Come and Play With Us, 2010/11

Original Drawing of the Shining Twins in front of a narrow boat, Bic Biro.

Drawing Installed on Contents May Vary's Narrow Boat gallery with travel mirror.

Mirror reflected in adjacent mirror.

Close up of reflection.

Members of the public reproducing my drawing in exchange for a print of the original.  

The 30 Drawings made by the public including my own.

A residencial area in Dortmund Germany, loosely in the shape of an axe/meat cleaver. Found on google maps.

The 30 houses to which the drawings will be sent with no information as to who they are from or why they have been sent.

Back Story

In 2010 East Street Arts of Leeds commissioned Contents May Vary to put together a show for their Over Yonder project. Over Yonder was a a series of exhibitions and events put on in conjunction with East Street Arts partner gallery in Dortmund, a German City that has been twinned with Leeds since 1959. Some of the themes to be included in our show were 'twinning' and 'audience engagement'. It was Decided that we would take a narrow boat and turn it into a floating art gallery/hotel for a week, hosting previews, Artists in residence and guests throughout the journey up and down the Calder Valley.

 When faced with the prospect of spending a week on board in the cramped surroundings with my colleagues I was reminded of Jack's descent in Stanley Kubrick's 'The shinning' which like our project was synonymous with twins. After creating my Twins drawing, I had 30 copies made from which the public could use when making reproductions which would be exchanged for the print. After a long an laborious search of Dortmund on Google Maps I was able to locate an area loosely in the shape of an axe/meat cleaver which would serve to follow the narrative of the movie as my work progressed. The drawings will be sent to this area, one drawing per home, with no information regarding the reason or the sender. 30 homes in Leeds will have a print of my drawing and 30 homes in Dortmund will receive an original drawing. Unlike the boat I will have no engagement with the public in Dortmund and can only imagine what the response will be throughout the little community. 

Never Painted, Untitled 2004 - present.

Version ? A5 Bic biro


In 2004 I had the idea of using a video camera and a television as a substitute for a mirror in order to make a self portrait. As time went by, no such painting was to surface but instead a richer and more relevant series of works that would in turn spawn my current work. I have drawn numerous diagrams of the how the painting would work on the backs of sketch pads and on random pieces of paper. Initially I would draw in the artists view from the screen onto his canvas but something began to happen to the drawings the longer I left it. Seeing as I was not making the painting there seemed no point in the drawing making the painting. Now what I have is a new diagram of a new painting about not making a painting.

Outliner Artists, Aerosol on a Wall, 2010.

These are the outlines, names and ages of the artists who undertook a five day residency in the basement of Manchester's Soup Kitchen, culminating in an explosive barrage of colour and sickeningly sweet cider. Most of the Artists were Street Artists or of the new Illustrator ilk so in  keeping with my environment I used their paint. Joyride Fairground previewed in December but remains on display all be it partially in the venue.

The Female Study, Bic Biro on Paper 2011

The Studies for part two are as follows. Face - Rokeby Venus by Velazquez. Torso - Reclining Nude by Moore. Forearm - Young Girl Sitting by Schiele. Legs - Reclining Nude by Freud. These Works have been chosen in order to create a recognisable shape whilst echoing the distortions found i the original Artists practise.

The Male Artist Bic Biro on Paper 2010

This is the first part of a study into to Male Artists who study the female form as part of the collage drawing series. The artists referenced include Egon Schiele (Photographer unknown). Lucien Feud (Photographed by Jane Brown). Henry Moore (Photographed by John Hedgcoe). Diego Velazquez (From Las Meninas by Velazquez).

Bootleg Equivalent VIII, VHS cases, 2010

As a multidisciplinary artist I often employ drawing and the exploration of nominated objects. It is common practice for me to copy from pre existing images whose content would create an intrinsic bond between the pieces elements. My interest in creating this unity within my work takes inspiration from vintage minimal and conceptual artists such as Carl Andre. Taking the concept of copying from already existing material and the opportunity to pick up pirate videos from the market place I have made a Bootleg copy of Andre’s 1966 Equivalent VIII, an arrangement of fire bricks laid out in a rectangular block, currently on display in the Tate Modern.

All images copyright Richard Shields.

Relation 2010 Biro pen on paper, Clay, wood, Book

For Contents May Vary’s Cu exhibition under the Palace Hotel as part of the Future Everything festival 2010

If visual art in its more traditional sense is different than New Media Art then what bonds are there between them and what separates them? What are they? As someone based heavily in the traditional visual Art camp I have always had the simple idea that New media Art is something with a tele or some electronics in it. What is my relationship to New Media Art as a Visual Artist? I’m told that John Logie Baird is my great grand mothers cousin. He died penniless despite being the inventor of broadcast television.

The images above show a family tree using elements from the schematics for Baird’s television to replace the branches. A Ladybird book illustrating the invention of television and how it works. A bust of Mr baird based on the style of sculpt used for the bust on display in his home town. This particular bust has been made in order to give the inventor of broadcast tele a more heroic look opposed to the fat misshapen one he ended up with.

All images copyright Richard shields.

Everything is purged from This Account But Art, No Money has Entered This Account. (Have you heard the Joke About the Gestapo?). Bic Biro on paper.

