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Disabled persectives.
Celebrating Disability  everywhere in everything. 

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Ferris Newton 

Ferris Newton

Gemma Bontempo

Early work in plastics

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Hot Shot
Ferris Newton

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‘HIDEOUT’
Ferris Newton
1971            About 65 cm

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‘'HEAD SHOT
Ferris Newton
 

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'GRIMM HOUSE’
Ferris Newton

A dark and explosive event emerging into a domestic situation.

Even the wallpaper can camouflage deep fears… or explode into our deep awareness. And again, Black plays games of ‘Hide An’ Seek’.

 

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‘GHOST OF A CHANCE’
Ferris Newton
AUGUST 1988    80.5 X 43 cm

Even when Chance takes a more sinister turn… its beautiful promises can be frightfully seductive.

When I splash a paint event, its exactly like throwing dice, with many hours of preparation work at risk.

I’m ALWAYS shocked by what beautiful forms emerge… (and I ALMOST NEVER need to cheat to ‘improve’ the splashes).

But I do, very carefully, paint a transparent layer over the splash/mark incident, so that it will be perfect when I sand back down to it later.

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'GEMSTONE SOURCE'
Ferris Newton

1987            ± 70 X 60 cm

Some times ‘a gem of an idea’ can only arise from a magma of chaos and overheated stress.

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‘FUGUE PERSONATION I’
Ferris Newton

AUGUST 1991    80 X 50 X18 cm

This began as a sketch which explored a profound need to ‘protect’ a vulnerable ideation. In collections of early Art Works, I often found that the frames (to protected the paintings?) were more workman-like, honestly crafted, and ‘to the point’ than the excessively pretentious Art.

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'FUGUE PERSONATION II'
Ferris Newton

AUGUST 1992    115 X 104 X 16 cm

Again, notionally changing wood into a precious gemstone was a kind of switch ‘to turn on’ a metaphysical dimension. In Science Fiction it might be done with “shape-shifters”. It touches everyone’s wish to change into something better.

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‘FRUITY TATTOO’
Ferris Newton
1986      101 X 32.5 X 18 open

The ‘tinned fruit’ opens out… never quite fulfilling the advertised promise of the suggestive tattoo.

 

PIECE‘PIECE’

Ferris Newton

1985            40 X 19 cm

One step in a long search for reliable ways to show what I was struggling with.

I had understood ‘how I wanted to make it’, but it was much more difficult to justify the everyday issues that I needed to consider and evidence.

PAINTERS TRICK
‘PAINTER’S TRICKS’
Ferris Newton
1986            103 X 60 cm

Playing all too obvious games with double meanings. Sorry about that.

PAINTERS TRICK
‘OUT OF ITS BOX’

Ferris Newton

About 1989            47.5 X 30.2 X 17

Some people have memento photographs standing on the piano.

This Memento remembers when impossible differences dovetailed… if only for a moment.

Two sides of the same character… gathering strength for?

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‘ONCE UPON A SHELF’

Ferris Newton

AUGUST 1991    66 X 29 X 11

One of my favorite paintings is ‘Sun In An Empty Room’ by Edward Hopper (1963). That profound emptiness is a vacuum, begging to be filled with the Viewer’s imagination, emotions, or questions. I also like the analogy that a vase should be incomplete, until the flowers fulfil its purpose. I hope that the strange emptiness of this piece induces you to conjecture, productively.

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‘OLD ONE’
Ferris Newton
1981     82 X 42 cm

When I first did this Piece, the final color of the little ‘garden areas’ exactly matched the old wood. So I could Brand, scratch, or excavate the color sequence ‘within the body’ of the Piece… revealing this Guy’s inner character. But age affects us all.

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‘NICK KNACK’
Ferris Newton
SEPTEMBER  1989    181 X 53 X 15 cm

Only a bit of décor? But there’s that gaping black hole at its heart, and signs of some kind of violence.

The Japanese Tea master, Kenzan, caused a flower arrangement to become a Life-and-Death struggle for his ideals.

As I have said, maybe too often, ‘decorative’ is usually a failing of Art. But so many of the Tactics that I risk using do break the rules of ‘Consensus Art’.

Its more fun if you can blind-side the Viewer, and offer something that he or she may not at first realize the value of.

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Natures Gentleman
Ferris Newton

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‘MOVE INTO BLACK’
Ferris Newton
OCTOBER 1986    193 X 57 cm

A cryptic game of “spills and thrills”, in a place which aspired to of Delphi importance.

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‘MEDICINAL COLOR I’
Ferris Newton
JULY 1988    84.5 X 47.2 cm

A dose of color a day, could keep The Shadows away… or maybe they’re just pushed “Down Below”.

I find that the sub-liminal stuff (below the shelf) is by far the most beautifully tantalizing.

On day ‘I’ there are ‘On The Shelf’ packets of Color Doses. “Take As Needed”.

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‘MEDICINAL COLOR II’
Ferris Newton
JULY 1988    83.5 X 46 cm

And on the seventh day, all hell broke loose… quite beautifully.

A dose of color a day, could keep The Shadows away… or maybe they’re just pushed “Down Below”.

I find that the sub-liminal stuff (below the shelf) is by far the most beautifully tantalizing.

Here there are Tin Leaves nailed on, trying to revitalize a remembered tree.

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‘MEDICINAL COLOR III’
Ferris Newton
JULY 1988    85 X 46.5 cm

And on the seventh day, all hell broke loose… quite beautifully.

A dose of color a day, could keep The Shadows away… or maybe they’re just pushed “Down Below”.

I find that the sub-liminal stuff (below the shelf) is by far the most beautifully tantalizing.

Tin flags advertise a Pharmacy for rather special pre-scriptions, held in a Lapis Lazuli Jar.

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‘MEDICINAL COLOR IV’
Ferris Newton
JULY 1988    82.5 X 46.5 cm

And on the seventh day, all hell broke loose… quite beautifully.

A dose of color a day, could keep The Shadows away… or maybe they’re just pushed “Down Below”.

I find that the sub-liminal stuff (below the shelf) is by far the most beautifully tantalizing.

Some of his feathers may be tin, but his daily dreams can be in strutting Technicolor.

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‘MEDICINAL COLOR V’
Ferris Newton
JULY 1988    82 X 47.2 cm

A dose of color a day, could keep The Shadows away… or maybe they’re just pushed “Down Below”.

I find that the sub-liminal stuff (below the shelf) is by far the most beautifully tantalizing.

‘How Colors Work’ reveal surprising machinations down below, where poetic  battles are fought and dreams are built.

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‘MEDICINAL COLOR VI’
Ferris Newton
JULY 1988

And on the seventh day, all hell broke loose… quite beautifully.

A dose of color a day, could keep The Shadows away… or maybe they’re just pushed “Down Below”.

I find that the sub-liminal stuff (below the shelf) is by far the most beautifully tantalizing.

