Lilienthal Feathers
Screen printed on plywood and balsa wood. With Japanese paper that is inkjet printed. assembled with glass fibre rods, steel screws, dacron thread and assorted rings and bolts.
This is the largest artwork I have ever created and was constructed for a major one man show in Hong Kong that I am scheduled to have in September. Coronovirus permitting!
The aeroplane itself is based upon the pre-dawn of flight attempts to fly by such pioneers as Otto Lilienthal, George Cayley, Jean-Marie le Bris and Samual Langley. The combinations of kite ,glider and aeroplane wings fascinate me and one wonders what might have happened if the Wright Brothers hadn’t been successful
The mandarin text and bird wallpaper printed on the coverings are related to my potential visit to Hong Kong in August. I wanted to produce a set of everyday phrases about my life that might appear on tee shirts in Cantonese. In the same manner as the tee shirts in English one sees everywhere in China, that make little sense as they are literal translations of common phrases. The wallpaper isa variation of a 17th Century wallpaper sample held in the V&A collection that was originally from Wooton-Under-Edge, A place that has connections to my academic history. I spent ten years researching the collotype printing process, Wooton-Under-Edge was the home of Cotswold Collotype the last UK Collotype printer.
Watch a short video of Lilienthal Feathers
Malay Wings
Printed in inkjet on Soji 245 Japanese paper. The airfoil sections are laser cut balsa wood and the spars are primarily Glass Fibre rod. This is the first of the works that are part of the transition from the kite artworks to the Wings.
The work is 1.4 metres wide and 95 centimetres high, with a depth of 10 centimetres. Unique
Gull Wings
Screen printed at the Frans Masreel Centrum in Belgium as part of a month long residency. The wings re laser cut balsa and ply woods that are screen printed in 8 colours with a pattern of peacocks that loosely relates to an 18th Century Swedish wallpaper. The idea was to create an elegant set of wings that combined engineering aesthetic of the construction with a visual aesthetic of the applied design
The work is 2.2 metres wide and 95 centimetres deep, with a height of 40 centimetres. Edition of 2
Belgian Wings
Screen printed at the Frans Masreel Centrum in Belgium as part of a month long residency. The wings are laser cut balsa wood screen printed in 8 colours, with a rose pattern that relates to Nineteen Fifties wallpaper. Both the airfoil section and the wall paper pattern relate to my childhood growing up in the sixties. in those days fashion took longer to change. The fundamental idea is still grounded in the material understanding and an appreciation of skill and the pleasure in both making and seeing a well crafted object.
The work is 1.2 metres wide and 95 centimetres high, with a depth of 10 centimetres. Unique
Rose Wings
Ink jet printed onto 13 gsm highly delicate lightweight Japanese tissue. These were my first foray into combining airfoil sections with printed imagery. Whilst very literal in their construction, I have a soft spot for this work. The wing itself is made of laser cut balsa wood and its construction is directly the same as making model aircraft wing. I was trying to combine a very delicate image on the lightest possible paper to give an elegance an transparency to the combination of wing and print.
The work is 1.7 metres wide and 25 centimetres deep, with a height of 8 centimetres. Edition of 3