kings and goats and quadroped birds

I made some t-shirts... I thought I'd share the designs on them... slightly festive, but not like christmas tree earrings or bauble jumpers.

hugo's car!

Hugo drew me a car for Christmas. He told me a while back that he really wished he could draw wheels. I think he's done an amazing job. I love it.

climbing trees or climbing snow

Back in a Sweden covered in snow, which seems to be the general state everywhere right now. I don't think I have seen this much snow in a long time and temperatures around -20 are not exactly my favorites. still, it's kind off nice, as long as indoors stay warm. Im reading Siri Hustvedt "The shaking woman", which so far I like much better then the other book(can't remember which one, sorry) I read of hers. I went to the local, small library yesterday, now the books are piled up next to my bed which is great because as soon as I got back I ran into some kind of flu and now reading and drinking tea is pretty much all I feel like doing. Hope you guys have a nice christmas where you are. ciao x.

snow day

Snow days in London.

exhibition and some stress

Hello, I haven't written for a while now, but somehow time has gone very quick the last weeks, on Friday I'm already leaving this place for Sweden and Christmas. But before that, tonight, there is a little exhibition from me and three other ladies in a room at the HGB.

Joachim made us the beautiful postcard with a crashed duck, I think it will be a fun night. Im showing a projection of 84 slides that I made with stuffed birds from 1890-1912, a treasure that I borrowed from a friend, the birds still look gorgeous after all those years put away in a shoebox, maybe because they were conserved with arsenic back in the days. Apart from that I am working on my big number one project, hoping somehow to get all the interviews I want and get access to the archives I want to visit in different countries, but all this organization takes time and is kind of hard since I don't speak French, can't believe I learned French for seven years in school and now all I do is speaking German and French is all gone, hardly a trace left.

Time to head off and finish the last things for this little exhibition, if anyone reads this in Leipzig then do come by!

shopfront #1

This is my favorite shopfront in London. It's full of treats and surprises, and no one inside. You have to ask someone 2 doors down to let you in... and the walls are really that color. One day I will recreate it and live inside, and you can all come and drink port with me.

I would like one of these for christmas please

Christmas surprise no.2

The Smell of Christmas by gopries

fashion shooot

Here is a sneaky preview from a series of backdrops I'm doing for a little fashion group in New York. Many, many more to come... and a link eventually.

Christmas surprises!

Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin

I was commissioned by Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin to illustrate several articles for their special issue about eating, focusing on the slow food movement, the cultivation of old seed varieties, the ethics of meat production and Jonathon Safran Foer's book 'Eating Animals'. I am so very chuffed with how the issue looks, it's just a shame I have forgotten all my German because I would have liked to have read the articles. Perhaps Nadja would like to translate it for me??

Big British Castle

I've been a little busy but I have also been engrossing myself in some wonderful BBC programmes whilst drawing, and my belief in the British Broadcasting Corporation has been slightly resolved! First off was the two part series which sees David Attenborough (I wish he was my Grandpa) explaining the beginning of life on Earth and how evolution happened. It looks pretty terrifying to be alive then, but also wonderful. First Life isn't available anymore on the iplayer but I highly recommend watching it. Another programme which I am late posting and is no longer available on the iplayer, but was excellent, is Glasgow Boys. And a surprise talking head appearance (which filled me with complete joy) from Jack (the painter I lived with in halls and then moved into Sophia and Nadja's flat) who was standing in the middle of a field painting and talking to Muriel Grey. If you are in London then a visit to the RA to see the traveling show is a must! At the moment there are some excellent programmes on BBC4:
The Art of Germany
The Beauty of Diagrams - the importance of drawing in civilisation's progress is inspiring.
The Art of Cornwall - the presenter is slightly annoying but bearable.

These are all still on the iplayer so if you can then watch!

English Wine

NEW! NEW! Issue of the Spectator (from December 4th) featuring some more foodie & boozy drawings from me in the lovely food supplement: Scoff!