If the Dream Catcher net is made of woven liquids, then rationality may be lost.

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‘MEDICINAL COLOR VII
Ferris Newton

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‘MEASURED RESPONSE’
Ferris Newton
FEBRUARY 1987    115 X 70 X ?

A Technicolor Firework of emotions… with the usual range of nail-holes, notionally, ‘to aim the trajectory’.

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‘MARKER’
Ferris Newton
SEPTEMBER 1986    114 X 30 cm

Once upon a time, the church spire gave direction to travellers and a center to people’s lives; it was even thought to be a ‘spiritual pointer’.

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‘LIQUID DICE’
Ferris Newton
JANUARY 1989    113 X 50 cm

‘Minimal skill but excitingly dangerous Chance, so much could rest on the toss of the dice… and in my world,

a Splash of Paint becomes a Significant Moment of serendipity which sets off elaborate chains of thoughts, associations, and memories.

 

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‘LIGHT ARTILLARY’
Ferris Newton
SEPTEMBER   1987   
± 90 X 110 cm           

Another of the ‘Wedgewood Cannon‘ series. Old ironmongery adjusting oak ‘arms’ to suggest notional aim or directional options. Semiotically:

A cannon = maleness… a porcelain cannon = ?… and what happens when or if it’s fired = that’s for you to conjecture upon.

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‘LAPIS PHILOSOFORUM’
Ferris Newton
APRIL 1987            130 X 61cm

If The Philosopher’s Stone could become a liquid then its fabled power might notionally be more useable. But the strangely enflamed crucible reminds us of the pain which identity change or development can cost.

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‘INNER SANCTUM’
Ferris Newton
AUGUST 1991    111.5 x 72.7 x 12 cm

Again… all that Yew can reference is essentially redirected.

A pair of Columns are unsupported, and you must decide whether they celebrate a doorway, an alter, some lost Architecture, or a pairing of Phalluses… making uncertain events lurk in those lower darks.

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‘IN TOUCH’
Ferris Newton
OCTOBER 1989    ±130 X 45 X 40 cm

More out of than in, for me… however much I am in awe of newly High-tech possibilities, most of it is black feathers an’ magic; and too much of what is communicated is self indulgent Gobbledy-gook.

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EVERLASTING FLOWERS
Ferris Newton
521x1024

SPILLAGE
‘SPILLAGE’
Ferris Newton
NOVEMBER 1989    150 X 37.5 X 14.5

I think that the phrase is “Spilling your guts”… like watching a car-crash.
This is my version of the American ploy, putting a message on a milk carton.

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‘ELMTHORN GRAFT’ 
Ferris Newton   
1983            152 X 43 cm

Only a bit of magic can create a symbiotic one-ness from bits of Hawthorn and Elm.

I often used that living green Cambium layer, as a metaphoric sign of aliveness.

It’s up to you, what conjectures you entertain, from the dynamic joining of two such different genetics.

SPRUCE-SPRITE
‘SPRUCE SPRITE’
Ferris Newton
MAY 1987       93 X 51.5

A beautiful bit of spruce remnant, like an abandoned puppy, seduced me into placing it into a hospitable sort of ‘reliquary’. I also liked the ‘RHYMING’ shapes. (Forms can be made to ‘rhyme’ just like words , giving an obvious or almost subliminal sense of order)

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‘DRAWING IN THE BLUES’
Ferris Newton
AUGUST 1991    45.8 X 27.5 X 10.5

This ‘Homemade Reliquary’ was one of the first (and my favorite) of the Lapis Lazuli / Philosopher’s Stone series. It was also a first, clumsy attempt at impossibly building with Transparent Stones. Thanks to Harry Potter, most people now know something about this Philosopher’s Stone, which has been a life-long enchantment for me (even if they made it into a bit of red amber plastic).

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'DORIC TATTOO'
Ferris Newton
1983            91 X 45 cm

Tanned and tattooed, even in private places. Is it still ‘Potency’ if it’s obsessively hidden.

STONEY-GLANCE
‘STONY GLANCE’
Ferris Newton
MARCH 1987    42 X 30 X 13cm

Like a photograph standing on the piano… remembering a moment of gently cherished proportions.
A wonderful rebuttal to all the mega, costly, synthetic Heroism in so much of Today Art.

FIDDLING
‘FIDDLING’
Ferris Newton
AUGUST 1986            80 X 4O cm

Testing MDF as my ‘canvas’… but finding that I do need the suggestive character that a ‘once alive’ piece of a tree can offer.

EXPLODING-FLOWER
'EXPLODING FLOWER'
Ferris Newton

FLORIS
‘FLORIS’
Ferris Newton
1985            47 X 37 cm

My rather indulgent thought was to do a Piece that was somehow like ‘a shirtless waif’… very small, vulnerably bare, and innocent (one of the most difficult qualities to genuinely evidence).
Obviously the attitude of the flower can be adjusted.

TEMPLE-FUGIT
‘TEMPLE FUGIT’
Ferris Newton
1985       76 X 38 cm

The loss of worshipful innocence is leaving some people with a hollowness at their very epicenter… or was it more often because power hungry people have always exploited those elemental needs?

THE-PRIMULA-CONNECTION
‘THE PRIMULA CONNECTION’
Ferris Newton
FEBRUARY 1987    60 X 35 X 35 cm

Genuine innocence can antidote our sophisticated age.
When we need ‘re-creation’ we reconnect with traditional places which preserve the illusion of a more ‘simple’ life.
This reconnection may not work if it’s too high-tech.

THINKING-TREES-MAN
THE THINKING TREE’S MAN
Ferris Newton
About 1992            111 X 72 X 8 cm

Yew is a miraculous tree, with an ancient history of religious superstitions. I ‘en-Templed’ this piece… then fossilized it into Lapis Lazuli, to celebrate it as an inner construct… offering a space for ‘spiritual’ or ‘sacred’ engagements.

TRIUMPH-TO-COME
‘TRIUMPH TO COME’
Ferris Newton
MARCH 1989    78 X 35 cm

Here, I could play Silly Semiotic Sex Stratagems with abandon… but who gets to do what to whom?

TROUVÉ-CASTELLATION-
TROUVÉ CASTELLATION
Ferris Newton

WROUGHT
‘WROUGHT’
Ferris Newton
1987            89.5 X 22,8 X 30.5 cm

One of those double meanings.The ‘forged’ flower arrangement can be changed, but the significance remains as emotionally wrenching as ever.

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'A TABLE'
Ferris Newton

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'A SPLASH OF SKY'
Ferris Newton

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‘SHELF LIFE’
Ferris newton
JULY 1991            82 X 28.5 X 18.5

Another way to tease the ‘art theorists’. A cup ‘must be’ female, I’ve made the shelf rather obviously phallic, and if the cup is Branded onto this individual… just what do you/they make of that. Happy Hunting!

