Engravings

Ghost

This is an abandoned apartment block on the outskirts of El Entrego in Asturias . All abandoned buildings remind me of the ones I knew as a child, which to my imagination then, were always haunted. They still have that atmosphere for me now.

Ghost

39x28cm, Edition of 25

£165

Stella and the skull

My daughter, like all babies has to investigate everything. So I put a human skull in front of her and hey presto! The working title was “a matter of life and death”, but I prefer this one.

Stella and the skull

9x13cm, Edition of 35

£65

Mars Someone was murdered outside

This is a night club on the approach road to the Blackwall Tunnel, one of the bleakest and sinister stretches in London . I can imagine someone gossiping about such a murder because you imagine things happening at just such a place. I'm sure it's very nice really.

Someone was murdered outside

9x13cm, Edition of 35

£55

Mum

She hasn't seen this portrait, she doesn't like to be portrayed with wrinkles.

Mum

18x13cm, Edition of 20

£85

Mars

I got my Dad to pose for this, half naked with a second world war German steel helmet on. Dad was an athlete but now his body is aging. I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose an aging vulnerable body with the ultimate symbol of power and evil.

Mars

18x13cm, Edition of 20

£85

Marbler's Workshop

This is an illustration for a book called “Despite Anything”; the collected writings of Mark Whittaker, a truly masterful marbler of paper.

Marbler's workshop

13x14cm, Edition of 10

£45

Be still my love

This is a small engraved version of the design. It can be displayed as it is, or covered with a celosia.

This print was used as the “ticket” in the Hogarth Project. The idea was that you could buy this small engraving for forty bucks or so, and that would then act as a lottery ticket for a larger print.

The critic Jerry Cullum was very taken with the celosia engravings and would have chosen this picture to illustrate the article, but I'm afraid American morals are too fragile for a naked woman. Just before The Atlanta Journal had had a photograph containing a woman's naked nipple on the front page of the magazine section and there were many, many complaints.

Be still my love

15x10cm, Edition of 40

£65

Be still my love, celosia

Here is the same motif covered by a celosia, don't look too closely between the gaps, it will sap your strength.

Be still my love, celosia

15x10cm, Edition of 20

£85

Pompeii Celosia

I used an erotic motif of a wall painting from Pompeii because I thought it suitable to be half hidden by a screen as an antecedent to the screens and interiors of the medieval Muslims.

Note. Celosia is Spanish for jealousy, and it is also the word for an ornate screen that obscures windows from the street. It is an Moorish innovation that is still ubiquitous in Andalucia. I loved the idea of an interior, private space being partially obscured; somehow making it all the more tantalising.

Pompeii celosia

15x10cm, Edition of 20

£85

Each of the colourways in this edition are unique, and the inks were hand ground by me. I also experimented with iridescent, pearlescent and metallic pigments. A lot of work and a technically very punishing way to print; an engraving reduction print, no wonder it's sometimes called suicide method.