United Colours of...

While I try and work out how to migrate my website to a new host, keeping one eye on a BBC documentary about painter Jonathan Yeo, I thought it was time I uploaded my latest portrait ...of the great Nelson Mandela.

This was started on Mandela's 95th birthday and finished about 10 days ago. Mandela was a flamboyant, mischievous and larger than life character who deserves to be remembered in that way, rather than a weak hospitalised old man. The Kisbyism treatment suits him well, if I don't say so myself.

In fact I feel like I need to break all my recent Kisbyism rules to date and, dare I say, paint a very large version. Artists generally paint things on a grand scale to add artificial importance to their work (art students in particular will do this in the weeks before their final assessments). But even from a distance of 60cm this small image of Madiba begins to break up into crude brushstrokes and a larger size would not only befit such a great man, it would also give the opportunity to make the strokes of paint into objects with their own tangible presence.

In the meantime I'm being encouraged to produce T-shirts of this image, by everyone from my close relatives to the gas meter reader!

'United Colours of Madiba'
acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 x 1.5cm

Kisbyism in Cardiff Bay

The 126th South Wales Art Society Summer Exhibition certainly sounds grand and this year's show is in the prestigious Pierhead Building in Cardiff Bay. I've successfully got all three of my paintings into the exhibition, though it took two circuits of the room before I found them - the artworks are hung Salon-style floor to ceiling and there are plenty on display. My "Closing Down Sale" was runner-up in the 'Figurative' category.

I paid my SWAS membership fee in April hoping to attend one of their talks, but got the day wrong and missed it ...and I didn't get a membership card for 7 weeks so probably wouldn't have been admitted anyway. The prize giving at this week's opening night went along the lines of "Runner up in the category was Sean Kisby, but the winner was one-of-our-own, Kevin Strong"

...okay, I take the hint, I'm not integrated yet.

Actually, the committee members I've met have been extremely friendly. And hidden among the many exhibited works were some fabulous paintings. Kevin's beach scene is filled with an incredible explosion of detail, as is Asha Bassi's hugely ambitious Blue Bells diptych. Chairman Jan's cheeky painting of skinny dipping was, on closer inspection, covered with tiny lines of subliminal text, accessible, fun and chosen by Julie Morgan AM for a special award. But my favorite by far is Sylvia Donovan's oil painting People Passing By, sumptuous dreamy colours coveying a delightful human story - I only hope I sell a painting so I can contact her with my credit card number! My artistic tastes may be different from the SWAS jury, only time will tell whether my membership fee was well spent.

Exhibition July 2nd till July 18th, 10:30-16:00, Pierhead Building, Cardiff

Art College Summer Show

This has been an intensive weekend of art - yesterday I spent three hours in sunny Lisvane awaiting my work to be judged by the South Wales Art Society hanging committee; today I paid a visit to Cardiff College of Art & Design, where their Summer Exhibition had just begun.

How quickly things change. In 2011 I remember enjoying the Ceramics work far more than the Fine Art. This year the Fine Art department had improved immensely while the ceramics was forgettable. At long last the painters had 'nailed their colours to the mast', so to speak, with thoughtful statements of intent and a much welcome absence of works with the lazy name of "Untitled".

Well, okay, I'll forgive Ceri Wyn's "Untitled". Hundreds of tiny egg tempura prints covered three walls and guests were invited to PLEASE TAKE ONE or "as many prints as they wish". The process of transformation of the wall from a plethora of mini artworks into a vacant grid of blue tack spots was all part of the project. It's not something I've ever seen before on such a scale of enthusiasm and generosity!

Elsewhere, Simon Brooker claimed to interrogate the relationship and tension between painting and sculpture and the "problematic" illusory qualities of 2D space. Whether he achieved this I'm not entirely sure, but these are certainly ideas that I've tried to address in my own art. He's won two awards, so at least this line of questioning is appreciated the fine art gliterati.

Eliie Jackson invented a printmaking/architecture hybrid, inspired by the temporary pavillions of the London Olympics. As both an art and architecture graduate I found this to be an intriguing ambition. I'm rarely impressed by printmaking but on this occasion I'll happily make an exception!