SHELF Newton
SHELF
Ferris Newton
1991 

PRINCELY
‘PRINCELY’
Ferris Newton
1986            86 X 43 cm

An early test of how to give ‘just a board’ the sense of being an individual, without literally picturing but with some ‘humanization’.

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‘PRIVATE SENTMENT’
Ferris Newton
ABOUT 1987    8.7 X 23.5

In Art today, using gently decorative elements is forbidden.

But for me, even a domestic scene can tell a far more painful tale… when opening the door it “turns the Ironic Corner”.

Skultures by Ferris Newton 

skulture1.jpgFerris Newton Portrait

Brancusi said: “They are fools who call my work abstract.

What they think to be abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the outer form, but the idea, the essence of things”.

SETTING A FEW PRIORITIES

REAL-IZING THE ‘GIVENS’ OR THE CONTEXTS BEHIND ALMOST ANYTHING, BEGINS OUR DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF IT.

Today’s greatest enemy is Over-Complexity, as far more stratas of informational connectedness and choice bombard us. In those rare moments when we can form impossible contra-dictions into moments of insight or understanding, then we just may build and share a few lasting Values. But it is also then that we face the enormity of philosophical and ethical choices. All too many of the world’s ‘famous artists’ insist that Art must be amoral; and the results of that, parallel Mrs. Thatcher’s disastrous economics... “Let the powerful speak only to themselves and take ever more for ‘their Selves’”.


I have always searched for ‘WAVELENGTHS’ which can be reliably and permanently loaded with shared experiences, rational information, emotionalities, and insights… using the same sense of balance that governs most of our ‘real lives’. As never before, we need the ability to ‘DIAGNOSE’ the events around us accurately. One mistake that many people make comes under the heading of “Bigger must be Better”, or ‘the most expensive and elitist productions promise the most profound significance’. My work is intentionally of modest means, so that with enough effort almost anyone could use these tactics to explore the most exalted concepts.


But I never want people to start considering my work with the thought that “I don’t understand ART”. Instead, can we begin with this:


ART CAN ONLY BE WHAT IT MAY CREATE IN ANOTHER PERSON’S MIND,
USING THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE.

In that sense if you the Viewer make a reasonable effort, then you can never ‘wrongly’ interpret it. How that art works when it is mixed with what you know, is a shared responsibility. Of course, as you come to know a bit more or lose some of your most cherished misinformation, then you get a bigger share of that world’s intellectual and sensual riches.

Carl Placman, a very serious and able Sculptor, said that

“THE FUNCTION OF ART IS TO PROMOTE CONJECTURE”.

But here’s a bit of a ‘mental health warning’… you must be prepared to be led down paths that you have never explored before… wandering well out of your comfort zone.


Let’s begin at a sort of End, with ‘Abstract’ which is one of the most problematic concepts in all of Art. After some technical stuff, OED offers “4. Separated from matter, practice or particular examples; ideal; theoretical; abstruse. Opposite to concrete; 5. absol. ‘The Ideal’”. Another dictionary adds “an essence, summary”. And to Abstract is “1. To withdraw, deduct, take away. 2. To draw off... 4. To separate in mental conception; to consider apart from the concrete. 6. To epitomize”.

It’ll take all of this writing to share my understanding of how this works... but we’ll begin with an oversimplification.

A Legal Abstract can be the concise summing-up of a whole court case... what mattered most. Similarly, a Visual Abstract attempts to distil or sum-up the essence of some thing or some ideation. We may have to work indirectly, abstrusely, by metaphor or inference (or even by taking inordinate liberties with ‘usual reality’) to make an essence or an epitome more discernible and useable.

WE MUST BE VERY AWARE THAT THE ABSTRACT IS A PART OF, SOMEHOW INVOLVED IN, OR A NECESSARY DIMENSION OF...

ALL OF SERIOUS ART WORK !!!

The titles for my pieces are very open-ended hints as to where I started on that Piece, or where the Viewer may begin. After someone’s initial visual experience, a title can suggest other paths to follow into the Work or from the Work into the Viewer’s understanding. My titles always have at least two intentional meanings (even if they seem to be false trails or bad jokes). I have a notion that I call “WORKING THE TERRITORY”. Whatever I’m considering as a subject, a reference, a possible association, or even a direction of thought needs to be worked through as thoroughly as possible. It helped me to use a Thesaurus to remind me of how Literature or other people think around this something.


Each of us has long experience of observing other people. I believe that those are the skills needed to ‘read’ Art: but you have to allow whatever is triggered, referenced, or suggested; and even more importantly you must then try to make it all add up for yourself. In that sense, it’s very important for the Artist to ensure that the Work is open-ended enough to allow for the IMAGINATION of the Viewer to play its part. I like the analogy of making a vase, which is aesthetically incomplete, until the flowers are put into it.

There’s another ‘unforgivable sin’ here… too many ‘Artists’ and Art Theorists READ ONTO rather than READING FROM the Work. They make crazy claims for what the Art is “To do with”, but that’s just because they really DO NOT KNOW HOW TO READ ART.

THERE ARE A FEW ‘ABC CONCEPTS’ THAT WE MUST AGREE ON 
BEFORE WE CAN SHARE THE MOST USEFUL UNDERSTANDING.


THE ABSOLUTE BEDROCK OF HOW SERIOUS ART WORKS

BEGINS WITH THE CONCEPT OF METAPHORIC.

Your ‘handy-dandy dictionary’ immediately points us backwards by its inane prejudice in favor of spoken and written words; but even prehistoric cave-people understood the power of visual metaphoric images. In the Greek, Meta means change and phor is bearing. It’s a bit like using the TV remote… you manipulate the technical stuff in order to create images that are working exactly as you need them to be… but you can’t actually touch the images directly.

Because it too is so important in what I strive for, let me offer you a definition of Metaphysical: In one way or another, it goes back to the Greek meta, change + physics. “1. That branch of speculation which deals with the first principles of things, including such concepts as being, substance, essence, time, space, cause, identity, etc.; theoretical philosophy as the ultimate science of Being and Knowing. 2. Occult or magical lore. 3. The use of abstract general reasoning, applied to what is immaterial, incorporeal, or super-sensible. 6. Supernatural or Fantastic.” Using the non-Natural to signify magical, spiritual, etc.

For years I have felt that Art Schools should devote much more time and ingenuity into explaining ways for the young Artist to CONSTRUCT SOMETHING WHICH IS METAPHORIC. Just exactly how do you cause any image to stand in the place of or do the abstract work of a hypothesis or a concept… how does a representation do more than just picturing… what detailing of precise images can give them the authenticity and validity of an ethical or philosophical point of view??? Historically, if the Subject-Matter is the perennial Nude Lady, and if it only depicts that lady... then it may be just the Craft of picturing. Any Subject-matter, sign, or symbol, even The Lady (however Nude) can counter-indicate... and IT CAN SERIOUSLY GET IN THE WAY of more important signification.

