Put Up or Shut Up

A New Print 'Put Up or Shut Up' coming soon to markmichaelart.com I've been thinking about grocery shopping, odd as it may sound, specifically focusing on the less than subtle manner in which the big four grocery shops compete for our monetary attention. Price crunch after price crunch, promise after promise. Buy from us and trust us, we will not dip our hands too deeply into your pockets, unlike our competitors who if are given the opportunity will take so much more. Our baked beans are cheaper; our sausages hold more pork and less miscellaneous entrails. Our staff have genuine smiles. As employers we do not order our workforce to participate in psychological screening or force them to have anal probes every month to insert new time card suppositories, unlike our competitors. So buy from us as we are truly ethical and good. How can they all offer the best value? Are we tired of listening or simply bored? I believe the advertising war of words is redundant. Give the public a chance to witness which of the big four companies can display real gumption. I propose an end game scenario, a manufactured situation involving the CEO from each of the top four major supermarkets. Each executive would be offered six months training in the interest of fairness. This would provide them with the chance to spend time in the Brecon Beacons with the SAS A fly on the wall documentary could be applied to film the training. This show could present characters, establish rivalries and present the public with a format to chart the progress of each individual. Ideally enough interest would be generated from the public allowing them to place bets on the outcome. The ideal venue for the quartet's final altercation of pure gladiatorial combat would be the 02 arena. ITV seems a logical destination to display this spectacle. The scheduling for this extravaganza would be vital. I propose a prime time slot sandwiched between the X Factor and its results show. It is worth keeping in mind that if the structure was to prove successful; the same model could be easily applied to so many other overcrowded sectors. The format for the program could accommodate any single entity or group desperately seeking the limelight and willing to go head to head with a competitor. Don't forget to check out 'Put Up or Shut Up'

Back Then

I was watching a programme the other day about Francis Bacon, an artist whose work I admire very much. During this thirty-minute vignette of his life the time line jumped back and forth through the years, cherry picking the choice moments from several interviews the painter had given throughout his career. One particular moment from an interview 'Fragments of a Portrait' made for the BBC in 1966 stood out for me. I paused the moment, Francis Bacon stood in his kitchen in his Reece Mews flat with the interviewer David Sylvester. I found myself transfixed with the image, the moment, the snippet of time, the stunningly simple black and white footage bleeding together. Francis in a leather jacket his hair quaffed with penetrating eyes responding curiously to Sylvester who stood rotund like a silverback trusted up in a dark suit, twirling a filterless cigarette through his fingers. 1966 I thought, 1966 what a time, all of the great humans wondering the earth back then. I had been drinking, but was lucid enough to think of all the frontiers and boundaries being pushed, buckled and broken back then. I realised that through the other side of this black and white window most of my artistic, musical and literary idols were still alive. I wonder today what do we have? Whom do we have? Is there really anyone out there willing or able to take the risk, to push things forward, or is this where we are? Is the mediocrity of the short-lived icons of today really all that we have? The next viral sensation, the next piece of tech, the next killer app that will make our day simpler and our free time more fun and ultimately less free, the next season of the next hit TV show, the next gadget not so different from the model of six months ago, the last upgrade will never come. If I'm a dinosaur preaching naive idealism and outmoded nonsense then that's fine, read this finger vomiting session and laugh, rip out my bones and smash a primitive beat on a crude drum fashioned from my skin.

When I look back through that black and white window into that small kitchen of 1966, I am left wondering what the hell are we doing sitting on our hands with our necks craned up like blind chicklets.

When protruding mattress springs feel like spools of barbed wire

I don't believe in you or your infinite spirit, but I do believe in sleep. Insomnia has forced this, my first prayer aimed at the bedroom ceiling. Whether it's cold sweating madness or a feverish epiphany, I am willing to worship the cuttings from your ample stereotypical beard, if only for a few decent hours of sleep. If you could see to it that the foxes refrain from screwing on my front lawn then I will give a charitable donation to the beachcomber, the one who spends his weekends looking for dogmatic symbols in the sand. He loves you very much and can't stop regaling me with the tale of how he discovered your son's face last summer in a rock pool. Seaweed hair and oil separated in the water to delineate his eyes and lips. I'll do anything for sleep, almost anything.

