Richard Shields

Come and Play With Us, 2010/11

2011-01-26T03:00:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-01-26T01:31:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-01-19T03:18:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-19T03:13:00.001-08:00

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

2011-01-19T03:12:00.000-08:00

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

2010-07-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

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 thetraditional 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.

2010-07-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

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

Take Away Walter Benjamin (Pizza is so Moorish) 2010 mixed media.

2010-06-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

Top Image Acrylic and varnish on cardboard pizza box

Detail

Middle Image Oil and Varnish on board

Bottom Image Semi skinned pizza box with varnish

For Contents May Vary’s show at the Red Gallery in January 2010 Take Away Walter Benjamin. takes its title from the Author of Art in The Age Mechanical Reproduction. The works on display are the outcome of an investigation into the origin of a composite image found on the front of a pizza box from Mama Mia’s Pizza Parlour in Manchester’s Student infested Fallofield area. The Essay, first published in 1936 discusses the availability of Artists images after the introduction of the mechanical printing press. Despite losing the original work of Arts integrity in time and space the process of reproduction revolutionised the potential for the production of and study of Art without the financial backing often required to journey across Europe’s Art collections.

I have been looking for the origin of the image on the front a certain pizza box since 2008. After trawling through the Internet and Library books on Venetian painting among other less fruitful avenues, the answers came in abundance alongside tourist j-pegs of nearly the exact scene. The scene is host to a number of buildings and structures all famous in their own right along side being immortalised in the paintings of Canaletto, Guardi, Turner and the writings of Lord Byron and John Ruskin.

The architecture, despite being synonymous with Italian culture, is largely of Moorish origin as is Abi the proprietor of Mama Mia. The image features The Doges Palace which is connected to The Ponte Del Sospri otherwise known as The Bridge of Sighs, so named by Byron due to it providing the last view of freedom for the prisoners crossing from the Palace into the old prison chambers. In the foreground is The Ponte Della Paglia originally built in 1360 for the boats made of straw (Paglia) docking off the Rio Di Palazzo, the river also featured in the scene on the pizza box.

Referencing the styles of the aforementioned painters and the varied sources of found images, the details missing from the original print were filled in to create the top piece. The laborious time consuming techniques of oil painting and varnishing have been contrasted with the cheap printing and digital compositing for the piece in the middle and the investigation into what lies beneath the image and into the production of the object is revealed in the piece on the bottom.

All images copyright Richard Shields .

Q-Joseph beuys? A-Yes. Biro on paper hidden in sensor fitting, 05

2009-10-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

Taking inspiration from "I Like America and America Likes Me", a piece which saw (or didn't see) Joseph Beuys hidden under black fabric during his transit from Germany to New York's Rene Block Gallery, a drawing of the artist was rolled up and hidden behind a sensor fitting in the Corner house Gallery, where I would sit for 8 hours a day for over three years . Once in the gallery Beuys would spend 8 hours with a wild coyote over a period of three days. During the drawings time behind the sensor the gallery went through a change over period were the room was busy with technitions painting the walls. After the change over I looked to see if the picture was still there. The picture had been removed and replaced with "Joseph Beuys?" written on the back. I wrote yes underneath and replaced it behind the sensor.

All images Copyright Richard Shields.

Attendance Figures, Water colour pencil on paper, 09

2009-10-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

Attendance Figures is a new piece made in response to Contents May Vary's Issue 3 call out, simply titled does the Spectator Run the Show, edited by CMV's Liz Murphy. The marks are based on the tally system used by invigilators to count footfall throughout galleries that don't fork out for clickers. The image is chosen based on its figerative subject and the high level of visitors that flock to see it, even when it was stolen.
Issue 3 will be launched at the Best of Manchester Awards at Urbis, where Contents May Vary will disgrace themselves and show that even a runner up can steal the show.

All images Copyright Richard Shields.

Baiser De La Mort, Pencil on paper, 2009

2009-09-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

Baiser De La Mort (Kiss of Death-French) was created in response to the fairly open brief set By Manchester based curator Mike Chavez Dawson. The show entitled Kiss Of A Life Time was an investigation into the meaning of the kiss in the modern world. The artists were asked to create work to be shown solely as prints for the show which toured Manchester, Newcastle and London.

All images Copyright Richard Shields.