To hugely oversimplify, I insist that every smallest detail must be referred back to ‘Person-ness’. If we understand what characteristics can make ourselves become trustworthy, logical, authoritative, etc. then similar detailing just might give comparable characteristics and authenticity to an image.

When you think about it, I hope that you can agree that only when some paint or any of these materialized images begin to somehow resonate with such abstract connections, then they begin to SUSPEND OUR DISBELIEF. We know that we’re looking at or hearing only something like paint or music, but it must work into and through our understanding as something much more. It’s not a so-called message, or an illustration; but it must reach into our memories and our experiences. If we do allow ourselves to conjecture, then almost magical understanding formulates, very often without words… and we begin to ‘believe it’.

Today, Artists who try to understand aspects of how this works may use the fancy-assed term ‘SEMIOLOGY’ (and again your dictionary may confuse by saying that it is a 19th C Forensic Study). Sema is Greek for Sign and –ology is the study of… even if some dummy decided that it would be easier to say semi-ology (a partial study or the study of halves).
Another essential distinction is the difference between a Sign versus a Symbol. The OED definition for Symbol is crazily obsessed with the religious monopoly on this sector. I’ll let you look up the extensive OED coverage of a ‘Sign’. The example that I use to distinguish between them is a bit lavatorial. If there is a sign on a door, using the English words ‘Men’s Toilet’, then there can be little doubt about what goes on behind that door (if you understand English). If a door has a little stylized figure on it (with no skirt) you also know that it’s a men’s toilet... and that’s still a sign (in Western culture). But in the sense that we’ll use here, that has become a symbol, because it now has an almost universally accepted meaning that has been assigned to it. One of the aims of Abstractionists in all the many Art forms, was to create abstract meanings which could be more universally shared. They thought that Bach can be experienced and ‘understood’, almost as well by people of any nationality or race. Even if this is only partially true, it’s a useful principle.

A DRAMATIC POWER-SHIFT IN THE GLORIOUS HISTORY OF ART

Some classic ways and means can inhibit our attempts at wider communication, by simplistic notions of elitist FINE ART (Oil Paint, Bronze, etc.) versus what they dismiss as the down-market role of CRAFT (using ceramics, performance, recycled ingredients, elevating concepts and ideas above picturing, or attempting an ironic aesthetic). Most Art Students don’t quite realize how IRONIC works. At its simplest, it means that something has been reversed. ‘DIS-SKILLED’ is a good example. ‘Bad Painting’ may be expertly used for some entirely good and worthwhile reasons... using a crudity or vulgarity of language may make it authentically of or about a certain group of people, or it may make the meanings become more accessible to some viewers.

There can’t be many defensible reasons, for someone to advocate crudeness, unskilfulness, or stupidity... but there are many occasions when we use qualities like those to utter or reference some higher truth. If we use “Like the Baddest, Man...”, then by some broadly perceivable signaling, the ‘Negative Means’ need to be turned or inverted into ‘Good Ends’. I use the notion of “TURNING THE IRONIC CORNER” to stress the need for a moment of revelation, when the use of ‘bad-ness’ becomes justified. Let me offer the Work of the American Painter, Philip Guston, as an example. His subject-matter includes cartoonic things like the Ku Klux Klan, yob-ism, feet, ashtrays, cigarette butts, etc. At first look, it seems that he uses extra-inept drawing to make ugliness into a kitch fetish. Young Artists who see his images in reproduction, feel that he offers a precedent for a DUMB-DUMB approach to Art. But if you see Guston’s actual Paintings, you’re overawed by some of The Very Most Beautiful and Sensual Paint that you have ever experienced. What you ‘feel’ with your eyes is utter Rolls Royce luxury... and THAT... that painfully obvious Contra-Diction... those mutually subverting agendas... do ‘Turn The Ironic Corner’. I experience Guston’s Work as Allegories for America, Today... magnificent wherewithal, high technology, inordinate riches, and a growingly aware Aesthetic... ALL of this is too often dedicated to Fuck All. The Best is exploited for the most pathetic or the worst purposes. If his ever-so-negative subjects were not painted so-very-GORGEOUSLY, then he would be seen to support violence and brutality. But the loving, tender, and elegant Paint, inverts the value structure which is implied, making an effectively ‘obverse’ comment. It becomes a superb example, of how only The Whole Art Experience, can ever tell it true-ly.

HOW WE CREATE ART LANGUAGE HAS BECOME ONE OF THE PRIMARY ISSUES OF OUR AGE.

In the last century quintessential changes have powerfully redefined how Art can be made. I insist that some of us must be allowed to use less elitist materialities as we explore ‘Every-Person Dilemmas’. Since the liberating precedents of Marcel Duchamp, the more enlightened Art World has been forced into a major rethink about what can be used to make A.R.T. But he also, unintendedly, gave a misbegotten licence to sadly uninformed souls who try to insist that “It’s Art because I say that It Is”. Bullshit!!!

One person’s Emotionality can fuel a search for Values, but too often it also distorts his/her Rational objectivity. “Van Gogh, one of the greatest Artists, is extremely emotional, ergo: The more emotional Art is, the better it is”… again, a classic mistake that has always been only an adolescent indulgence. Meaningful Art strikes the same balance between Rationality and Emotionality that works in our lives.

 

I suggested to my Students that the ways they can be making their mature Art, may not even exist yet:


• Art Tactics are now much more democratic… it can be made by almost anyone who has skills that are fully as important as Representational Drawing or Painting; 
like using Computers, Performances, Ceramics, Videos, Installations, Light Engineering, Words, Social Media, and a million other disciplines. But with absolutely any of them… THE DISCIPLINE MUST BE THERE; and just the choice of language cannot be the primary issue.


• Oil Paint and Bronze are unsurpassed in their ‘expressability’ and permanence. While centuries of work with these classic materialities have helped us to be comfortable with them; too often these old ways are ‘time prejudicial’ and they much too often focused on what is just Craft… how to represent, making Paint beautiful, demonstrating the Artist’s skills, and only sometimes re-minding us of ageless engagements or issues. Now, we cannot allow these wonderful ‘antiques’ to limit us as we renew Art Languages and Subject exploration, for Today’s Value Debates.


• These bewildering developments have created an explosion in the ways that we communicate, if not in what is uttered. Today’s electronic eventing and communication are miraculous, but what they are usually used for is uttered rubbish. For me, it is an absolute truth to say that Art which does not engage with ideas or concepts of some importance is only MAKING ORNAMENTS.

SO… LET’S LOOK AT SOME ‘GIVENS’ WHICH I USE TO ARTICULATE MY SCULPTURES.

