Got That Bingo Feeling - Loughborough 2016

'Got That Bingo Feeling'

Do you know it? That 'bingo' feeling? When things suddenly come together, make sense? A realisation?

Feels good. A rush of serotonin. Moving on with new confidence.

Sometimes you have to work hard within that sense of 'this is never going to happen' or 'I just don't get this' until BINGO! Things fall into place and it's on to the next challenge with new enthusiasm.

Nothing comes easy but welcome the toil, invite in chance, ride the bad times and savour those bingo moments.

Paul Conneally
Loughborough
June 2016

The Courtyard - Forest Lodge Primary School, Leicester

The Courtyard - Forest Lodge Primary School

The Courtyard is a representation of the area outside the main reception of the new Forest Lodge Primary School building in New Parks, Leicester.

I introduced 9 and 10 year olds at the school to Max Ernst, Dada and frottage. It builds on my work with them around Guy Debord and the Situationist International the week before and combining the two we argue that the above is just as much a picture of the front of the school as any traditional painting or drawing. The work is part of a three workshops that I also consider a piece in itself, the children and their actions part of the work.

'The Gallery of the Street is Open' is a slogan from the Involuntary Painting movement that myself and New York based artist Millree Hughes initiated in 2013/14. We have pursued actions across New Parks and New York with Soft Touch Arts and New York based artists from the IP Movement including Brad Melamed, Andrea Evans, Lucien Samaha, Michael Lee Nirenberg, Cezare Ramone and Judy Rhee.

This school based section of our work is with Forest Lodge and Parks Primary. Pupils involved have now been given disposable cameras to photograph Involuntary Paintings and other things that strike the children as they walk into school.

The work is with and for Soft Touch Arts, Arts Council England, Leicester City Council Libraries Service and the Raising Achievement Team. Artists Lauren Ann Park and Sally Norman have been invaluable in their work and support across all Involuntary Painting New Parks : New York interventions and workshops.

Paul Conneally
June 2016

'Pickled' - Paul Conneally 2015 #shaunryderbeermatshow

'Pickled'
Paul Conneally
#shaunryderbeermatshow
WarrIngton, UK, 2015

Part of #shaunryderbeermatshow a piece conceived, curated and executed by artists Cathy Wade and Kevin Ryan. 'Pickled' featured in the Birmingham Pavilion of the North Bienale in Warrington 2015 commissioned by Ikon which was curated by Wade and Ryan with their #shaunryderbeermatshow. The beermat now has a life of its own given to it by Wade and Ryan and the many works made by many artists featuring it or out of it.

A tour de force of detournement.



The Sean Ryder Beermat Show: Birmingham Pavillion North Biennale (Photo Cathy Wade 2015) 

Head Walking

As part of my workshop piece 'The Gallery of the Street is Open' participants spend time blindfolded visualising their walk / route to work drawing directly in a process I call 'head walking'.

It's interesting as although the lines and marks do not generally resemble any conventional map the drawer, when the blindfold is removed, is able to label the line with shops, landscape, urban features, feelings and words.

Paul Conneally
Leicester, June 2016

Marion the Beekeeper

Marion the beekeeper despite torrential rain explains the joys and complexities of keeping bees in a suburban garden.

Marion opened her Loughbohemia (some call it Loughborough) garden as part of the National Gardens Scheme along with two other gardens including a Secret Craft Fair coordinated by Janet Currie.

Photograph: Paul Conneally

After The Mowing

after the mowing
a cup of sakura tea
in the old orchard

Little Onion

for Sake no Hana the modern Japanese restaurant in Mayfair, London where Little Onion is resident haiku master.

Involuntary Painting 1 New Parks : New York Library Installation - Millree Hughes and Paul Conneally 2016

Involuntary Painting 1 New Parks : New York culminated with images of things identified as 'involuntary paintings' by members of the Creative New Parks group being incorporated into the fabric of the New Parks Centre Library. One of the pieces was a series of photographs of a kerb and tyre mark running up the road , St. Oswald's Road, opposite the library, which were applied to the library front windows. Here's one of the original images:



The community working with Conneally photocopied the tyre mark that had been discovered by Colin Murphy, a member of the group, and photographed on Conneally's iPhone 4. They then put the photocopies together sticking them down on a roll of lining paper creating something that resembled Rauchenberg's 'Tire Print'




Above is 'Tire Print' a voluntary artwork by Robert Rauschenberg made with John Cage. Below is the group's work drying in the library.



Vinyls of the original images were printed and made to measure the front windows of the library. These were applied to the windows by Conneally with Sally Norman of Soft Touch Arts who facilitated the whole project.
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Involuntary Painting 1 New Parks : New York was conceived by artists Millree Hughes (New York USA) and Paul Conneally (Loughborough UK) for and with Soft Touch Arts, Leicester City Council and Arts Council England.

Note: The term ‘Involuntary Painting’ was first ‘invented’, coined and used in this context by Hughes to describe marks on objects, walls, buildings made by the weather, ageing, persons, animals, graffiti, abuse and other means, that he came across in his travels around New York, that seemed to him could be and were similar to modern paintings found in galleries and museums across the world.

Hughes, working with Conneally, developed the idea further, and together they came up with a simple way to describe what an involuntary painting was in the hope that by identifying and sharing such involuntary paintings they might encourage the reexamination of what painting is, has been and could be.

“Imagine that and alien lands on Earth programmed with all the knowledge of contemporary modern art but never having seen a painting. What might this alien mistake for a painting? These things, never intended as art, as paintings, are what we now propose as involuntary paintings” – Millree Hughes and Paul Conneally 2014

'Dear Deirdre' - Paul Conneally 2016

'I had breathtakingly wonderful sex with my former boss'



'I'm married and expecting my lover's baby who has no idea I have a husband'



'My wife went ballistic when she caught me cheating with her friend'



'I cant stop thinking about my colleague but it will break my fiancee's parents' hearts'

'Dear Deirdre' is a series of drawings by Paul Conneally in response to the question 'Where do our morals come from?'. The source material here is the 'Dear Deirdre' problem page of The Sun newspaper, in fact The Sun Online. Conneally was brought to the Dear Deirdre page through his ongoing work 'Top Ten Returns' with the 'Dear Deirdre' page being in the top ten returns for the term 'morals' when searched for at The Sun website.

Leonor Fini - Paris - 1932

Leonor Fini, Paris, 1932, photography by Henri Cartier-Bresson