Mary Wilson, 2017 Acrylic on paper.
Twiggy, 2017 Acrylic on paper.
Ronnie Spector, 2017 Acrylic on paper.
Monday, 6 November 2017
Saturday, 12 November 2016
canvas. 110 x 80 cm.
Disorder (Soho rooftops), 2016 Acrylic on canvas.
110 x 80 cm.
Station to Station (Baker Street), 2016 Acrylic on
canvas. 110 x 80 cm.
Grace, 2016
Acrylic on canvas. 110 x 80 cm.
Girl from Sissi III, 2016
Acrylic on paper. 110 x 80 cm.
Monday, 20 June 2016
Clear Line Clash, 2nd - 31st of July at Orbital Comics.
Land of the Giants
Land of the Giants
From the ice‐age to the dole‐age / there is but one concern…
To misquote Steven Patrick Morrissey; some girls are indeed bigger than others. And while the cast of giantesses in Carl Stimpson’s most recent paintings certainly take some beating in this regard, scale is not simply a question of perspective. Who are these monstrous glamour girls and where have they come from? Why do they appear to stalk the rooftops of an unpeopled, anachronistic London?
For over a decade, Stimpson’s practice has drawn on a variety of sources in the development of both its form and content – namely the ‘ligne claire’ technique inaugurated by Belgian cartoonist and Tintin creator, Hergé; late‐twentieth‐century British popular music and the trademarks of well‐known industrial brands.
While the paintings may deliberately ape the graphic simplicity and bold visual language of their pop cultural references, this belies the intricacy of the methods undertaken in the process of their composition. These involve (among others) the use of photography, Photoshop and the painstaking, letter‐by‐letter extraction of text from Tintin comics. Once this process of collage and digital manipulation is complete, the image is transferred to acetate and projected on to paper for the next study to be made. At this point the photographic source material is refined and translated into‘clear line’ and inked in for colour reference. This study is then transferred to acetate to be projected on to canvas, at which point the final painting is executed.
On these canvases, paint application and brushwork are unerringly democratic — an eyelash is treated with the same care and attention as the tail of a letter ‘e’. Partly this ‘all‐over’ technique is borne out of fidelity to the mechanically printed methods used to produce those images that Stimpson references throughout his work. But a commensurate result is one of flattening and consolidation — creating a kind of parallax effect whereby the viewer’s attention often fluctuates between an assumed background and foreground. In this way, the paintings are always already interrogating the veracity of their own invented world as well as our own cultural fascination with images and their ultimate (un)reliability. In this most recent body of work we are also witness to a hitherto unseen self‐reflexive experiment whereby images or characters from older paintings appear on billboards in Underground stations or on the sides of buildings; adding another layer of fictive density and uncanniness.
The deployment of brand trademarks (of products used by the artist over a number of years) has become increasingly prominent in recent works. For Stimpson, these brands have taken on the nature of talismans — the touchstones of his working life. By lovingly tracing the bounding lines of these brand names, the painter, rather than necessarily reaffirming them, perhaps actually divests them of their linguistic integrity – the walls do, in fact, come tumbling down. Similarly (though conversely) oblong tower block windows can be seen to incant the blank ‘I’ of their unknowable subjects — each representing the anonymous life of its occupant(s).
The use of pop song lyrics superimposed onto the images creates yet further possibilities of interpretation and narrative disjuncture. While the pop songs from which these lyric utterances derive could be considered the wellspring of Stimpson’s creative imagination, their inclusion in these paintings often provides not clarification, but rather, further obfuscation.
Through the dogged exploration of his own obsessions and desires, Stimpson pulls us through the looking glass into a topsy‐turvy world in which colossi roam and brutalist architecture sings.
Sunday, 15 May 2016
Tuesday, 8 March 2016
From the 24th to the 28th of March I’ll be showing some of my work along side the sculptures of Tim O'carroll and the paintings of Frederick Thackeray-Vincent.
Our exhibition will be taking place in Soho, London on the 1st floor of the lovely Georgian building of 49 Greek street.