SOME NEW WAYS TO CREATE A SENSE OF SPACE

When Abstract Artists began to move away from the Linear Perspective of Representation, many of them still wanted to use Visual Depth or Space in/on the canvas as an aid to suspending disbelief. You could even say that new uses of Space became one of the metaphoric sacred cows of Modernism. And in two dimensional work they became formalized into ‘ARIEL PERSPECTIVE’.

Here is my list of the basics for how we visually perceive spatial relationships... and accordingly, how we can signify in Ariel Perspective. As always, it can be as useful to break (or confuse) the rules as to obey them; or to use them in situations where they would never happen ‘naturally’. I’ve isolated some eleven essential tactics that Ariel Perspective can utilize (but academics may know many others); and I insist that quite intangible contexts can dramatically change our reading and interpretations of physical signs:


• Overlapping - One object, mark, or phenomenal event partially or transparently covers another, so it appears to be in front of it. Any sense of increased distance between them would have to depend on other tactics. So-called Abstract Illusionists made a fetish of this… like painting a ‘shadow’ under some marks. One of my artist heroes, Georgio Morandi intentionally confuses and contradicts this, magnificently. His ‘mistakes’ are provokingly intentional, forcing us to search for understanding in surprisingly new places.


• Lights versus Darks - Light usually seems to come forward, as Darks move backward. One cause of this is that as light activates the rods and cones of our retinas, it slightly activates the neighboring ones... so that light areas seem a bit larger or more powerful than dark ones. There’s far more real science involved in this than I know or can talk about.


• Size - The rule is, ‘The larger it is, the closer it is’. But larger objects, further away, can usefully confound this. Technical Drawing is the discipline of using systems and contexts to verify the meaning of a line or shape. WOW, what games we can play with that!


• The ‘Speed’ of an event - Things close to us will seem to move faster, because they cross a larger arc or segment of our visual field. Something far away seems to move more slowly, across a smaller measurement of our field of vision. But do they always?


• Degrees of Chroma - Closer objects and events have stronger coloration, distant ones become weaker, bluer, or greyer.


• Amount of Detail - We see things closer to us in greater detail, distant ones less accurately.


• Sharp Focus versus Soft Focus - As we focus our eyes on near or far, and everything out of that plane is less well focused, so we can do something like that with imaging. Traditional picturing is a bit artificial in usually having everything in focus. We’re now accustomed to seeing through the ‘Camera Eye’, so we can use (or abuse) the physics of the lens for a Today Look. And then Digital Cameras changed the rules again. In Films, ‘Soft Focus’ (like gauze or Vaseline on a lens) was a way of romanticizing something or someone.


• Interferences – It’s a more complex version of Overlapping which deserves to be considered separately. When rain, smoke, trees, water, small paint events, washes, reflections, or any mix of small happenings occur ‘between the eye and the thing’, we relate that to how we measure distance and ‘reality’. Like adjectives, these qualifiers adjust our interpretations.


• Objects or events which are associated WITH linear perspective, but not IN those systems. – Piranesi (Giovanni Battista) wonderfully misuses linear perspectives to create illusions and visual gymnastics. A shape or a line can have multiple meanings depending on how the Viewer relates it to contexting perspectives. Architects often lie and disinform by dishonest use of linear perspectives to flatter or dramatacise their buildings, making them seem larger or more dramatic.


• (I would only slightly contentiously add) Use of Psychological Perspectives – They are there for Artists to use or abuse, but we can’t really elaborate them here… just something to think about.


• And maybe Historical Perspectives should also be included. Like almost everything else, they can enhance ‘truth’ or ‘lie like the Devil’.

ART CAN BE SEEN AS A HISTORY OF LIGHT.

Daylight, Firelight, Candles… Electric, Photographic, and now Electronic Light continually re-color and re-signify our visual experiences. Unlike a classic Still-Life, revealed by outer or incident light, Film and video reach out to us from a new kind of inner illumination.

My more recent Work refers to this Today sense of Inner Light by beginning my sequence of paint layers with White LACQUER ‘Light’; and most recently, I then progress through the colors that signal fire or flame. These are finally ‘buried’ in metallic darks like black (except that I use at least 5 or 6 pigments to make my blacks which become alive in different lighting). Then... there’s a bit of absolute magic. As I scratch, scrape, sand, or ‘CAMEO’ through those layers, whatever is revealed can become ‘ENFLAMED’. Even better, I AM MARKING WITH FLAMES. For me, DAMN IT, THAT’S PURE FUN!!!

JUST A FEW EXAMPLES OF HOW WE USE ‘ART STUFF’

If you really can’t purchase Haut Cuisine, pre-cooked and off the shelf... then similarly, some of the most sophisticated Art materiality is not in the Art Store. Devising your own materials and formulations may open up exciting new veins of references and associations.

In any paint, there must be the ‘Sticky Stuff’ (a highly technical term for the various sorts of Binders) plus the Qualifiers (pigments, plasticizers, etc.). Usually the professional begins with the most permanent and insoluble, natural and synthetic, mineral pigments (both opaque and transparent) that are available. Sometimes the most useful ones are synthetic because naturally occurring pigments can have unwanted impurities Or be less stable. Here are just a very few, basic mixtures:


• When these fine particled pigments are mixed with a water-soluble glue, they become transparent watercolors or more opaque gouache. Like lacquer, these are re-dissolvable. (Rain and watercolors just do not mix)


• If wax is the binder, they become Encaustic (an ancient Impasto paint, still used by Artists like Jasper Johns). This is worked mostly by heat and sometimes with solvents.


• Mixed with linseed and other oils plus plasticizers, pigments become Oil Paint.


• But there are equally ancient traditions for using Lacquer, a kind of Varnish, as a binder. It produces an exceptionally fine and precise-to-handle material, somewhat neglected by contemporary Artists.

• And I like to break all the rules by using something usually associated with Historic Japanese Craft. LAYERS OF LACQUER.

SPECIAL QUALITIES OF LACQUER VERSUS OTHER PAINTS


• While most materials shrink and crack as they dry, materials like Linseed Oil or Acrylic Binders HARDEN or ‘cure’ when oxygen from the air mixes with them, so they shrink very little. But if you mix too much turpentine or white spirit with oils, then they may crack as they DRY, before they can start to HARDEN. Most Varnishes, including Lacquers, have the drawback that they shrink and crack as they DRY rather than HARDEN... but a benefit is that left-over paint can be re-dissolved with thinners, to use even years later.


• All sorts of ways have been developed to avoid cracking. Usually lacquer is applied in thin layers, with each new layer, slightly dissolving and bonding with the layer below. For important incidents in my sequence of events (like a Prima Donna Splash) I carefully paint on a transparent protection layer over those areas. Finally, when any varnish like lacquer is drying, its structure becomes a bit like a sponge, so I finally treat most finished surfaces with a hardening oil (like Stand Oil) which permeates the Lacquer, adding strength and some flexibility.
Then there’s a final waxing.