Haiku

My mom is visiting. I showed her the Gherkin from afar and she told me of a limerick she wrote. You can find it below:
Upon a phallus in Kathmandu
A tourist sat smoking his pipe

Shielagh Weaves!

I love Shielagh and her weaving... This is a piece she made for my sister. So so so lovely... She has a nice new website too www.shielagh.com

Liu Bolin

I'm quite blown away by Liu Bolin... Google him. There are many many versions of these haunting images. I remember seeing him first at the Barbican's show on Chinese Art years ago but hadn't quite grasped the extent of his 'disappearances.' Becoming more familiar with his work and the work of Ai Weiwei has been so striking and clear in its comments on the human experience in the Chinese machine.

this week

Hello, it was a busy week somehow in it's luxury. Photographing on Monday, seminar about film and text on Tuesday and Wednesday, then train to Berlin. Spent the Thursday looking for props such as latex masks and a fake mustache and some beards and although I went to the small shop for magicians on Hermannstraße where I've seen those things before they were now all gone in the Hallowen rush, so, I suppose I have to look online. on Thursday evening we went to Kulturforum to see the exhibition "Welt als Schrift", or the World as words/typography, the photograph above is from a page that writes about the book, I know you might not be able to read German but click on the image anyway and take a look. Starting 1890 and ending around 2010 the book and exhibition shows examples of different fonts/designs/posters/ well, all kinds of printed matter really. I found the basement floor a beauty and I think for a graphic designer it might be a small dream with Jan Tschichold, El Lissitzky, Dada and many more. So that was great and on another floor in the house there is an exhibition called Words as Image which is based on work from the middle ages, incredible drawings made up of tiny tiny pieces of text, I thought I had been writing small but these lines were so fine, incredible, it must have taken ages. And also some drawings and decorations of holy scripts made by nuns with little creatures looking like headfoot animals and fine patterns, reminding me of figures from Hieronymus Bosch.


Friday was Mar tin Gropius Bau and an exhibition with László Moholy- Nagy. They showed films, photographs, books, dia's, paintings, collages and sketches for stage settings, so pretty much a bit of everything. The films were black and white from Marseille, Berlin and London Zoo, they had a very quick editing and some amazing images. I also really enjoyed watching a film his students had made in 1945 called "Don't Disturb" were they are just messing around trying out different tricks, cut and paste and incredible colors, lots of fun. I tried to find it in internet but no luck, so no link but you can watch a film of László Moholy- Nagy here.

Then we went to c/o Berlin were I skipped the black and white rather ugly framed exhibition of fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh whom Im sure many people find fantastic but Im not so keen on that kind of photography.


Next doors to his giant prints were some small color photographs from Fred Herzog and they were fantastic. Dias from 1950s Vancouver, brilliant colors and the streets look just great. I kind of wanted to get the book but it was a bit pricy and small somehow a strange format. There seem to be many good shows coming up at c/o Berlin this spring and since I am finally taking the step of moving to Berlin from Leipzig at the end of January, if all goes well, then there's plenty of exhibitions to look forward too..

We had to get back to Leipzig yesterday so I missed out on the opening of Nan Goldin's exhibition but im not too bothered, I think I have already experienced her at her best when she got awarded the Hasselblad prize in Gothenburgh and Boris Mikhailov came up on stage and pulled out a papercrown from his suitpocket and put it on her head, ah, sweet. My head is sore after staying out too late for the dorian concept concert in Connie Island last night, which I really enjoyed(!) and therefore I think I will stop now. Enough fun for a week and back to work, which..I must say..also is fun when it just involves making images and not applying and doing crap paperwork.

Dee Cee

Here is a painted sign that made my heart skip a beat. You can't tell what a lovely yellow green it is, but I can. One day I will get over my hipstamatic app, but right now I'm still just getting more and more excited by it. Wasn't DC lovely circa 1968?

social responsibility

I'm in America now running around... which has meant very few posts but some hardcore recruitment of brilliant guest bloggers...

