http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec Just another WordPress weblog Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:50:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil” Death is a central tenant of tragedy and one that is littered through Shakespeare’s tragedies. He achieves pathos through language, characterisation and plot development. For a painter different tools are required to articulate death. Certain ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/07/01/shakespeare-project-space-and-death/ Doomed to failure Over the next fifteen months I shall be working on an extensive series of paintings and prints which take Shakespeare's plays as their source. King Lear, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and MSND are my initial starting points. I have consciously taken four of his most iconic and celebrated ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/06/30/shakespeare-project/ I have recently spent a short time-out in the Trossachs - Scotlands National Park, situated just above Glasgow - where I hit upon a mini-revelation regarding what I have been photographing and why I have been taking photographs. You see, I have been quite happy to snap away with my low-quality ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/05/06/photography-as-documentation-nothing-else/ http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/05/06/a-resolute-thereafter/ I'm currently working my way through Naked Lunch by William Burroughs, for anyone who has read it, they'll know what I mean when I say 'working through',  you read more with your stomach than your mind.  Placing a different emphasis on the idea of digesting what was written.  What has ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/04/09/william-burroughs-biting-your-tongue-and-tasting-metal/ Please help. The black dog is yapping at the door to my sleeping bag, and he won't go away. You must know what this feels like, lest you forget the rambling man in gin-sodden overalls that would tap-tap-tap on the mirror of my tutu, late at night, begging for harmony. I could never ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/04/05/im-in-a-state-of-perpetual-freehand/ [gallery columns="4"] An installation of painting video and performance, which are all indebted to interests in similar theme's; ritual, base desire and a curiosity of whether somthing that is based in illusion can ever be real. http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/02/13/welcome-there-is-nothing-to-see-here/ Corpus was an extesnive and existing group show produced by HRL Contemporary. Tom de Freston was one of two painters to occupy the central space, as well as occupying three other subsiduary rooms in the old chapel. The show brought together an extensive range of figurative art, all housed in ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/01/04/hrl-contemporary-corpus/ As stressed students hurry among the centenary walls of Christ’s College in Cambridge and the bell of the old chapel announces Evensong, a half-metre-long painting awaits completion by the hands of a young artist in his studio. Tom de Freston, the holder of the 08/09 Levy Plumb Visual Arts Residency, ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/01/04/green-pebble-natalia-de-orellana/ From Anthony Gormley to Marlene Dumas, Matthew Barney to Marc Quinn, representations of the human figure can be found throughout contemporary art. Alternatively understood as an embodiment of the artist, a mirror of the viewer, or a means of exploring identity, the body remains a potent site of aesthetic investigation. ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/01/04/corpus-talk-by-jennifer-burris/