My solution to the cracking problem was to use the cracks in a STRUCTURALIST way... properly controlled, they usefully reference age or time in ‘my reality’. Quite simplistically, Structuralism uses ‘How It Is Made’ as an important part of ‘What It Signifies’. Some examples:

- Much of the authority of an antique or an ancient Icon evolves from how it has lived, how it has been loved or neglected, and how it has survived.

- If a Lacquered object, like a bowl, has layers of black over red, then the surface can show a visual history of how it has been used... the inside becomes more red, as it is used and washed... each person’s habitual handling can create a unique coloration.

- A playwright self-acknowledging-ly brings himself into the play, or uses his struggle to write the play, within that play.

- The structure of many Modern buildings is concrete, which is designed as the main ideological feature of that architecture, and it may not then be covered with another aesthetically decorative surface.

- An Abstract Expressionist Painter uses The Mark, The Paintness, and The Act Of Painting, as the epicenter of his signification.

AND THEN THERE’S MY OWN WORK.

I WOULD LIKE FOR THE EPICENTER OF MY PIECES TO BECOME METAPHORS FOR THE INFINITE COMPLEXITIES OF ‘PERSON’.

For me it’s not so simple as ‘one sculpture pictures or equals one person’. Most of my art life became a search for what details, used in exactly what ways, can reference or constitute the most important qualities of our selves. I struggled to make what I thought of as ‘PERSONATIONS’ into readable signs that somehow resonate with bits of US… mirroring how all the characteristics that we read in others can add up to what we think they are. In the 'behavior of my Pieces' I tried to make Pieces that are aware of those around it, as I think that we should be... How can they balance humility with an utterly necessary confidence… Can people understand its genuine beauty, without superficial cliché glamour?

My Pieces offer some ingredient tools which can enable more accurate or more adventurous conjecture… again, if the Viewer allows him/her self to make their part of the effort. In a 1993 exhibition at the Eagle Gallery and at Techno in Bond Street, London I made metaphoric use of the concept of ‘Fugue’ [L. flight]. In the exhibition card, Ian Mc Kay explained that “Musically it is used to refer to a system of composition by which a voice establishes a main subject, the exposition, following which a second voice is then free to develop a counter subject.” In Psychology a ‘Fugue State’ is “a term for the process by which a person losses all grasp of their identity and circumstances... in effect, fleeing from a feeling of being trapped in situations in which they are no longer free agents.” I would say that some Art offers this momentary possibility without resorting to/in psychosis.

In my earlier work, I used sheets of TOUGHENED POLYSTYRENE (white or black powdered rubber is added to clear but very brittle Styrene Plastic). I found that it had the amazingly ‘real-istic’ quality that when heated, this thermoplastic behaves exactly like flesh (A thermosetting plastic cannot be melted or dissolved). Working with it was a little like glass-blowing, without so much heat. I could also ‘weld’ pieces together with heat or solvent. When scraps were dissolved and pigments added, they made a ‘paint’ that becomes an integral part of the molded shapes (as do the Lacquers).

Sometimes I see a person who seems interesting enough for me to build a characterization around. BUT… then that person moves or does something unexpected, and I realize that I read them quite wrongly. To stress that idea, I invented the term “ENACTO”, for when actions can inform as strongly as words or images. Just as with people, how a piece of Art moves, enacts, or references behavior can be one of its most exactingly convincing signifiers.

It is astounding how many pitfalls and intellectual traps litter our paths. For many years, I ever-so-cleverly thought of my rather emotionally indulgent Plastic and Black Rubber Pieces as ‘HANGUPS’. and ‘doing art’ can always be very therapeutic BUT:

Art that is only Self-therapy, is usually just materialized Self-Ness… seriously limiting its usefulness for others.

MOST OF MY RECENT SCULPTURES HANG ON THE WALL, AS ‘SIGNS’.

These pieces begin with a hunk of wood... one cross-section of a venerable tree, plus some found bits used as ‘quotes’ from other lives and worlds, can reference so much of nature, time, growth, construction, everyday possessions, decay. Usually these Signs live in the world by being hung on one nail (balance, Icon, impaling predicaments, and even pain). As I furnish the boards with very ordinary forms (stairs, doors. bridges, dice, paint splashes, columns) I then use those layers of Lacquer Colors to further reference, characterize, and ‘enlighten’. Deployed in the right ways, I hope that they can become ARCHETYPAL (here a good dictionary can be helpful, if it includes Carl Gustav Jung’s “a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors… and present in the collective unconscious”).

I also used the tactic of ‘RHYMING’. Just as words can be given a sense of order by rhyming their sounds, so images or objects can be made to do something similar. Shapes and Colors can be repeated, or made to similarly recur. (One repetition may seem like just lazy thinking, but three or more occurrences can give a deep, even unconscious sense of order.) Then, as in Poetry, mis-rhyming can offer puns or jokes, just as words or sounds can.

People have always wanted to celebrate something… to elevate a precious object, like a Temple on an acropolis. The notion of a RELIQUARY has always intrigued me; but I was much more interested in the container than its totemic contents as they attempted to signal the abstract value of their contents. A bit of bone is not very important, but the complex of associations, emotions, history, and mystery can raise it to become mythic. Many of my Pieces attempt (at least notionally) to hold or be something of importance, as my architectural forms try to house or even en-temple ‘it’.

Since 1987 I’ve been enchanted by a door which could let me ‘step into or within the paint’. (At least one of my Students saw this and built an entire career on just this idea, less convincingly articulated - one of my doors has Silver hinges) But I often need a bit of scaffolding or rude supports, to erect some degree of ‘protection’ for those fragile moments.

I define Illustrational as “indirect, round-about, or after the fact”. As Picturing becomes a less dominating Semiotic tactic, it is important for us to re-understand and re-value Illustrational. If you’re speaking to a child or someone who’s not quite a towering intellect, then you may resort to illustrations to help him/her understand. In Art, illustration is usually not the most sophisticated kind of Value communication; it’s always sort of intellectually Down-Market or second-hand, always about ‘it’, but never ‘it’.

ONE INTENT OF ART IS TO LIFT UP OUR ORDINARINESS INTO SOME PARTHENON IMPORTANCE.


THE MARK, SPLASH, INCIDENT AS PART OF THE PAINTERLY PERFORMANCE.

Decades of Expressionisms have bewildered us with self-discovery. For me it is now time for more carefully selected and crafted options, both individually and collectively. We’ve moved beyond the simplistic joys of The Grand Expressionist Gesture, which was mindlessly unconcerned with the consequences of a somewhat prefabricated heroism. Now our preferences and ‘beliefs’ must live alongside a million others. I am some kind of opposite to ‘the Heroic Performer’, so I could only utilize the abilities that I had. If I use a characterization like a ‘splash’ then even it must behave believably, to become something more than just an attractive event among many others.

