Life, Art, Murder & Weather
Six - About Six
It was Mike Browne who told me that there was upcoming studio space along Deansgate in central Manchester, as we met once again in the City Art Gallery cafe not long after his “From Moss Side to Marseille” show with Eric Cantona had finished; I told him that I was interested and asked to let me know when that might be, though I truly wasn’t sure if it would happen.Two weeks later, both of us, along with John, who was heading the studio project, were in a disused property along Deansgate on a hot Tuesday afternoon; the property had been a former bank several years before and although vacant for some time, I could see the potential of the former office spaces being re-used as studios - I was definitely very interested now. I viewed the studios again in early November that year, selecting several spaces I was keen on renting - my only problem was what exactly I was going to do within my artwork should I get a space?
That same summer, I had been creating paintings depicting the emotional turbulence & fallout from a traumatic episode in my life several years previous, yet these emotionally-driven works were beginning to stutter in their frequency and conception and I wasn’t confident that the current series of works were going to continue; I was running out of ideas.
It had also been a very frustrating period for completing new street art paintings, something I’d started four years previously due to myself wanting to meet new people and cheer up - I’d only been out to paint five times that year which was down to various factors including inhospitable weather - either too cold, too hot or too wet - whilst a lack of money to buy materials as well as keeping a concerned & worried eye on my decorating business played their part too.
I was offered studio space in November, after which I gave more thought to future creative works during the time I began to move my art gear into the studio in early December; then I knew what I was going to do - I would transfer all the ideas and working methods of creating street art/spray works into fine art, using the subject matter that had been central to my spraying activities - the city. City centre Manchester would now become the detailed focus of attention and in the new year 2024, I began to paint various cityscapes, slowly building up a body of new artworks.
I’d worked out that the nearest medium that I could use to replicate both the drying times and logistics of working with spray paint - drying time was specifically a crucial factor - was acrylic paint; though it wasn’t my favourite medium, it would offer myself a quicker route to each painting being completed rather than using oil paint. So I began…….
These studio paintings represent the development over the course of 2024 through to the present day, to transplant and translate the working methods of street artworks, refining them into fine artworks; these go on display along with other artists works in "SIGHT & SOUND" events that combine art with music, organised by myself and Dark Fidelity HiFi.
Images: all copyright STUDIO Six
