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Royal Academy Schools (1993-96)

30/4/2014

This week is half time of my reside residency.
It has been a kind of stock taking up to now inclusive this selection of work I did at the Royal Academy Schools in London.
From this time I have got a folder on my PC, called 'Yellow Folder' and in it are all the following 18 files from Z to A:

Visit to the London Zoo (5 images)

War (six images)

Tongues & more (seven images)

Life room (four images)

Final Show (16 images)

Brother (three images)

Lithography (eight images)

Jews (21 images)

Heimat & Poesie (4 images)

Food (seven images)

Fassbinder films (seven images)

Faces Bodies (19 images)

Eyes (three images)

Courbet (31 images)

Breast (seven images)

Bloom (eleven images)

After Goya (five images)

Abstract spaces (eight images)

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Failing to challenge

25/4/2014

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Today I post an article from
Gippeswyck Times
(An Ipswich Arts Blog)

http://www.insuffolk.com/gippeswyck-times-april/

I haven’t seen 12 Years a Slave yet. I kept meaning to go when it was shown at the IFT and will probably keep meaning to watch the DVD for several months after its release.

I actually haven’t seen any of Steve McQueen’s feature films (the others being Hunger and Shame) although I like everything I read about them, and about him and his rise and rise from Turner Prize winner to Oscar winner.

Artist and Suffolk resident Maggi Hambling has seen 12 Years a Slave, or as she’s prefers to describe it, “that frightful, boring slave film.”

She made those comments in a recent University Campus Suffolk Q & A event. This tied in with the university’s annual fundraising art auction to which Maggi has been a frequent and generous contributor.

She went on to say that the film was so boring that “In the end I didn’t care about the fucking slave”, and, in a rather more offhand remark, that “I think slaves would be very handy, I wouldn’t mind a few”.

The response from most of her audience was to laugh loudly, perhaps with embarrassment, perhaps with approval; probably a mix of the two. No-one challenged her words and her interviewer (UCS Head of Fine Art, David Baldry) moved the questions on apparently untroubled by any offence she may have caused.

Jason Haye is a Fine Art student at UCS and was the only black person present at the event. He’s written of his reactions on his own blog here which can be broadly summed up as shock at Maggi’s words and disappointment at the response of his colleagues.

There’s also coverage of the controversy on the website Garden of Freedom here and I’d advise reading the comments below this piece which include some interesting contributions from Segun Lee French, who I’m assuming is the writer of Eastern Angles’ current touring play, Palm Wine and Stout.

Both the above links include audio of Maggi’s words so you can make your own mind up about what she said and why. What sparked my interest in the story was its parallels to an experience of my own at another Ipswich arts event, also with a UCS connection.

I used to be a regular at a monthly Ipswich poetry gathering where a decent turnout would meet to read their own work or favourite work by published poets. The atmosphere had always been very welcoming with compliments rather than critiques the normal protocol.

The last time I attended a member of staff from UCS was there for the first time. I’d met him before at another poetry event and he’d come across as friendly enough, and not a bad poet on the limited evidence I’d seen.

On this occasion he read a poem he claimed was written in memory of young Fusilier Lee Rigby, who was viciously murdered in cold blood in Greenwich on the afternoon of May 22nd last year. The poetry reading took place only a few weeks after the murder but the poet still got the month and time of day of Rigby’s death wrong.

His reading was preceded by some unpleasant and aggressive remarks about ‘Muslims’. The poem itself included equally objectionable lines about the nature of Islam and its part in Lee Rigby’s murder, one of which was a lame play on words combining Mohammad with ‘mad’.

When the poet finished reading he received a warm round of applause, although I should add that not everyone in the crowded room heard all the poem or its introduction. At this point I objected to the remarks made before the poem and in the work itself. Awkward silence followed and the next poet was quickly called forward.

During the evening’s half time break, several people spoke to me to express their support and the following week I also received several kind e-mails along the same lines.

E-mail correspondence with the event’s long-time organiser was a less positive experience: a deluge of double-talk and an improbable semantic interpretation of the poem that re-wrote it as a noble tribute to the fallen soldier that no-one who’d heard it properly could possibly take seriously.

I considered taking the matter to the police, to report as a hate crime, but gave this idea up in the face of little enthusiasm among others who had been present, and I sympathised with their reluctance. Some had connections to UCS and the poet himself; others didn’t wish to direct more publicity to such material.

I considered publishing something about what had happened, to put it on public record at least, but was specifically asked not to do so by one person who’d been badly hurt by the poem (and hope they’ll forgive me for doing so now). So I did nothing.

I’ve never been back to the monthly readings and had mostly put the evening out of my mind before Maggi Hambling, of all people, brought back those memories, although it was her audience’s reaction that most recalled my own brush with bigotry.

UCS has since defended Maggi Hambling on the grounds of freedom of speech, as the organiser of the poetry event defended the poet, and they are right to do so. ‘Free’ speech that lives in constant fear of causing offense, intended or accidental, is no way to get honest or meaningful dialogue. It’s an invitation to cultivate a public language that knows how cover up all its wrong intentions with all the right words. Try listening to almost any political speech from the last 15 years and you’ll get the idea.

But Maggi’s right to say what she did – however dumb or unfunny – does not negate the right of her audience to question her words, which surely some of them must have wanted to do. Quite the opposite. Her bluntness demanded a response in kind.

