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Marek Laczynski – #printmaking hero

I was taught the correct way to do etching by a remarkable chap at Exeter College of Art and by a strange random web excursion I found a reference to him:

MAREK LACZYNSKI (Polish / 1925-)

Marek Laczynski was born in Warsaw. He was a partisan in WWII, while still in his teens. He left Poland after the Warsaw uprising in 1944, arriving in England with the Polish forces in 1946. He studied art at Borough Polytechnic and the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Marek Laczynski exhibited at the Grabowski Gallery, London, in 1960 and 1964. From 1964-1985 Marek Laczynski was Lecturer in Experimental Printmaking at Exeter College of Art and Design. Besides teaching at the college, Laczynski also published two books with the School of Printing’s private press imprint Bartholomew Books, The Wizard with his Pupil (1972), illustrated with original etchings, and Faces of Fear (1974), his own poems with reproduced etchings reminiscent of Fautrier’s Ôtages. Laczynski exhibited at Market Print Gallery, Exeter, in 1978. In 1981 he was one of ten artists who contributed prints to the Printmakers Council Portfolio, alongside Anthony Gross, Gertrude Hermes, John Piper and Julian Trevelyan. The British Museum has 9 woodcuts by Marek Laczynski in its permanent collection. Since 1985 Marek Laczynski has lived in Vienna.

Original source here

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This is not #ART

Sheep Skull

The meshing together of processes, unrelated imagery and the breaking down of barriers cannot be seen as a shortcut to intellectual credibility. The dedicated thought process that goes with the creative procedure should be one of intense reasoning. It is therefore unrealistic to expect the uneducated masses to use the computers prescriptive decision making to create ‘real art’. The birth of Photoshop has enabled everybody to create ‘non-intellectual’ versions of Rauschenberg (and Warhol) – this is not ART.

Carol - Scilly Isles 1977

Painting exhibited at the West Buckland Festival 2012

Onions

oil paint on paper

I very rarely get inspired to paint these days but I saw a painting by Renoir entitled ‘Onions’  at the Royal academy last week and decided to give it a go.

My painting ‘Onions’ is nothing like the Renior but… The skin of the red onions were iridescent like the back of a beetle, shimmering and layered in colour.

The picture above is of my painting exhibited in ‘The Gallery’ of the West Buckland Festival.

Dead Rat – art theft

Dead Rat in Roof Guttering by This Window

There are people out there who will steal, copy and adapt your art for their own gain.

They always say that imitation is a form of flattery.

These vermin are annoying and like their namesakes rats – they belong in the gutter.

A  rat’s ability to learn, has been investigated to see if they exhibit general intelligence like larger or more complex animals…the one in the above photograph wasn’t, it is now food for the flies.

Photograph looking out over the Woolacombe Bay Hotel

Here is a view across out to Baggy Point, looking over the Woolacombe Bay Hotel. The photograph above was taken with a Pentax Spotmatic 35mm camera using ‘old stock’ (March 2000) Agfacolor HDC 200. I am really impressed with the … Continue reading ?

Travel – 35mm images go wrong in Venice

I haven’t used a 35mm camera for years. I recently decided to take my old Pentax K1000 with me to Venice. I took some great black and white shots from our hotel window, looking out over the Grand Canal towards St Marks Square.

I got the film back to the UK and processed it in the darkroom at West Buckland School. I’d remembered all the processing guidelines I’d learnt in the 1970s and I had an instruction sheet with timings for the Ilford HP5 (400 asa) etc. – nothing could go wrong.

Half way through processing the film I noticed a chink of light coming in from below the door – the film was ruined but the results were interesting – maybe?

The images above are taken from a bedroom window of Palazzo Vendramin

Palazzo Vendramin is a 15th-century residence linked to the Hotel Cipriani through an ancient courtyard and a passageway lined with flowers. It houses 16 suites and rooms with sweeping vistas over the gardens and across to St Mark’s Square.