A gallery of our art, part 1: the lounge

After nearly 5 years, I'm posting again to join in Kerenza's art trail. I really enjoyed browsing through her art and reading the stories behind it all. She's got so many beautiful pieces - you should definitely go and look at them. So I was inspired to blow the dust off this old thing and share ours to.

Ironically, when I logged in again, I found a draft post for her art trail that I'd started writing in 2018 and never finished! 

I'm going to do this in stages because we've got too much art to share in one post. 

The Lounge

Dear Progress

Printed beer mats, Micah Purnell, 2002

Deep black wood frame with yellow internal walls, Mike Spring

It's a set of seven beer mats of Micah Purnell's "Dear Progress" billboard series. Seven statements that challenge today's society addictions to technology, consumerism and being busy. The statements are:

What lie will I wear today?

Reality is a cocktail of fantasy

I need (want)

Put down your phone and talk to me

We breathe shallower now

My eyes are pixeled

Shackled by my own consumption

Micah is a friend of a friend, who I've since met and worked with a few times and I really like his stuff. There's more to come of his in this room and in others...

Tributary

Ice and ink, Abi Spendlove, 2017

I bought this for Dan's 40th birthday from an exhibition in Luton's Storefront gallery. I'd been to the exhibition and really liked these ice melt prints. Abi's exhibition was all about the River Lea which starts in north Luton and flows through the town. She took water from the river, added ink and froze it in balloons before letting the ice sculptures melt onto the page. I bought this before Dan had seen it and had a minor heart-stopping moment when I later took him to the exhibition and he stood in front of these and said "I don't really like those" - all rectified when I explained the concept! We went out with Dan's brother the night before his birthday and while we were out, a friend let themselves into our house and hung this on the wall so it was there when we got back! It now hangs on the chimney breast in the lounge.

Book Page Prints

Ink on vintage dictionary pages, Louise Verity, 2010-11

Dan's parents gave me the top image for my birthday in 2010, and we ordered the second to complete the pair not long after. The words are a quote from Ode, by Arthur O'Shaughnessy. Most people recognise it from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as quoted by Willy Wonka during the tour but for me it's  a nostalgic reminder of a favourite Eden Burning song.

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams

Wandering by lone sea-breakers and sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers, on whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers of the world for ever, it seems.

LUTON
Print on paper, Jonas Allen, 2020

This is our most recent art acquisition, a gift to us from Karin on her birthday! It's a painting of Luton's most famous landmarks by one of her friends, Jonas Allen. The detail on this is incredible. We haven't decided where to hang this once it's framed but it'll definitely find a home. Luton is a recurring theme in our art collection, as you'll see...

Selected prints

Print on paper, Micah Purnell, bought 2014

Well I did say there'd be more Micah! I love his bold, challenging typographic style. These are a selection of five of his works, not intended as a collection. From left to right they are:

"I couldn't see the wood for the trees so I lit a match" collaboration with poet, Pete Rollins

Marriage quote by The Great Kamryn, full text here

Truth

"If you don't design the future, someone else will." Edward de Bono

"Love keeps no record of wrongs, but you didn't know so your list went on." song lyric

I think I'll pause there for now. More rooms still to come, with more pieces from some of these artists, and plenty more to go with them. 

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Posted as part of Kerenza's Bloggers' Art Gallery. Please do visit hers, and other galleries too.