Right now I'm in beautiful autumnal DC visiting my sister who works for the Hitachi Foundation. Here is quite an inspirational video about their new program to support social entrepreneurs... and a nice picture of the Williamsburgh bridge to boot.

grey saturday

After having spent most of this Saturday asleep I have now finally come alive again. Tonight I am heading to the cinema to see two Truffaut films with the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, the first one was on two days ago, English title "400 Blows" and tonight it's time for "Bed and Board" and "Love on run". Should be great, I really like being in the cinema at the moment, and I think that's were I will spend a lot of nights this winter, warm, dark and looking at beautiful images, what more could I wish for? Well, maybe a Sunday matinee with two films for the price of one like there used to be at GFT in Glasgow. This week have been busy, Im trying to make images Me and David have been commissioned to make the 14 stations of the cross, "The way of the cross" for a church in London, so I am spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to tell the story without making it too blunt or literal. We have agreed on using everyday objects and try and create some kind of still lives and well, it's fun to do but since I am not religious at all I suppose I have a lot to learn and pay attention to. Anyhow, Im looking forward to see how this one turns out, we have time until March. Sophia, enjoy New York, I wish I was going too! but I'll go to the cinema instead.

**TONIGHT**7.45 PM**ELEPHANT**

COME ON DOWN TONIGHT TO THE ELEPHANT PROJECTS LAST NIGHT. FROM 6 PM THERE WILL BE AN EXHIBITION OF ALL THE WONDERFUL WORK UNDERTAKEN WHILE THE SPACE HAS BEEN OPEN, DRINKS AND THEN AT 7.45 PM YOU WILL BE TREATED TO THE MOST AMAZING SHADOW PUPPET SHOW YOUR EYES WILL EVER WITNESS DEVISED BY LAURIE INNES & FRIENDS. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS. YOU'D BE AN IDIOT TO MISS IT!

Skelatenous

I pooped out on Halloween after some lovely and exhausting hanging out with my dad and Luke. So this is all that became of my costume. A pile on the floor... and not even a nice blue floor like this... a brown office looking floor like ours before I changed the hue. But twasn't she a beaut? I'm off to New York on Friday, and so am fixing and fixing and arranging a little studio set to take with me...

Climbing trees runs in the family.

I have been super busy (rushing to catch a deadline, as usual) and I feel like my eyeballs are about to flop out of my head. I should be fine as long as my hand stays attached to my right arm, but before all that I thought I would share this with you all. A pretty amazing image of my grandma in a tree. I think it's perfect.
I have been raiding my family photographs and becoming acquainted with my great great grandparents. I have to say that it was quite thrilling to hold photographs in your hand from the beginning of the last century and especially so since visiting the Muybridge exhibition, where everything is carefully archived and preserved, definitely no touching there. Which is something I want to do all the time, to get really close to bits of history. Maybe because it's a tiny tiny tiny bit like time travel....sort of. Meanwhile we keep our old photographs in a placky bag in the cupboard, so if anyone ever gets the same urge then you are quite welcome to come home with me and touch things people touched a hundred years ago. Next time I will introduce you to my great great grandfather Manuel Pérez and my great great uncle Federico Grandella.

ai weiwei

I've been really moved by the work of Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist who has the latest installation in the Tate turbine hall. Nadja, I thought you might like his installation work if you aren't familiar with him already. His work is really poignant in its critique of Chinese authoritarianism... his dropping of ancient vases, or painting over of them with industrial pain, and then the more visceral severed and disjointed furniture... have a look at the link to Dezeen where they have good images from his show at the Albion Gallery in 2008... especially the chairs. They put a lump in my throat.

elephant & castle

I'm off to draw from the elephant & castle for a thrilling shadow puppet show Laurie has written in the lovely Elephant & Castle art space Becca has set up. come come...