Category Archives: Biography

Photograph self portrait 1974

This was taken with a 35mm Pentax SLR in 1974 and manipulated in the darkroom in Stourbridge College of Art and Design. This reminds me of the simple pleasures I had messing about with making images – it is a shame I have become cynical.

There are millions of ‘Art’ viewpoints; some take a position of extreme difficulty or resistance. This position questions everything and is unforgiving. The principal is that artists should look beyond the superficiality of life and expose the core. They should also look at the superficiality of Art and culture and rip and tear at the flesh of its own conception, rejecting Metaphor, Romanticism etc. etc. By implementing such self imposed draconian measures you may be left with a purity of ideas but that leaves little to create or live for.

QUALIFICATIONS:
Postgraduate Certificate from Wolverhampton University in Painting
BA(hons) degree from Exeter College of Art and Design in Printmaking

EDUCATION:
2004-2006 Bristol University
2002-2003 Wolverhampton University
1976–1979 Exeter College of Art & Design
1974-1976 Stourbridge College of Art & Design

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IUOMA – music and art

Mail-Artist since:
1986
My Website:
http://www.thiswindow.org
Why I am involved in Mail-Art:

Was involved in the cassette / music side of mailart in the 1980’s /90’s. The whole idea of a network of artists connected by the postal system appealed to me and was an antidote to the stranglehold the ‘Art / Music’ establishment had over my creativity.

I have always considered mailart to be one of the major unsung heroes of Art History and every effort should be made to raise its profile.

Here are a few network related things I have done this millennium. http://www.thiswindow.org/Mail_Art/?cat=3

From profile page on: International Union of Mail-Artists – IUOMA

There is a brief retrospective interview looking back at the early days and the origins of ‘This Window’ in the November 2009 issue of ‘The Living Archive of Underground Music’.

“I think my first exposure to Peter Bright’s This Window project came with this tape on the IRRE label from Germany. Peppered with experimentalism and a sense of wander and wonder” Don Campau – Read more…

The early experiences of the audio mail art scene by Peter Bright (artist, This Window)

Published on: ‘The Living Archive of Underground Music‘

If you sat me down and asked me what were the main reasons for getting involved in this emotionally draining and sometimes very unrewarding ARTFORM called ‘home taping’, then I would say two things:

  • In the early 1970’s when I was about 13 or 14 years old I loved ‘Motown’ and ‘Led Zeppelin’ (my music tastes were very eclectic). In the UK there was a TV show called ‘Top of the Pops’, which shaped the adolescent pop culture. The stars appeared on a Thursday night and lip-synched to their hits. Then one night (1972) a band called ‘Roxy Music’ appeared and turned the whole thing on its head. I can still see the performance in my mind’s eye. I had suddenly been exposed to ‘Art School Rock’. They were remarkably radical, different musically and visually.
  • Around the same time (1973) an album was released on ‘Virgin Records’ called ‘The Faust Tapes’. This was a marketing experiment which had a retail price of 49 pence (UK) – so lots of people bought it and a lot of people threw it into the trash. The German band Faust were without a record deal and their producer Uwe Nettlebeck gave these tapes to Virgin for free. These apparently thrown together bits of tape noises, sounds, songs etc. were all mangled together – well, that is what most people thought. In reality it was an exceptionally well crafted piece of work and was the inspiration for my EEtapes release ‘Extraction’ in 1989.

These two things combined with going to Art School eventually got me involved in experimenting with recorded sound. The first machines I used were a Phillips reel to reel and a budget priced cassette recorder.

Read More…

 

Support This Window by buying a track from iTunes

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My grandparents – postcard

Here is another recycled postcard of my grandparents originally used in 1999 as a promo for inmemoryof.co.uk.

TEXT BELOW FROM SITE

Sam Bright, was what you would call a real character. He couldn’t wait for the moment to tell a story or crack a joke. A soldier, a coalminer, a chef at Blackpool Casino, a fish and chip shop owner, a shopkeeper, a pallbearer, these were a few of his careers.

During the First World War he found himself as a cook, responsible for the well being of his comrades. The meagre rations that the army supplied needed supplementing by scavenging. Often he went on ‘raiding parties’, sneaking into French farms, pilfering this and that. He once found himself in a Frenchman’s dovecote. This was nearly his final mission. The farmer gave chase and then levelled his loaded rifle at him. He wasn’t really proud of his thieving but as he explained, it was war and his mates were hungry. One of his most poignant tales was about a march to the ‘front’. In the hedgerow Sam spotted a ham bone which had a bit of meat left on it. They got to the frontline and as the history books tell us conditions were appalling and the rations were low. Sam remembered the ham bone, and on the march back retrieved it from the hedge to use in the next stew.