Slurped in Honk and the Best of Manchester Awards. 2009

2009-08-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

Slurped, 2008. Bic Biro on paper coffee cups with plastic lids

The focus of this investigation has been on the re-emergence of drawing in contemporary art, the partial absorption of graphic/street art into the art world/market and the conflicted slap dash approach in recent anti art manifestations. Having abandoned drawing once myself in favour of an aesthetic more commonly found in minimal or vintage conceptual art, I have returned to the practice treating its neglect as a personal element to be considered equally with its use on used coffee cups and the disjointed narrative found in the backgrounds of the personalities depicted. The portraits (drawn in old pens scavenged from the work place) are sourced mostly from discarded newspaper articles and Glossy magazines, which detail or berate the exposure, rise and fall of themselves and or the institution to which they are connected.

List of persons nominated.

Agyness Deyn

Ruben Rausings founder of the troubled Tetrapak packaging dynasty

Reginald Perrin (The Rise and Fall of)

Father Clancy The Singing Priest exposed as leading a different life with a love child in tow.

Max Mosley

Jay-Z at Glastonbury

Rachel Goodyear

Richard Shields

Spooning 2008. Bic Biro on wooden teaspoon.

One of my early tasks in art was learning to depict an altered image thanks to the physical and material qualities of a certain type of object.One of my later tasks in art was to question the conceptual, physical and material qualities of the same type of object, which lead to an otherwise impossible transference of the altered image.

The work for Honk was initially made on my Lap in the Gallery I was working for at the time. To return the work to a gallery setting was something that influenced the nature of its display. Once a cup had been completed it was usually placed under the chair and a new one would be started.

Trollee Trolla De Da

2009-07-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

Alongside coordinating ANTIFREEZE with my fellow Contents May Vary Cohorts, I was able to make some work of my own to show on the momentous, roasted and blusterous day.

Trollee Trollaa De Da
What everyone wants and what everyone gets our seldom the same in a world full of division and diversity. Some us have money and taste and some us have nothing but we know what we like. Art might be for everyone but not everyone is for all art. Everyone’s a critic and everyone’s got an opinion. This work created for ANTIFREEZE brings together what everyone wants, what everyone gets and what everyone voted for as their favourite in Manchester City Art gallery.

All images Copyright Richard Shields.

Small self Portrait Bic Biro on paper 08

2009-05-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

This drawing is a response to the epic Large self portrait by Chuck Close. The glasses, cigarette and nonchalant expression in Close's painting have been replaced with headphones, Biro pen and my gormless looking head. I have always thought of Close's skill to be something to aspire to but at times ultimately pointless today.
This Rendering in the lowly Biro and considerably smaller scale at around 10cm hopefully illustrates the divide between our practice.

Image copyright Richard Shields.

Drank and Drawn

2009-05-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

Work from Drank and Drawn at Cup Cafe in Manchester. June - August 2009.

Marcel Duchamp placed found objects in critical conditions, Sol Le Wit created blue prints for works that’s could become sculptural objects or wall based drawings often at the discretion of curators and graffiti artists can turn any wall into a canvas with or without sanction. These acts create alterations in the everyday resulting in the controversial, the thoughtful and the criminal.

Combining objects and image making gives me the opportunity to both highlight and alter the perceived worth of an object and it’s intended use. Drawing on objects with an existing purpose can give an extra layer of meaning to the images depicted and potentially undermine the effort of labour.

For the most part the public display of my work has been within a site-specific, non gallery setting, dealing with the social and functional history attached to the environment chosen. When asked to create work for Cup Café I felt that the first challenge would be dealing with the commercial, display based nature already prevalent within the store.

Other elements attached to Cup Café are its location within an area rich in creative industries and as an artist hangout. Another important factor not to be forgotten is its coffee and the smoking area. There are few artists I have met who do not need regular coffee and smoke breaks to recharge an often over worked mind and such has it been with some of the most influential artists throughout modern and contemporary art history. With this in mind I began to think about how I could turn the respite into the work. Through use of the internet and the ubiquity of the materials I employ, I have been able to create a series of pieces fusing my practice and the shared experience of coffee and cigarettes.

All images copyright Richard Shields.

Dark Drawings

2009-05-15T08:05:00.001-07:00

Dark Drawings is an ongoing project that plays with tacit fear and interpreted narrative through cliched scenes from the horror genre. Each image can portray a setting imbued with menace or merely an everyday (mostly night) situation. When finalised the collection will be given to a number of viewers from different backgrounds to select a series of drawings for which they will create a story. There are no boundaries, limits or suggestions put upon the authors interpretation . Each image is drawn under dim light in Black Biro Medium. The image fourth from the bottom (Door 2008) was recently printed as a limited edition postcard in issue 1 of Intercity mainline, lanched at Spike Island open 2009.

All images copyright Richard Shields

http://www.intercitymainline.co.uk/