Austin Underground Film

Here's a little poster I did for the Austin Underground Film Festival. The program sounds really good so check it out should you find yourself in the Texan vicinity!

nine ladies dancing

this was my contribution to studio 8's charity christmas exhibition and sale on december 3rd. Each poster was a line from the twelve days of christmas, and I'd picked "nine ladies dancing".
For the whole 12 days - some of the posters are still up for grabs, as are Christmas card sets of all 12 - look here, and definitely check out the excellent (left to right) Chris Bianchi's "ten lords a-leaping", Bill Bragg's "eleven pipers piping" and Robert Greene's "twelve drummers drumming" (we'd picked these randomly and only realised on the night they'd obviously all be next to each other).

more BBC fun

haven't updated anything in ages - been very busy and then ill... This was up on the BBC website in early december and still up on the iplayer now.

Casablanca!

this time The Drawing Room has become slightly more glam as we've been invited by the excellent Josh to drink'n'draw at this fabulous night - just dress to impress (see dress code) and bring your drawing supplies. Yes it's on a saturday evening, but the good news is you'll be brilliantly attired for the rest of saturday night, flatteringly flushed with excitement and slight inebriation, plus those ink stains and paint smudges will make you look mysterious and interesting and attract handsome strangers like flies to cream cakes.

BTW - although billed as "stoke newington airport" the Drawing Room still is a georgiaJ/stephvr production.

(dress code small print says: Fez's, white tuxedos, bow ties, patent leather shoes, MuMus, Daishikis, zig zags, sequins, Dutch batiks, Cossak pants, fedoras, boleros, turkish slippers, ballet shoes, bangles, beads, smoking jackets, wedge espadrilles, satin playsuits, silk pyjamas, or your own effortless style as long as it's très chic!)

Opium Magazine

page (left) in issue 7 of opium magazine, part of the McSweeney stable - image on the right is by Art Spiegelman

sweet charity! 3rd december

PoCom at the ICA

Bill Bragg organised this year's 'PoCom' (potential comics) at comICA, the annual comic extravaganza at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He wrote a complete graphic story, then handed single panels of it to a whole variety of graphic artists who spun their own stories using the panels as staring points. You can admire the web of stories in a long corridor at the ICA till November 26 - it makes for fascinating reading and the bar is at the end of it!



artists involved: Bill Bragg, Hiroshi Kariya, Emma Rendel and Matt, Russell Weekes, Walter Newton, Tobi Tak, Becky Barnicoat, Les Coleman, Chris Bianchi, Matilda Tristram, Mark Ciavola, Neal Fox, Rachel Gannon, Fumie Kamijo, Chloe Regan, Mireille Fauchon, Astrid Chesney, Tom Idon'tactuallyknowhislastname, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, (at least) two other people whose name I unfortunately don't recall at all, and myself... here's two of my panels

Drawing islands at Parasol Unit on 30 Oct

LE GUN did a night of drawing at Parasol Unit, as part of Charles Avery's exhibition 'The Islanders'. He has created his own imaginary island, a strange hybrid of Scotland and Egypt, and made drawings and sculptures of its inhabitants. We had a go at drawing our own island next door. Members of the great unwashed came and joined in with the drawing to a soundtrack of sea shanties, whale music and Chris Rea.


(Luc Barbute in action!)

studio shuffle

Harry Malt was the latest addition to our studio after Hiroshi Kariya moved on to new pastures (just up the road) to pursue a carreer in large paintings. Harry is captain of Bare Bones as well as a prolific thinker-drawer who outputs (often hilarious) verbal/visual delights. This is how he treats the place.

March of the Dead

it's time for some ghoulishness again! This year Hallowe'en is on a moonless night, so for Strangeworks' March of the Dead the moon (well, a large glowing replica) will be travelling within a sea of dead souls from Stoke Newington cemetery via Gillett Square in Dalston down to Passing Cloud's new larger venue for an evil afterparty. As usual, there'll be live bands during the march and after. Why not throw on something ghastly (black and/or white is good) and join us:



some impressions of last year:

BBC fun

Pop Culture in Holland!

Neal Fox, Chris Bianchi and Steph von Reiswitz went over to the Netherlands for a few days to do a workshop with the students at the Academy of Pop Culture in Groningen. In between beer drinking and bicycle rides a strange exhibition was knocked together involving a mysterious secret society, and good times were had by all. The show included a mad naked Georgian with an apple in his mouth and was attended by such local celebrities as Holland's only ever astronaut.
Thanks to Natasha Taylor aka Madam Zafira, Mieke the gypsy and famous nightclub Vera for their hospitality and all the students for their effort, keep on keepin on.

Mare Street Biennale

LE GUN is exhibiting a new drawing at the first Mare Street Biennale,
Private view 9thOct 2008 runs until the 30th Oct
143 Mare Street, London, E8 3RH.