For further information on This piece please go to

 http://adeptness-indebted.blogspot.com/

All images Copyright Richard Shields.

Pushing Back The March of Progress in Order to Make new Work. Bic Biro Medium on paper. 2010

Looking at collage as a process available to all who have the inclination to make one, I have created a composition of images that take away the playful nature of collage and replace it with the painstaking act of drawing in a medium that offers no room for mistake or manoeuvre. The images have been selected due to their relevance to the process of looking, creating, disjunction, unity and evaluation.

Loosely in the composition of Blue Nude by Matisse the images are as follows, The hand of God (Michael Angelo), Francis Picabia, Francis Bacon’s eye, A snake coil taken from the Bureau of the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacy book which accompanied the Marc Dion show at the Manchester Museum, a lady’s arm taken from an Egon Schiele life study, Duchamp’s Fountain (upright), 1/2 an A, Konrad Klaphek’s The Logic of Women (back end of a sewing machine), the Shin of Morte d’ Arthur by Frederick George Stephens (Towards the end of this work Stevens felt he was not good a enough painter so he quit his practise to become a critic), a foot from My Dead Dad by Ron Muek.

All images copyright Richard Shields.

The Possibility of Seeing. Bic Biro Medium on Royal Academic correspondence. 2010

A few years ago whilst I was still a student I met Richard Wentworth at a talk he gave at the University of Manchester. He was sure he knew me from somewhere but had no idea where. During his lecture he talked about a brick wall he had once watched being built and how he marvelled at it. He wanted to talk to the bricklayer about how much he liked the wall as an Artist but felt this would make the man uncomfortable. I asked him if he thought the use of art was in some way a departure from our natural human instincts or there abouts. He loved the question and said he wished he could answer it. Below is a transcript of the conversation.

Audience: This is do to with what you said about the bricks and the guy with the mousetraps, and how you didn't want to patronise the guy who made the mousetraps, and how a bricklayer is never celebrated. Is art something that you would do that's not part of being a programmed, or a problem-solving, human being anymore (humans have always evolved because they solve problems)? Is art another problem to be solved, is it beyond a more practical thing? As you start thinking of art and trying to understand things through art, is it becoming less and less intrinsic to what a human being can be? Or further away from the animal, from what a human being is? Does it make it more separated from that kind of life?

RW: That's a really fab question. God, what a question! Well, I wish I knew. I read a lot about the history of processes, in the most undisciplined way. If I find a book on the history of the industrial revolution I nearly always buy it. I read a chapter in the middle of the night the other day about needle-making, it was just from heaven. Needles used to be made in one village, Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire, there was no explanation as to what was going on there. Then the industrial revolution gets going and it all gets very different very quickly. But the thing about humans is that we give meaning to things besides, so we don't know who invented the brick, we are never going to meet them, they're not celebrated - it was obviously like the wheel, invented in a lot of places more or less at the same time. It turns up, changes how we behave, and walls start appearing, walls start to have meanings, they are used in different ways, they express different kinds of power, so it's obviously very different to make a wall for somebody else as opposed to making one for yourself.  All sorts of things to do with defence, lots of things that we find really difficult to imagine. I find it very difficult to imagine small walled towns where you go out into densely wooded landscapes in the Middle Ages, go out in the day and do things in the woods, and then flee back into the town at night and shut the door. We all experience certain kinds of violence, but [not] that open-landscape type of space, the stuff that's represented in usually not-very-good films, where there is smoke in the distance, they all get together with the mayor and have a word about what that could be. 

We're very bad a computing where religion comes into this, where things that are difficult to get hold of come into this, when in an Art History lecture somebody tells you that the hat in The Arnolfinis is like Prada to the power of a million. We're so bad at seeing that that hat or that cloth is a Mercedes Maybach or whatever it's called. So the fact is that's what humans do, they keep giving belief to things (we've talked about that already). I haven't read any anthropology, I really regret that I haven't because, although maybe it would damage me now, it would be really interesting to find out more about all our behaviours. I've done - we've all done - odd things which have broken some social code, and we've felt quite strong and weird about it as we've done it, and sometimes we might have done it belligerently, but sometimes we might have had to do it for some other reason. It's only when those things happen that you register how codified it all is. So I suppose what I meant about the bricklayer is that it's a class predicament. I do know some people who build brick walls but I just sound like an overeducated prat if I start talking about 'your gorgeous walls.' You have to know somebody very well to start that, because for a start bricklaying is an all-weather activity, it's very, very tough - I'm not being romantic about it. But I think what is made is wonderful and is a kind of art, because it's got all that complexity in it.

After hearing Wentworth was leaving the Ruskin School of Drawing to head the sculpture department at the Royal College of Art I thought my luck was in. I wanted to study at an institution famous for its involvement in Art history and its capacity for developing contemporary practice.

On my Rejection letter from one of these Institutions I have copied John Ruskin’s watercolour of The Aigiulle Blaitiere c.1856. Ruskin never exhibited his work and also believed mountains need not always be climbed but could be observed from afar. The other institution is environmentally conscious and sends its rejections via email.

All images copyright Richard Shields