Because I vehemently reject the Modernist Dogma that ‘The Old must be swept aside to grow a more perfect New’, I admit a bewildering richness of timeless Chaos, struggling to find threads of understanding between layers of impossibility. In my ‘Lacquer Laboratories’ I stumble from Black Holes of doubt toward Flag-colored certainties; and I assert the right to mix a Mean Metaphor, as I try to harness some unlikely clarity and energy from it all. Technically and metaphorically I cut through layers of shadowing color to reveal and qualify what are for me inner realities.

I want my work with layers of Lacquer to become a sort of geology of more and less precise options. In Mathematics, there is a concept of ‘FUZZY LOGIC’ that works for (a somewhat dyslexic) me. It’s a kind of “probabalistic logic”... where the “truth value” may range between completely true and completely false. I use painterly events to embrace Existential Accidents, but carved with Cameo Care... I try to dissect a Sixties Shout, but using quiet accuracy... my Sculptural forms must become ‘real’ contexts to embody the classic mix of (or battles between) Emotional Moment with Clarifying Rationality. I insist that Art must evidence this balancing act that we struggle to justify daily.

WORKING IRONICALLY WITH QUALITIES LIKE AGE, TIME, WEATHERING, AND PAINFUL INCIDENTS.

Most Artists try to produce an object which is unchanging (Color Field painters even re-paint canvases, back to their virginal state); but that can be like people who vainly struggle to avoid growing old. I feel that it is wiser to use aging or wear-and-tear Structurally.

In my Art as in life, it seems necessary to refer to some everyday painful incidents, the emotional scars, and the ways that these affect us. Rather special kinds of Beauty can flow from these. One way that I make this part of the mix is by BRANDING (which was still part of my growing up in Texas). Burning a form into the painted surface with red hot metal shapes seemed to reference some harshly painful but true incidents; and I dangerously used other kinds of PYROGRAPHY as more gentle (if a bit decorative) examples of “POKER WORK”. Like Scrimshaw, it was a rather manly way of enhancing pieces of wood-work, ‘writing’ charmingly innocent messages, or signaling the artist’s intent or identity.

A FEW MORE TECHNICALITIES
(Just for ‘How-it’s-made-nerds’ like me…)

HISTORIC JAPANESE USE OF LACQUER

For several centuries the Japanese made the most extensive, sophisticated, inventive, and Culturally important use of Lacquerware. Consideration of those great Traditions has filled many books; but here, I can only refer to a few of the ways that they worked, and how those Crafts produced qualities and references which were quintessentially provocative for me.

I first encountered this way of working in a film about the National Treasures Of Japan (where people can be such Treasures, as well as objects or buildings). One of these was an old man, working on a small island (to avoid dust) making magnificently complex and beautiful boxes and other items for the Tea Ceremony. He started with a bare wood box and began to build up a base of black lacquer. There were several layers, each taking two or three weeks to dry, before being meticulously sanded. Then he spent many days painting what seemed to me like a masterful decoration over the entire box. (Unknown to me, this was a kind of historical language which others could read from their shared cultural memories) He used several layers for an individual flower or leaf, and on some last, wet layers he ‘dusted’ substances like powdered oyster shell (pearlescent nacre), gold, silver, pewter, and others. After weeks of this precise work, he shocked me by painting the basic black over the entire thing. All that beauty and information was buried within darkness. After yet more drying time, he began to sand down the surface. It then became more like archeology. Events and ‘historical’ stratas were encountered and preserved. When he ‘struck gold’ (the fine powder that he had previously buried) it now appeared to be an embedded piece of solid gold. If he had dusted it onto a warm color, then the gold was hot and rich. If the underpainting was a cool color, then it referenced a quite unusual sort of gold... maybe even a material from some imaginary or metaphysical world. I WAS TOTALLY ENTHRALLED.

Usually our Western notions of ‘Instant’ and our short attention spans make the use of Lacquer in Art seem out of time. But all those glorious finishes on automobiles are lacquers made for metal. Good furniture is finished with different lacquers, which are slightly more flexible to move as the wood does. The most flexible lacquers are used on leathers and cloth. Almost all leathers have some sort of lacquer or varnish finishes, so you can see how durable and qualifiable they are. For me, Lacquer introduces an infinity of Today precedents and associations, usefully different from, and extending to, those in classic Art.

RUST - JAPANESE USE OF IRON OXIDE.

It would be impossible to understand Lacquer without accepting its role in the History Of Oriental Art and Craft. Here I again example some ancient Japanese precedents… or I may seriously reinvent them for Today.

One of the wood finishes which historic Japanese Architecture uses is a special kind of IRON OXIDE rubbed (or painted) onto wood surfaces. As the years weather the exposed parts of the buildings, a geo-logic range of colors develops, from a black-brown into a spectacular red-orange-yellow rust. So... quite a few of my later pieces have iron filings dusted onto the last layer of wet lacquer; and then a highly technical vinegar wash ‘ages’ or patinates selectively. (see ‘RUST MOTH’)
 I’m intrigued by such perversities or ‘masquerading’ as wood becoming ‘rusted with age’. Another of my specialist pigments is called ‘DIRT’. I sweep up the studio and use that sieved dust to offer a kind of everyday impurity to some color qualities or surfaces. Antique Distressers (or forgers) have played this game for centuries.

This is probably enough words… let’s get on with the pretty pictures…..

And just for your information……. 'cause my CV is quite boring.

Ferris Newton 


RUSTMOTH

RUSTMOTH
Ferris Newton
670x1024

CHANGING-ROOM-90.jpg
‘CHANGING ROOM’
Ferris Newton
SEPTEMBER 1990    105 X 47 X 7 cm

In a classic locum of metaphysical blacks, there seem to be real forensic signs of trans-formation. It feels a bit auto-semiotic… as if it were in a personal photo album.

It remembers the kinds of struggle to change, that we all work through in different stages of our lives.

It is certainly a graphic Artist’s story, however much it may be a homemade mythic.

And then I’ve allowed it to ‘step over’ into the Metaphysical… an ultimate arena for Artists adventures.

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COFFERED KEEP’
Ferris Newton

AUGUST 1988    108.5 X 39 X 39 cm

For decades the best of me has ‘lived in a Tree’, and this  bit of  Tree opens out.

For some of us there have always been other lives, behind rusty shutters… or stored inside decaying parcels… holding onto memories and only occasionally opening out for the world to judge or hopefully share.

But here there are rays of warming light, whether the shutters are open or not.

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‘BROWNSTONE’
Ferris Newton
AUGUST ’91    About 55 X 30 X 14

In any situation it can often be helpful to understand “Who is doing What to Whom”.

In New York, many older buildings were made of ‘Brownstone’ for important (or just wealthy) families.

It signalled graciously protected and privileged lifestyles. But I wonder how often those facades were supported by temporary expedients or desperate restorations?

