Collage: Brave New World / Old and New Art Techniques

RTomens, 2020

I was going to try and write something about the state of the world and the brave new world desired by some and the way they go about it...but I can't because I have no clear thoughts on a generalisation such as 'the state of the world' because our worlds are different across the globe, from country-to-country - even North to South, East and West, city-to-city, house-to-house, person-to-person, even? None of which prevents people from describing the state of the world. Perhaps within us there's a mechanism which prompts us to believe we 'know' it and can assess it. The other option is to admit that the world in all its permutations is impossible to grasp in totality. Still, we would 'shape' the world if we could according to our preferred ideology. People are trying to do that all the time. They would make others slaves in their Utopia.

This collage combines old-fashioned cut paper with print and finally, digital technology. It's a mixture of the old world and the new. I can't see myself ever abandoning (toppling?) historical art techniques such as cutting paper. Likewise, I shall always be using the new. 

Text art/collage/ Isolation Artist

RTomens, 2020

The image is from a book I'm putting together. Meanwhile...

Bingeing on Haribos, coffee and chocolate - comfort food! Self-isolating is nothing new for me; I'm used to it, although I couldn't actually stay within the confines of The Cave for two weeks. I'd miss visiting friends, if I had any. 

On Tuesday I was relieved to see that most of my regular charity shop haunts were still open, but I wonder how long that will last? The world really does come to an end when I can't scour the second-hand book shelves. The UK's caving in to follow the examples of other countries in lock down when in reality the government should demand we stay open but be mindful of old folk and always wash our hands before eating Haribos. Instead the arseholes are doing what needs doing to look as if it's being taken as seriously as others take it. People will lose jobs and businesses over all this shit and they don't need to. 

Meanwhile, jokes about artists in isolation surface based around the idea that IT'S TIME TO BE CREATIVE! and a comedian gears his Twitter account up as an 'art' gallery for people to send in the idiot art - bah! If you're an artist and creative what the fuck do you do most of the time anyway? Fanny around weeping to yourself about not being recognised or creatively 'blocked'? Pah! 

I'm off to not watch the news. Get out and about! And if you see any loo rolls, get me some, please. If I have to, I will start using some of those cheap books from charity shops.

Collage/Print: Impact of the Unseen / The Spiritual In Art

Lying in bed the other morning an idea came to me. I finally crawled out from under the duvet having shaken off fragments of a dream still stuck in my mind, got dressed and started trying out the process. This is the second piece using the process. The first was reasonably successful...but oh, the artist ponders...how to measure success? One must feel content, at best. Few are the times when I leap into the air, clapping my hands with glee at the genius of what I've done! Would the regularity of such a response be egotistical? Or would it mean I am a genius? Genius being in the eye of the beholder, of course.

In an FB discussion yesterday someone said art is what 'moves' him and touches his 'soul'. Profound! He must be the 'soulful' type who looks for something spiritual in art. Good luck to him. I seek no such thing in either creation or appreciation. The implication being that art which does neither is not art. I didn't point out the egocentricity of his claim. 

Here, anyway, are final process shots of Impact of the Unseen ending with the finished piece.

TTFN 

RTomens, 2019

ERRORISM: A Journal of Re-Appropriation

Coming soon from Ragged Lion Press, ERRORISM: A Journal of Re-Appropriation, 'a folio comprised of 32 boxed pieces, including art prints, mini art books, chapbooks, broadsides, and an original collage'. Featured artists: Audrey Szasz, Marc Debb, Sharon Anderson, Tristan Tzara, Steve Dalachinsky, Nico Vassilakis, Sreemanti Sengupta, Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, Robin Tomens, Julia Lillard, Dawn Nelson Wardrope, John M. Bennett, and EADS. 

Pre-order here. Don't miss out!

Art print/Vispo: FlâneuR / Walking In The City

FlâneuR, RTomens, 2018

To walk in the city is to be consumed by the city. It's often said in the negative sense that cities 'consume' people. The multitude of people, traffic, noise and buildings can all overwhelm and increase feelings of isolation and that ironic form of loneliness. 

Yet the flâneur represents the opposite idea; a wanderer, free from prescribed directions, simply exploring for the pleasures that the city's labyrinth provides. As cyclists, LJ and I have remarked on how much more than motorists we see, usually in relation to countryside trips, but the same applies to the urban environment. Walking naturally takes this idea further. 

The irony of the city and all it's architectural wonders is that most of its inhabitants walk without seeing them. Sucked at speed as if caught in the wake of the traffic we hurry through the streets. It takes a conscious effort not to get caught up in the pace of life in London and, presumably, most major cities. That said, tourists idly wandering in your path prove an irritant. 

The city is unknowable for the majority of it's inhabitants. Our tendency and that of many others, I suspect, is to do most of the walking on our patch (Camden). Yet even one borough would take many days to fully explore. Have we been down this street before? No? Then let's go look. Sure enough, London's architecture being as diverse as it is, a newly-discovered house will prove interesting. It may be an ivy-coated, drably-painted, cracked gothic mansion (by city standards), or a new spin on 60s modernism squashed between rows of Victorian houses. 

Occasionally, when the city becomes too much, I may dream of a quiet life in the country. Yet every time I do so I remind myself of all the as yet unknown pleasures the city streets can offer. That and the obvious benefits of the art galleries, music event etc. 

So, FlâneuR began like this...

...which I found pleasing enough. The idea of an 'R' travelling along blocks of colour. But then I imagined it travelling through the city and added the appropriate imagery by printing it as back and foreground in two colours. The first version may be likened to a country walk; the second, a more frantic urban version. 

TTFN

Cut-Up/Collage: The Grave City

}william burroughs, cut-ups, collage, photography, digital art{

RTomens, 2017

Text from my own cut-up novel.

Vispo: Authentic Individual

RTomens, 2017

Print works in progress...

Copies of copies...layers of layers..the last is tracing paper over text...

Collage, print, Situationist May 68

Concrete Poetry / Text Collage

Couple of pages from a booklet I'll be having made this year. They're untitled.

How Long Has It Been Since You Really Tasted Good

How To Do Things With Words

Word Collage: Plain Words

Wordplay...vispo? Concrete poetry? Plain words remixed in five variations...