The drawing - "The Card Players", Indian ink on canvas, 200 x 150 cm - is by Bianchi, Bragg, Fox and myself.
More about the show:
"The fantastic ARTISTSPACE double-fronted gallery spills out into the vibrant heart of Hackney connecting with the themes focused on in the Biennale, providing an ideal place to see the work of the ten London-based, national and international artists. The exhibition promises new work from Mark Caviola, Anne Colvin, Alexandra Flood, Jonathan Goslan, LE GUN, David Lindberg, Theresia Lynch, Rod Maclachlan, Mark Ross and Bob & Roberta Smith."

jersey evening post

from the Jersey Evening Post, sept 26...

our stint in prison

...starting tomorow... private view on monday, see below:

LE GUN - THE FAMILY

Here's some pictures (at last!) of the LE GUN - The Family exhibition at the Rochelle School. Thanks to Michele Panzeri, photographer extraordinaire ...

entrance area... featuring the work of many Le Gun contributors

and of course a giant cat

more salon walls... featuring more work

vista of some of our gigantic canvases (we did 4 of them, 30m in total)

a 10m stretch (the family leaving LeGundon and crossing the sea)

another 10m stretch - the interzone

the Cardboard Room, brainchild of Bill Bragg, assembled with the help of a bunch of Chelsea students on summer break. They did a sterling job with the construction following Bill's plans, we then painted everything. (The sofas, arm chairs and piano stool were fully functional btw!)

my personal pride & joy - the grand piano, aptly named 'Schlampenpupsen' (Whore's Fart)

Inside the piano - an elegantly wasted lady surrounded by various musical demons (Tobi Tak & J M F Casey helped me paint those)

some FAQs - 

how many people did the giant canvases? Mainly Bianchi, Fox, Greene, and myself, and Bragg. Also as usual lots of friends and contributors dropped by and painted the odd thing...

how long did they take? all told probably something like 4 weeks. We did them on and off over a number of months.

Is the cardboard room really all cardboard? yes, no furniture inside a cardboard shell or anything, all 100% sturdy cardboard (well with the odd bolt to secure the inside of  the sofas & chairs etc)

How long did it take? a week to build, thanks to the help of a 7-strong team of super-efficient students.

what happened to the furniture after the exhibition? In storage at Le Gun HQ. I'm using the armchair I painted as my studio desk chair, yes it really is that comfortable...

John M F Casey – Swindler of the Abyss

this young man makes some beautiful images, and will have a show at nog on brick lane starting September 14.
I initially got to know him through some obscure channels and had a postcard of his on my desk for a while - the image incidentally is now a spread in LE GUN 4 - and then got to know him properly when he helped tremendously in putting up the 'The Family' show. Go and check out his handywork -

his myspace is http://www.myspace.com/jmfcasey
14 September – 8 October 2008
Nog Gallery, 182 Brick Lane, London E1 6SA, +44 (0)2077394134
Opening on Sunday 14 September 2008, 6 – 9 pm

Mothers In Law

Faber have just sent me this hot off the press, to be released on 16th October - here's the cover (it also has 50 inside illustrations)... Apart from two minor mistakes that no-one else will probably notice I'm very pleased. Loving the electric violet...

exhibition alert! 27th august

wow what a show it'll be! LE GUN issue 4 will be launched. other features: a display of gigantic ink drawings detailing the progress of 'The Family' from LeGundon via various depraved locations all the way to a jungle funeral. a life size-cardboard room. embalming fluid cocktails. Caliper Boy's death march. a salon d'artistes. a shop stocking all sorts of delights. and if previous after parties are anything to go by I'm slightly scared of this one already... come!

exhibition alert! 21 august

this week - the mysterious mystery spot exhibition. apart from rob rubbish and anna mcclelland i have never met any of them and no idea who they are (except for a vague knowledge of ceri amphlett/craig atkinson/daryl waller's work) so i'm still mystified, but then maybe that's the point, who knows... swing by:

quality x3

this is totally irrelevant, but I couldn't resist: here is a picture of my sister with DJ Vadim, who is trying his first ever 'hanuta' hazelnut chocolate wafer snack... (all three are firm favourites of mine)

cargo

as mentioned in an earlier post, when we painted the cargo murals they time-lapse filmed our progress on the dj booth bit, and this is the result. for the rest of the murals see below somewhere... in action: bianchi, bragg, fox, frost, greene, rendel & myself.




(i should probably add that cargo shot this and added the music - had we had anything to do with the soundtrack it would have been a weird hybrid of/a fight between obscure world music, energetic jazz, power ballads, punk rock, Hawkwind, and italo disco...)

wow!

check out Hiroshi modelling this sexy new T-shirt - a limited edition of 100 produced by LE GUN in collaboration with Duffer of St George. The shirts are of excellent quality, go with everything and somehow seem to attract a lot of attention - whenever I wear mine people demand what it is and where it came from, a common reaction apparently according to fellow wearers (even on the streets of New York).

The t-shirts will be available for £25 pounds at the LE GUN exhibition and on the website from August 27th. Email this address to pre-order your shirt from the shop.

