled on the bottom. Well, it is an "installation", you know.

And last but not least, the 'Seven Ages', for which I don't need a photo of the  model sails because I have a for-real photo.  Roll on the 16th October.  Wonder if it will all 'work'?

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Preparation

Our living room is currently truly a workshop. With Gek on the phone to the display banner designer at her temporary workstation cum breakfast table and me with some of the 23m of black cloth we are using as backing for some of the 31 wheeled shop-stands we have bought on which to hang the 'face' paintings!!!

On top of all that we have made 7 sailing masts from lengths of PVC and aluminium  pipe on which to display Gek's fabric art 'faces'.  A total of 64 paintings will be on show at Whiteaway's come mid October, if all goes according to the plan

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Faces.

This second exhibition of Gek's is due to open in mid October at the Whiteaways Arcade in Georgetown, Penang. This character is her lead man,  him having such a welcoming expression on his face.  He is from Bhutan, you know.

A little different this exhibition, with over 60 paintings of the human face laid out as an 'installation' with not one painting hanging on a wall.  Our home has become a 'try out' gallery with this set of seven faces painted on fabric representing the Seven Ages of Man.  For those of you who didn't already know, that is from Shakespeare - "All the worlds a stage etc.....".   My job was to make the props.  Not sure how to stiffen the poles yet. Still some fine tuning to be done!!!!

Book - Smarter Than You Think

A pulling together of the experimental uses of our new connected virtual world. Not that there is anything inherently new in the way we humans do anything with the computer.  And no new things either.  It is still all down to leadership by an individual that sets the world alight, for the general good or the general bad.  Still, the book is a snapshot in time of where the computer age was in 2012. 

Book - The Malay Archipelago

Alfred Russell Wallace speaking to us from the 19th century.  So what has changed?  Well, the natural environment has for sure.  The  places he visited on the archipelago 150 years ago were already showing signs of the stresses which are today clearing those places of their 'nature'. 

As for human kind, not a lot has changed, sadly. We are still walking the planet with our brains wired for our survival 40,000+ years ago, having long since eliminated all the threats it evolved to counter. Technology is evolving too fast for our biological brains to have any hope of keeping up with it.  Amazingly Wallace recognised this in 1870 with his comment that "....we (the English) are still in a state of barbarism" with reference to the way we run our so called "civilisation".