Trench warfare lost him many friends and the sight of an eye. He spotted a German sniper who unfortunately spotted him. He was wounded and his commanding officer suggested that he remained at his post to give his comrades a better chance to fallback, promising his family a medal for his sacrifice. I’m not sure what he said but he was invalided out of service and was treated at Guys Hospital in London, where they patched him up and cosmetically made a fine job. Apparently this damaged eye was assisted by a rabbit’s nerve.(?)

When Mary was in her teens she was aprenticed to a chemist in Sheffield, travelling by train every day from her home.

She was the woman behind the scenes in their grocer’s shop, where they were famous for their home made ‘ice lollies‘. People still remember them for their delicious treats, which they made from ‘Tizer‘ and other bottles of ‘pop’.

She was a ‘Spiritulist’ by conviction, with local business men and tradesmen alike knocking on her door for advice and guidance, and her ‘messages’ influenced deals and life changes all around her. The respect she had was far larger than her diminutive size.

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Whatever Happened to the Space Age?

Whatever Happened to the Space Age

£57.17

Original painting by Peter Bright.
Media: Painting and Screen Print on canvas, signed and dated 2011.
Size: 500mm x 400mm
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Drawing Nude

Life drawing is perhaps something every artist must do – not easy and very frustrating but I had a go.

Going back to the basic skills of drawing is an interesting excursion – a journey I’m not sure I will complete. Drawing a life model for the first time in decades was a bit daunting but old tricks and shortcuts were soon remembered and in many respects drawing is a bit like riding a bicycle.

I have begun to draw again

My previous methodology relied on me subcontracting my creativity to either ‘chance’, allowing the medium to take partial control over the finished image or by letting the computer system deal with my creativity in its prescriptive manner – the program has ways of dealing with commands in a very limit way, hacking the software is the only way of producing images that are different from our everyday visual blitzkrieg of imagery…we are subjected to via the Internet, the printed page and video.

Peter Bright - Artist

Mail Art – archive

Mail art is a worldwide art and music movement that began in the early 1960s. the principle is simple you send visual art (but also music, sound art, poetry, etc.) through the international postal system. Mail Art is sometimes known as Postal Art or Correspondence Art. Mail Art is a network, based on the principles of barter and equal one-to-one collaboration.

After a peak in popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Mail Art phenomenon has gradually migrated to the Internet, whose “social networks” were largely anticipated and predicted by the interactive processes of postal collaborations. Nevertheless, Mail Art is still practiced  by a loose planetary community involving thousands of mailartists from the most varied backgrounds.

See This Window the pseudonym of Peter Bright.

I will mail you a postcard of an image that was exhibited recently in an exhibition of mine. I have always loved the idea of Mail Art – the forerunner of the Internet! Mail art is a worldwide network… Continue reading ?

Below is the original blurb and finished piece that was sent to a mailart exhibition in the USA in 2003. This was posted and accepted and an email was recieved confirming arrival on Sept 4th 2003.

“I just thought I’d let you know that your piece arrived today, completely in tact.  Not even bent!  I love the postal service!Thank you so much for your contribution.“

Melissa Muller

Capitalism = Terrorism

exhibited @ “Gallery Night & Day, October 24th & 25th, 2003 – Kunzelmann-Esser Lofts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin“

Capitalism = TerrorismWho decides who is righteous? God? The populous? The global economy?Does the minority of the population, who hold the majority of the world’s wealth, make the ultimate decisions, hold the moral high ground and decide who or what constitutes terrorism?…….Or is this all just ‘old hat’ and an old debate?Capitalism is fighting the ‘Axis of Evil’…The battle has too many fronts and too many invisible enemies. Is this the end of capitalism? Are the sands of time running out?Capitalism = Terrorism.Mon Aug 25 19:38:30 2003

 In the eyes of the ones who have nothing….Capitalism = Terrorism Materials: Acrylic and Oil Paint with commercial vinyl.This image was created on a computer running Windows 98, manipulated and edited using Signlab. The finished version was cut out in vinyl with a Camm-1 Plotter and stuck onto board.‘Mass Production and The New Jesus and Mary’ Memorial design is now almost completely originated on the computer. Standard designs can be purchased from catalogs. My work as a memorial designer has involved producing bespoke designs for commercial clients who reproduce images over and over again.Tue Apr 8 01:31:30 2003 ‘Christ the Capitalist‘ The corruption within the ‘established church‘ has been exposed. Has Jesus cast out the money lenders from the temple or is he charging rent? Jesus Christ, a symbol of capitalism.Sun July 27 11:18:46 2003
Methodology
‘Computer cut religious imagery; why look any further? ‘ Quote

North Devon business hosting Ilfracombe From the blog of Veronica Henry Now is the time when I go into M and S and buy at least ten pairs of 60 deniers, in various colours and…