If you hate the shirt but want to know more about Hiroshi, he's a fellow illustrator and fellow fan of italo disco, an enthusiastic DJ, and joint winner of a recent Tom-Cruise-Off between him, Bill Bragg and myself.

exhibition

Issue #4 of the narrative art annual LE GUN will be distributed worldwide from September 2008. The launch will coincide with an exhibition and temporary arts club taking place at the Rochelle School in Arnold Circus, Shoreditch titled LE GUN ‘The Family’

In the exhibition, the warped collective imagination of LE GUN presents a dysfunctional family of many generations, including a man with a crab on his head, the leopard walking heiress Marchesa Casati, and the original fat boy actor Joe Cobb. Raised on the the streets of parallel metropolis Legundon, an eccentrically Anglo-Saxon place of loose women, gin and cream cakes, and Francis Bacon’s butchers shop, they are an unusual dynasty. LE GUN’s gigantic black and white ink drawings record the families journey from their home cities murky streets and dens of vice, across a wild unchartered ocean to an outlandish Interzone of mind bending intoxicants and bordellos, and the jungle funeral of unloved street urchin Caliper Boy.

Private View and Launch Party at the Rochelle School 
Wednesday 27 August from 5pm

Extended launch party at Cargo till late.

in the meantime...

...new magazine Susology published six drawings by LE GUN artistes in their new/current issue, the theme was 'collaboration'. We drew some exquisite corpses, the originals are on display at the Trolley Gallery (Life Beyond Death, there's a post about it below somewhere).






Spread1: Emma Rendel, myself. Spread 2: Chris Bianchi, Robert Greene. Spread 3: Leigh Fox, Neal Fox.
Thanks to Rob Rubbish for the pics.

roasting

the view from a big rock on one of my favourite Maltese beaches, photographed yesterday. I'm here for a month this time, technology allowing me to take heaps of work with me, but somehow a book in a shady garden, lazy afternoon naps, playing with crabs and sea urchins, and the Mediterranean cuisine seem infinitely more appealing than melting in a room with hand-sweat smudging your lines, and your drawing paper flying from the fan... oh well back to work...

new international shorts

Kinemastik invited Chris Bianchi and myself to their 4th International Film Festival in early July. Although we've been involved with a good few Kinemastik activities before (Chris being responsible for most of their artwork with me throwing in the odd poster, flyer, T-shirt, and bit of graphic design) we'd somehow always managed to miss the actual festival, so this year was a first.
This time they'd put on a whole week of events - exhibitions, film screenings, talks and workshops, with a weekend of international short films and parties to finish it off. The result was entertaining, thought-provoking, and some heavy drinking.
Here's Bianchi's poster for the festival (I graphic-designed the program on the back):

pineapples

this is a small sample from 'In the Shadow of the Pineapple', a graphic story I wrote & drew for Australian fiction quarterly Torpedo. It spans 18 pages and is sort of a murder mystery love story. I'm making a small bound edition of it which will be for sale at the LE GUN 'The Family' exhibition in September - I believe the relevant issue of Torpedo will be available in September too.

studio fun!

yes, it's this coming weekend. possibly also featuring pink gin floats.

Don't stop me now

DON'T STOP ME NOW
- the body beyond death – GROUP SHOW, May 29 – Jul 05, 2008

Trolley Gallery is pleased to present a group show examining the human body beyond death. The artists chosen here work with diverse interpretations of the physical, the spiritual, the artefact, and the ritual.

VIEW VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION

Work included coffin drawings by Bianchi, L.Fox, N.Fox, Greene, Rendel, and myself, as well as a 3D coffin hand crafted by Bianchi & Bragg which created quite a stir and was reported in The Guardian.

"Hardly any risks are acceptable these days. We shield ourselves from peril. That's just sensible. But whatever happened to buyer beware? At the Trolley Gallery in the East End of London, artists have come together for the show Don't stop me now - the body beyond death, among them the renowned collective LE GUN. Their installation Died Happy consists of a boxed clay figure in a hole in the floor, and there is no doubt that he indeed died happy. A protrusion rising to floor level is testament to that. All was well until one woman stood on this proof of his happiness. It snapped and she was banned, but she exacted her revenge. "We got a visit from Tower Hamlets health and safety," explains director Gigi Giannuzzi. "Apparently someone had reported our exhibit as a danger to society! No prizes for guessing who." The sculpture endures but it is surrounded by a fence and hazard tape. Itself a comment on modern life, you might think."

here is the offending article (you might remember him from the Shoe Shop of Curiosities):

LE GUN at D&AD awards on 26 May, 2008

D&AD and Studio 8 Design asked us to do up the Royal Festival for the D&AD Awards 2008.
We designed many hundreds of life size cardboard cutouts which were then wrecked and stolen at the end of the night by drunken advertising executives. Many of them can now be seen through the windows of tastefully lit loft apartments and at cocaine parties throughout Hoxton.

Party pics here on Flickr and more installation shots here - you just need to go past all the admen in black suits...

(drawings by Bianchi, Bragg, Fox, Greene, and myself)