Further to my post the other day, Phil Radbourne has retuned to Tile Hill and captured the above image which is a distillation of everything George Shaw is about. We may now even be able to start using the term ‘Shawesque’ when faced with the sight of a crumbling garage, a boarded-up chip shop or an upturned wheelie bin.

The latest issue of Black Static (#27) is now out, and includes an illustration by yours truly for a genuinely odd little story by V.H. Leslie called ‘Family Tree’. Worth checking out for that tale alone, as it really did defy and exceed my expectations.

There is no God behind me, and I have strong doubts concerning the existence of a soul these days, but when I look at a corpse it always seems as if there is more than simply life missing. There have been a few disturbing exceptions when death gives more than it takes. I once saw a dead Russian girl. In her twenties, long haired and lithe, she had caught a bit of shrapnel in her chest, one of those tiny wounds that you would not believe could take a life but it does. In death the rude sub-burnish went from her skin, retreating before an ethereal blue glow. Alive she was strikingly pretty. Dead she was so beautiful you could have raised an army to sack Troy just for possession of her casket. I had not wanted to look too far into that reaction within me and walked away from her presence, unnerved or days.

Anthony Loyd, My War Gone By, I Miss It So

They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Finishing this week is Joyce Pensato‘s most recent exhibition – Batman Returns – at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery in New York. Look what you missed:

I know, I know, to the untrained eye this looks like the aftermath of a particularly messy play session at the local council-underfunded nursery, but the gallery insists that the artist is engaged in a ” baleful transmutation of American cartoon culture – employing her fast, assured, and gestural hand to shed light on the arguable darkness lurking within our familiar Pop iconography.”

So, going back to Manson’s quote, am I feeling “provoked”? Do I feel “strong emotions” about this work? Well, let’s apply the Rawling Test, which I like to do when faced with any dangerous and challenging art – if you took it outside of a gallery and left it in the street, would it still look like ‘art’?

I rest my case.

George Shaw was at Hole Editions in Newcastle recently, preparing three new lithographic prints based on pencil drawings of scenes that careful students of his work will recognise. As always, his dedication to his vision is inspiring.

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
Charles Bukowski

Photographer Phil Radbourne has been inspired by the paintings of George Shaw to visit Tile Hill and document some of the scenes that George has depicted over the years. Above, for example, is Phil’s shot of the telephone box that appears in George’s painting ‘The Time Machine’:

And here is Phil’s photograph of the same vista depicted by George in the painting ‘Scenes From The Passion: Ten Shilling Wood’:

Other photographs taken around the estate have been subjected to a digital treatment that’s really not necessary. They don’t evoke the same feelings that George’s paintings do, as the electrickery used works as a distancing force removing the viewer from the subject.

George’s work gains its power from being so flat and honest and untarnished by gesture. What you see is what you get. And what you get is the reality of our everyday lives laid bare.

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing; but instead of nonchalantly promenading our own corruption, we exude our sweat and grow winded upon the fetid air.
E. M. Cioran

Why don’t you write books people can read?
Nora Joyce (to her husband James)