Venture Theatre - Ashby de la Zouch

It's good to see that at least some 'little theatres' and their ilk continue to exist in some communities across the UK. I had the pleasure of giving a performative talk here at the Venture Theatre in Ashby de la Zouch before the first public community reading of the new audio drama 'The Winter Garden' by Matthew Pegg.

The theatre is tiny, cosy, and welcoming with a bar in the auditorium itself.

I hereby 'big up' Venture Theatre and the dedicated group that help run it for, in and with the community it sits in!

Paul Conneally
July 2016

More photographs from around the theatre:

This Hedgerow

this hedgerow

strung with stars
elderflower wine

Little Onion

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.
   [wpvideo MpsyJwBb]  



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

Japanese Passports to Feature Hokusai Ukiyo e Prints

Japanese passports are to feature reproductions of famous Hokusai prints on their pages.

There will be 24 prints all taken from Hokusai's famous ukiyo e series 36 Views of Mount Fuji.

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued some sample images to show what the passports will look like. The Japanese government will start issuing the passports in 2019 as Japan gets ready for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

The external covers of the passports will remain the same as they are now Blue for five year passports and Red for ten year passports.


Paul Conneally

May 2016

EMI ANRAKUJI Untitled 455

EMI ANRAKUJI

Untitled 455 

2015

Exhibition: 1800 Millimètre

"Emi Anrakuji represents herself as an alchemist of images and a catalyst for daydreams and desires. The vignettes of jigsaw puzzle-like photographs of herself and others blur the boundaries between documentary and staged photography. Posing naked, clothed, or partially dressed, Anrakuji takes a uniquely obsessive interest in her own body. Her legs, arms, toes, lips and hair create arresting compositions and erotic ambience. Anrakuji's obsession with the human body is a result, in part, from her long periods spent hospitalized: after graduating from art school in Tokyo in the mid-1980s, she suffered a cerebral tumor that prevented her from making art for more than a decade. During her gradual recovery, she began to make block prints, then photographs."

More of Emi Anrakuji's work along with that from other cutting edge photographers and artists can be found at Miyako Yoshinaga.

The Miyako Yoshinaga gallery is in New York and is a 'must visit' art venue.

LOCATION & HOURS

547 West 27th Street 2nd Floor

New York NY 10001-5511, USA

T: 212 268 7132

TUE – SAT 11am - 6pm

For August and holiday hours, please call or email at:
info@miyakoyoshinaga.com

Around The Rhubarb

I miss them the rag-and-bone men of my childhood. Taking things out to them to be rewarded not with money but perhaps a balloon. In my head a green balloon although I know it wasn't always so. The smell of the horse and the wonderment when it chose to peacefully urinate outside the house. My grandmother's house. The steam.

dragonflies
I dig in some fresh manure
around the rhubarb

Little Onion

from the haibun archives of Little Onion (Paul Conneally) - you can read a little about how writer Ray Rasmussen used this haibun as a model and how modelling from other works can help in the writing of new works here : HAIBUN TODAY


Little Onion seen eating rhubarb at Loughborough University. You can watch and hear him talking about rhubarb and politics here: DON'T VOTE TORY EAT RHUBARB 

The Glitter Rubs Right Off And You're Nowhere

the glitter rubs right off and you're nowhere

Paul Conneally

Loughborough

 2016

Park Road Crossing - Paul Conneally 2016

Park Road Crossing
Paul Conneally
Loughborough
May 2016

Wisteria Blooms

wisteria blooms
the piano mover
lets out a sigh

Little Onion

Photo: Paul Conneally

Kev Ryan - Artist, Photographer, Activist

Artist and photographer Kev Ryan of Charnwood Arts

Photograph: Paul Conneally, All Saints Parish Church, Loughborough

Counting The Blossoms

counting the blossoms
caught in her hair
she loves me

Little Onion

Little Onion is resident haiku master at Sake No Hana the modern Japanese restaurant in Mayfair, London.

Click here for the Sake No Hana guide on How To Haiku:
http://sakenohana.com/london/how-to-haiku/ 

Before The Match

before the match
that sees Leicester City
crowned champions
of the Premier League
a group photograph

Little Onion

Photo: 'Smile' Paul Conneally King Power Stadium Leicester May 2016