The same goes for those who applauded the poet’s vitriol when many of them knew that brickbats and not bouquets were what he deserved.

Defending freedom of speech is admirable. Failing to challenge speech that encourages ignorance and prejudice is indefensible.

When political debate has been colonised by spin and the mainstream media feeds on its own droppings like factory-farmed fowl, the arts should lead the way in encouraging the expression of vigorous and original opinion, to be met by an equally vigorous and opposed response.

As William Blake wrote, “Without contraries..no progression.”

If some wish to use public arts events to spout bile then let others get up, stand up, and wash it away with a burst of rightful anger.

Don’t just sit there and laugh, or clap. As Maggi Hambling might say – that would be so fucking boring.

Doug Coombes

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Meals on Wheels

18/4/2014

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Apart from teaching on Tuesdays at the School of Art in Colchester delivering meals is my Sunday job.

Meal deliveries in Suffolk last Sunday.

Photos taken on the move
from
my car journey,
main courses and puddings,
places,
army territory,
pictures on walls in homes,
a key safe,
trolley and
the work depot and base.

I am intrigued to know what kind of images will decorate the corridors, staircases and common sitting rooms in my future residential home? A Hirst, Warhol, Emin, Doig or Koons?

Yes, that's what the meals look like from the outside.
It is hot.
Some clients want to eat it later and put the oven on for me to put it in. Others wait with a tray at the front door. For others we take the lids off and put it on a tray or plate it up. Some might need cutting the meat.

Most clients seem to prefer the puddings to the main course.
I think it's the custard which is a winner.
Some say they'd rather just have three puddings.

The gentleman who lives in this cottage is deaf.
He is waiting for the knock on the window in an armchair next to the window. You can hear him shuffling to the door.
He always says the nicest 'Thank you' once you put the food on his trolley in the sitting room.

His milk bottles.

Flowers in his front garden.

Suffolk skies inbetween meals.

This is a key safe containing the front door key to client's houses.

I pass several pig farms on my round.

I also pass military architecture in this part of coastal Suffolk.

Back at the depot you can see oven trays and defrosting ovens in the 'kitchen'.

These very hot and heavy plastic mats line polystyrene boxes in which the meals travel by car to the client.

Happy Easter!

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Bavaria in April

11/4/2014

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Photos from my recent trip to Bavaria, Germany.

M i t t w o c h

in Nürnberg:

It was such a sunny morning, just after the arrival at the airport I photographed a whole series of trees on car bonnets ... waiting ... whilst my Ma was attending a funeral of a friend nearby.

If you speak German you might know that 'bitte druecken' also could be read as 'please hug me'.

I love advertising columns (Litfaßsäulen).

Looks good to me!

I am still surprised how many working Cigarette vending machines (Zigarettenautomaten) there are on the streets.

First time I have seen brown sheep.

Not sure why I chose to put King Ludwig here. It hangs in a very traditional local restaurant where we had fish.

D o n n e r s t a g

In my mother's flat

and in the town Neumarkt.

A builders company from Neumarkt whose logo I saw when the Olympic stadium in London was in full swing.

F r e i t a g

Der 'gelbe Sack' -

Rubbish collection in Holzheim und Woffenbach

and in Neumarkt town:

St Johanniskirche, amazing ... hear its bells: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILyT7WS1GXw

S a m s t a g

in Ingolstadt

Schmuselack!
Na, wenn das mal stimmt. Nach der Autowäsche den "Schmuselack" zu fühlen... Vielleicht klappt da ja auch mit meinem Gefährt ;-)).

Never seen anything like it!

Ingolstadt is a garrison town. It reminds me of Colchester. Just checked the word 'garrison' - interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrison

Matjes, the best young herring I've ever had!

S o n n t a g l u n c h

in Neumarkt

My Ma, Sibylle, kindly cooked Sunday lunch!

Stuffed chicken and dumplings
(Knödel or Klöße) see wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kn%C3%B6del

M o n t a g

Might use this in a painting.

This used to be a bubble gum machine. I have always been fascinated by them, my first encounter with value for money.
Click here and see Brot und Spiele, a painting made in 2002.

D i e n s t a g

last day

Voggenthal, a tiny village with a little lift and hill, where we learned to ski.

Except for the last day the sun was always out in Neumarkt!

Wherever you go you meet them in Roman catholic Bavaria.

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Author

CLAUDIA BÖSE, a painter based in Ipswich, Suffolk.

I construct my paintings through process, led by daily life, history and nature. I hope my ongoing engagement with light, colour and forms creates a new perception.

I am inspired and guided by the painterly process and its relation to abstraction; the way I handle paint invites an audience to consider my work without prejudice.
Decisions about when and how I use paint are also strongly guided by my empathy for work which has been created by other women painters.

I am drawn to regions which could be described as, geographical and psychological borderlands, especially those which have been interpreted throughout history by artists and writers.

Recently I began working in a new studio based high in the church tower of a modernist church in Ipswich; this is also adjacent to our allotment.
The very unusual perspective in tandem with attending to plants has already provided a different grounding and enrichment for my work.

Royal Academy Schools (1993-96)

Failing to challenge

Meals on Wheels

Bavaria in April

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