This was the last ever year for the Interior Architecture course, much to many peoples' chagrin. But overall it looks like the prognosis is much better for fine art in Cardiff College of Art.

Food for Thought

Britains Got Talent star and Cardiff Art College graduate, Nathan Wyburn, was in town this week exhibiting his food art. I dropped in today to see his work and have a chat.While making a portrait of Simon Cowell from marmite on toast may appear on the surface to be a populist gimmick, his art is quite thoughtful and being put to great use. He's become an ambassador for an anti-bullying charity, for example.

Nathan has also made a giant portrait of Rupert Murdoch (produced at the height of the Leveson Inquiry in 2012) made from small images of his phone-hacking victims. He's also made a recent portrait of the late Maggie Thatcher, poignantly using coal dust as a medium (she's fondly remembered by South Wales miners for defeating their strike and closing their mines). For me it's refreshing to find a young art graduate engaging with overtly political themes. He makes them accessible to a wide audience.

Personally I like the temporary nature of his works. They are sometimes made from perishable foodstuffs. They also often take topical personalities and events as their subjects. It's another challenge to the commonly held idea that art is timeless and universal.

Nathan says he's been constantly busy in the UK and overseas since he graduated last June. Of course, I'm very jealous, but very pleased to hear it all the same! I'll, erm, toast his success *groan*

Mixing with Hookers

Cardiff Castle Green
40 x 30 x 3.5cm
acrylic on canvas

Cardiff's less well-known castle, the Norman motte-and-bailey inside the walls of the 19th-century fantasy battlements.

In preparation for a green-fingered painting I've been playing with greens, as well as the obligatory violet and purple. There's something very restrained about Hookers Green, a great colour for verdant shadows. Meanwhile the background colour was a warm cobalt blue.

My next-door neighbour used to look after Cardiff Castle's peacock population, so these birds were obligatory!

Show me the Monet

BBC2 has been re-showing the 2012 "Show me the Monet" series at ridiculous o'clock in the morning for the previous fortnight. I've been viewing some of the programmes on I-Player with a mixture of horror and curiosity. All credit to the BBC for doing what they do best, the unthinkable, trying to popularise Fine Art on mainstream television.

But populism comes at a price, a pantomime X-Factor format. The jury (aka the 'Hanging Committee') are an art dealer with a commercial expertise in valuing art; an author that at least talks some sense and provides balance; a Simon Cowell-esque "boo hiss he's behind you" villain. Art is reduced to 'skill', 'emotional response' and 'value' . To add insult to injury the programme is presented by a saccharine BBC Breakfast sports presenter, making light of the entrants' misfortunes and generally stating the bleedin' obvious!

A mixture of well-meaning and talented (but often naive) amateurs and semi-professional artists submit their work to be judged and, hopefully, displayed for a handful of days at the Mall Galleries, London. I'll admit, the variety of works is interesting! On the other hand, the decisions of the Hanging Committee are often frustratingly unpredictable (but usually erring on the side of traditional skills and subjects).

I remember seeing an anouncement recently that SMtM wasn't being commissioned for a third series. That would be a shame! Art rouses passions and extremes of subjectivity. Get a presenter with a modicum of expertise, remove the judgement from its straightjacket of rationalism, maybe add a practising artist to the Committee? However much each person has strong (and different) opinions about art, it must be more fun than watching the next parade of 17 year old wannabe's singing karaoke on mainstream TV.

Christine with a Pipe

Christine with a Pipe
40 x 50 x 3.5cm
acrylic on canvas

This is a provisional title for my latest portrait painting and maybe will become permanent. I was initially presented with a series of quite racey photographs but chose to close-in on this upper body composition with the prominent addition of an unusual prop.

On the strictest of instructions from the sitter that the base colour be anything-but-orange, I chose a mid pink. The limbs frame the composition and I was quite pleased with the rough brush- strokes that form the prominent forearm.

Well, the whole thing may not bring down a government, but it was an interesting and challenging experience!