The beachcomber is a new design that I will soon put onto canvas. I will post some photos when it's completed.

Let's hope the Mayan calander's wrong

Happy 2012 to whoever can be bothered to read this section of finger vomiting. It's January and you can be excused for feeling a little worse for wear. Here are two new ideas that I am transferring to canvas very soon, titled 'Pick it' and 'I'm on a plane'. My silhouetted asexual beings are slumped and ready with their usual poor posture.

If there's anyone out there who has received a nasty knitted jumper, disgusting novelty tie or vulgar pair of socks, don't let these insensitive gifts sully the dark corner of your wardrobe. Try embracing the silver lining by constructing a makeshift scarecrow to deter any fashionistas from nesting in your guttering. Keep in mind that they particularly despise most blended fabrics.

In closing, if you haven't yet attended that first guilt-ridden Zumba class, let me save you the time, money and embarrassment of sweating profusely in front of strangers. You'll probably come to the cold realisation of no rhythm and even less willpower.

Happy Holidays from William and Kurt

It's that time of the year again when a bloated, surprisingly limber old stranger crosses the globe, enters homes dressed in red, smelling of reindeer excrement, sherry and mince pies. Whether naughty or nice I have something for the festive season that is quite simply audio Marmite. I love it, if you feel the same way good for you, if not don't panic, just take a deep breath, get into your preferred mode of transportation and head for the nearest shopping mall. They will have all the homogenised yuletide anti-venom waiting for you. Back to the audio Marmite, there are no frills, no toast to spread it on, no knife or spoon to dunk and lick, just jab a finger inside the jar and get all mucky. William Burroughs slowly reads an extract from his book 'Exterminator' whilst Kurt Cobain tears out a masochistic rendition of 'Silent Night'. Who needs Bing Crosby, 'Miracle on 34th Street' or Jimmy Stewart faffing around in the snow, not I? This is a long track but stick with it, there's a while to wait before the first word is uttered. When noise is met by prose, the marriage of Burroughs' expressionless delivery and Cobain's exciting disregard for 'Silent Night' makes for a jarring nine minutes and fifty-one seconds. A little sour mixed with the saccharine sweetness of the festive season works for me. Enjoy if you dare! Merry Christmas

The lady who couldn't sleep

As the slugglish run up to Christmas trundles along, it's wonderful when you are able to slip back into something comfortable, an old pair of metaphorical slippers thought to have been long lost at the back of a jumbled metaphorical wardrobe. Last week I revisited a body of work that I hold quite dear. Louise Bourgeois 'Insomnia Drawings' are a wonderful series of mesmeric images. They have a wistful, hazy quality, primitive yet assertive and sophisticated. An excellent demonstration of how a voracious artistic mind can perform acts of instinctive wonder, transforming the burden of insomnia into images that are utterly captivating.

They think that a kingdom can be built on my back

This is a new series I have been working on in between projects. Simple lines and colour along with the introduction of speech bubbles grew from an idea I had about the lines of communication between the living and the dead. I have experienced members of my own family who exhibit no religious belief whatsoever but still whisper an idle word or conversation with a person who is no longer alive. I have no interest in religion but death and people's reaction to it do interest me. The thought of people speaking intently to those they have lost is infinitely fascinating. It's challenging for this project to try to come up with the more mundane and strange things that the living might want to share with the dead. As this series is still in its infancy I'll keep posting the progress. This is quite a lot of finger vomiting but I really like how this project is going. The words are instinctive and the cloud is clean and isolated. I have thirty so far but will post five. The aim is to have around sixty screen prints to cover an entire gallery wall