Ode to Spiders

The single photograph of my Ode to Spiders installation in action, with many thanks to Peter Jennings.

An Ode to Spiders – My Arts grant proposal Kiwiburn 2015

I’ve been having trouble with the image hosting site suggested in the proposal guidelines, so thought I’d just post all my related images for my proposal here :

This is the test modal under black light :

Sketchbook drawings of proposed structure :

 Below image is a view of structure as seen from above :

Test tetrahedron using black light and reflection :

 Mock up design viewed from different angles :

Rise of the Fukushima Monsters – Select two

I was commissioned to make a couple of records for Canterbury Museum as part of their RISE street art show that is currently on until March 23

Its been pretty awesome to know that I’ve got work in the same show as Banksy, Rone, ROA, Anthony Lister and BMD… So when I was creating the records, I wanted to make sure they were on form.  As a result I actually created  a set of nine, so the Museum could pick out the two they thought would work in best for the show.

Anyways, here are the two they selected  :

You can see the rest of the set in the post below.

Rise of the Fukushima Monsters – Set of Nine

This is the first set of nine records I’ve created for my new series Rise of the Fukushima Monsters 

They’re the next step on from my Fearsome friends series, bringing in new characters and an underlying dialog to do with mutation caused by radioactive waste and what is happening within our oceans at present …And what may come in the future if we don’t just manage to kill everything off first.

RISE – Currently showing at Canterbury Museum

So I’ve currently got a couple of records as part of the RISE street art exhibition on at Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, presented by Oi YOU!

…I was supposed to put this post up ages ago, but I’ve been avoiding my computer

Anyways the show is still on for a teeny bit longer – Well, until the 23rd of March

More details about the show can be found up on the Oi YOU! website, and also on their Facebook page, as well as through Canterbury Museum… Go check it out!

Sunshine birds

I’ve finally gotten around to uploading pics from the install I did a few weeks back in Palmerston North of the latest Acrylic series of my Welcome Swallows

Its the biggest set I’ve made to date – They were commissioned by a friend to go in her new kitchen, and I wanted them to really stand out against her feature wall.  As it turned out, the set was big enough to flow across two walls… I’m really stoked with the transition of the set from the overcast grey and onto the sunshine yellow.

Loving how they work with their drop shadows!

This set of swallows was cut from a gloss black acrylic, so the birds have a reflective surface if viewed from some angles as seen in a couple of the photos.  I also make these swallows out of mat black acrylic, gloss or mat white acrylic, and repurposed 33” vinyl records.  I can be contacted via my felt shop if you are interested in commissioning a set.

Pushing through

I’ve been slowly working on a new series of works for a while now – I’m looking at pushing my orchid mash-up pieces forward more, trying to coax them into something greater than the contained tangle of plants which is their current state.

I want to increase the scale of these pieces.  Growing them bigger with the addition of many, many more malevolent elements.  I want to feed them with clutter and random objects until they become wild and overgrown and sprawl across large scale sheets of watercolour paper…

But I find myself lacking.  Lacking time and space and energy to fill these large sheets of paper with the overgrown tangle of plants I see in my head.  Lacking the discipline to stay up and create, in the darkness when everyone else sleeps – Or to stay home when my friends are out having fun… I’m really not very good when it comes to missing out.  And discipline would definitely be needed to push through such a large project to completion… Not be sidetracked by the bright monsters and birds who also call for attention in my head.

Instead, I’m letting it branch off to the side.   Keeping it smaller and more achievable.  Same same, but different.  Playing with moving my paintings away from my safe and comforting paper and onto beautiful reverse linen canvas.  Simple, and yet a challenge for me – Still working with the paint I love, but in a new way : Gouache is water-based, used in a similar way to watercolour.  When painted onto an unprimed porous surface it sinks in and bleeds out – A nice effect if you were doing a silk painting… But not what I want.

So I’ve changed up my process : I’m layering it between heat sealed flat acrylic – Like the white base layers below images on screen printed tee-shirts.  Carefully carefully, so the gouache doesn’t bleed off the edges and onto the unprimed fiber.  And then there is the issue of binding the layers of gouache – You see, if it builds up, it has the tendency to flake.  Another layer.  Varnish.  But only on the painted area.  To contrast with the matteness of the natural linen.  Slow.  Like watching paint dry.  …But I have to say, I’m loving these new steps in the process!

Latest Swallow set

Last week I made up a new acrylic Swallow flock as a commission piece for a friends wall.  She lives out of Wellington and I can’t do the install for a few weeks, so in the meantime they needed a home that will both keep them safe during transport and has the option of display if she so wishes.  So here they are boxed up :

I like the way the drawers pull out like a specimen case, displaying the birds set inside on their pins they way butterflies and beetles used to be.  If they are completely pulled out and placed on their sides they also create individual shadow boxes.  Will post up pics of the whole set after they’re installed – Can’t wait to see them up on the wall!

Makertorium at Te Papa

Makertorium is on at Te Papa today.  My friend Matthew Pettengell kindly asked if i’d put up some of my new perspex swallow flock as a backdrop for his desks

These swallows are a new variation on my vinyl swallow flock i’ve had made through Makerspace… Really pleased with how they’ve turned out, i’m thinking on doing up a couple more sets in white and also in red next.

I’ll be adding them up on my Felt Sales shop in the next day or two, to be sold as installation sets, along with smaller individual swallows made into brooches.

If you are interested in an installation piece, or a commission work along these lines –  Maybe involving a different bird, butterfly or beetle I would love to hear from you! I can be contacted by email at : vincenteknight@gmail.com

And for the record…

Recently, I was given a stack of cast-off scratched, or just really bad House records – Yaya… Talk about score!

So here’s my newest work created using one of said records as the support :

I really wanna do a series of these now… Just got to find the time/ motivation between the moving and sorting out the mess which is my life of late.  They’re about all I’m up to creative wise – A bit of bright, slightly warped colour to take me away from it all.