The Private view will be held the evening of Thursday 24th March 6-9p.m.
Hope you can come and have a look/drink with us.
Union Trade-
The wand and lasso are no longer the reserve of magicians and cowboys. The allure of beautiful women, the subtle veneer of oils and common material pushed to excess. Find them here, in a show of painting and sculpture.
Carl Stimpson’s analog practice has focused on producing strange new narratives from a host of cut and pasted comic book images.
Tim O’Carrolls abstract, process-based creations spontaneously combine ephemeral, cheap media such as card, foam and wax into beautiful bronze sculpture.
Fred Thackeray-Vincent’s paintings stem from places long forgotten, from things which have yet to be, and of substances that hang in between.
This show preserves a workman like ethic, made of those who closely hone a craft and with diligent care for their materials. Further statements, studies, post cards, sketches and more will be available on attendance of the private view.
Thursday, 18 February 2016
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Thursday, 6 November 2014
Poole Bay, 2014 Acrylic on canvas. 180 x 90 cm.
Comisioned by Jimmy's Iced Coffee
Extra Slim, 2014 Acrylic, paper and found print.
45.7 x 36.9 cm.
Rock & Roll Suicide, 2014 Acrylic, paper and found print.
44.3 x 40 cm.
Tuesday, 28 October 2014
Friday, 27 June 2014
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Take It Or Leave It, 2013 Acrylic on canvas.
Two panels, 160 x 80 cm overall.
Mother Nature's Son, 2013 Acrylic on canvas. 110 x 80 cm.
Nothing Ever Happens, 2013 Acrylic on canvas. 80 x 74.5 cm
Comic Mash Up at Orbital. www.orbitalcomics.com
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Orbital Comics presents a solo exhibition of new works by Carl Stimpson. The show runs until Wednesday 12th June so please come and have a look. All are welcome to come along to the private view which is on Saturday 1st June at 7 pm.
The
wand and lasso are no longer the reserve of magicians and cowboys. In this age of digital tools it has
never been easier to splice and merge, in order to create montage and composite
images. These tools (and a box of others) make it easy to achieve
seamless results, but the ability to create interesting melded and mashed
imagery remains a true challenge.
Carl
Stimpson’s analog painting practice has, over the last six years, focused on
producing strange new narratives from a host of cut and pasted comic book
images.
Femme fatales, explosions, comical characters
and Japanese heroines from Belgian comics, to name but a few, are sourced and
blended in his work. Source materials, including the works of cartoonists;
F. Bergese, Philippe Berthet, Dan DeCarlo, Frank Frazetta, Herge, Edgar P.
Jacobs, Jack Kirby and Roger Leloup, provide visual information that is
appropriated by Stimpson to create his own compositions. The viewer’s
attention switches between boyish interests of fast cars and fighter planes and
the more adult and alluring depiction of voluptuous women. Stimpson deftly composes these
paintings, turning complicated mixtures into final works that feel as though
they have always existed. The leftfield text included in his paintings
serves to disconcert and intrigue the viewer.
The
pulp aesthetic of comic book art demands, in the first instance, only a
superficial analysis from the viewer. In recent works Stimpson has looked
beyond the graphic quality of his source material in order to explore the print
processes used to create it. New paintings incorporate a subtle layering
of primary colour washes; this involved technique serves as a simulation
of the means by which the original images were produced.
The digital paintbrush is considered to be a
relatively crude tool, yet in the hands of this painter its analog equivalent
is used sensitively and deftly. Stimpson’s work reflects a painterly
aptitude, a long-standing love of the comic book medium and a broad, deepening
knowledge of its history. His paintings are peculiar, beguiling and
entertaining.
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Pearl's Cafe, 2012 Acrylic on canvas. Diptych 140.5 x 25.5 cm. Painted for issue 29 of The Illustrated Ape magazine: www.theillustratedape.com
For Tomorrow, 2012 Acrylic on canvas. 110 x 80 cm.
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Skipper (Jimmy's), 2012 Acrylic on canvas. 80 x 70 cm.
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