Here, this construct may reveal its real inadequacies.

And then there’s the enlivening and quickening splash… but is it a gesture onto, inside of, or somehow defiling of this humble sanctuary?

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'COLLAPSABLE REMEMBRANCE'
Ferris Newton

About 1992    ± 65 X 32 cm

Sadly, ‘World Police Actions’ are more and more necessary, but I hate any aggrandisement of War.

When constructions of synthetic heroism or ulterior religious dogma are used to dupe gullible youngsters into dying, then that is an ultimate immorality and a crime against Humanity.

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‘CONFETTI TATTOO’
Ferris Newton
AUGUST 1987    About 50 cm

This was the first of my ‘doors directly into a paint event (or paint character)’.

I love to conjecture as to what motivations or characteristics I might find inside.

Is this virginal ‘splash of flesh’ so low in self-esteem that it needs to graphically enhance its Self… A bit sad; but the explanation may be hiding inside that little folded note.

Technically, it’s an example of dropping a rich mix of color shavings into the wet lacquer. For me, that does work a bit like a Tattoo?

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‘CONTRA DICTION’
Ferris Newton
MARCH 1987    93 X 51 cm

Looking back, I sometimes find it hard to remember that just tossing some paint and trailing some color can be carved into such a coherent moment.

For me, this was one of the early attempts to capture’ when and how that the Philosopher’s Stone performs its metamorphosis.

“Different strokes for different folks….” Or is it a bit of ‘Personalized Magic’?

Sometimes my work becomes so scientifically accurate that it scares me.

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‘CRYPTIC PARTY’
Ferris Newton
AUGUST    1986    195 X 58 cm

Having built a Classic Structure on Geo-logic foundations… one may discover, then celebrate, hidden resources ‘down below’.

Or maybe its only a lofty mind needing Private Sensuality in Secret places.

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CUPS 2
Ferris Newton
1024x975

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'ABSENT HERO'
Ferris Newton
750x1024

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‘A TASTE FOR WALLFLOWERS’
Ferris Newton
ABOUT 1990   75 X 26 X 9 (each)

Because it/these are so fearfully easy to misinterpret, I risk boring you to reiterate that genuine innocence is a precious quality in things historical; but so often confused with weakness, it is even more ignored or disdained in new Art.

Possibly the most dangerous quality for knowledgeable people to counterfeit, for me it’s excitingly challenging to dabble with.

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‘AND THE GROUND OPENED UP’
Ferris Newton 
APRIL 1989   119 X 50 X 46 cm
When is a rustic ‘flight of stairs’ a trusty access… or can it become just another Flight?

Where do ‘those Darks’ come from?

Then which is darker… inside one’s reality or outside? So very many questions….

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CAMBIUM LIGHTNING
Ferris Newton
597x1024

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Ferris Newton
Artwork on wood

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‘EXPLODING FLOWER’
Ferris Newton
About 1985  78.9 X 39 X 26

There are flowers whose seed-pods do explode, projecting their seeds at almost the speed of light.
But this guy is just rather sadly overexcited and indecisive.

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ARCHLY-RECYCLED
Ferris Newton
559x1024

BOTTLE
‘BOTTLE’
Ferris Newton
OCTOBER 1989    196 X38 X 13 cm

An overtly emotional explosion in the ‘Molotov Cocktail’ series. I started these just before the Berlin Wall came down.

The Piece is all hardwood, with a carved bottle. It was then splashed and painted with layers of lacquer.

The final image is sanded and carved into the layers (like a child’s scratchboard).

I was particularly intrigued by a black splash ‘sandwiched’ into the Flame Sequence, under a black final color… so that its sinister motivation could emerge or fade, but lurk behind everything.

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‘ENTERVENTION’  
Ferris Newton
FEBRUARY 1989    94.6 XX 50 X 20 cm

Why not allow our imaginations to step through a doorway, into the magic of a Paint Incident?

Maybe a small bridge could help.

But just exactly how do we imagine a permit to open that door?

SPRING-HOUSE
‘SPRING HOUSE’
Ferris Newton
SEPTEMBER 1989    70 X 36

Under such an ageless protective roof, by the Grace of this remembering Yew Tree, all Hell can break loose among the Color Spirits.

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ASHEN FACED 
Ferris Newton
1975  60 X 40 cm
Ash surfaced, woven plastic held by wood

BRANCHING-OUT
'BRANCHING OUT'
Ferris Newton

FIRESCREEN
FIRESCREEN
Ferris Newton

PREPARED-SURFACE
PREPARED SURFACE
Ferris Newton

NewtonA-PLACE-FOR-THOUGHT
‘A PLACE FOR THOUGHT’
Ferris Newton
1975            About 91.5 cm

A ‘Golden Dome’, as a portable haven

 

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‘FLORIS METALICUS’
Ferris Newton
1985            55 X 40 cm

A re-doing of several ideas from other pieces, starting with the arching of the head, from a cyclamen flower.
The teasers here, are the….. maybe the seedlings, or drowning souls, even some metaphysical beings???

 

FLOWERING
'FLOWERING'
Feris Newton

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‘FOLDING MUD FLOWER’
Ferris Newton
About 1984            60 X 60 cm
It folds out variably, as plants and flowers do; but it retains and reveals its earthy origins.

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‘THE MILK OF HUMAN KIND’
Ferris Newton
JANUARY 1989    80 X 48 cm

The first ‘Molotov Cocktail’ that I ever ‘threw’. As I worked, the Brixton Riots of the 80’s became powerfully symbolic, but human kindness seemed sadly missing.

I felt a connection between my own bottled emotions, and that terrible beauty, as it all exploded with tragic results… when there seemed no other way to resolve such powerfully antagonistic forces.

TIN-TEMPLE
‘TIN TEMPLE’
Ferris Newton
1985            84 X 43 cm

My first attempt to give a hinge an entirely new, working identity with an active role other than hinging.

When the tin addendum folds down, then the whole illusion collapses, and we see emptiness behind the temple facade.

The flower is ‘drawn’ by branding (poker-work).

 

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‘LIGHT PROGRAM’
Ferris Newton
JULY1988            77 X 44.6 X 11 cm

How silly can we get… obviously, portable TV’s don’t work very well when they’re rusty; but maybe for a Tudor House, it’s perfectly STYLED…  (THAT AWFUL WORD!!!).

WAY-IN
WAY-IN
Ferris Newton

WOODEN-MIRROR
‘WOODEN MIRROR’
Ferris Newton
JULY1991            91.6 X 34.5 X 9.6 cm
Even with the magic of Art, it’s impossible to see ourselves objectively; particularly if we sense the end of our ‘seeing’.

WOVEN-LIQUIDS
‘WOVEN LIQUIDS’
Ferris Newton
The ‘Rococo’ inspiration is from a very early Spanish candelabra; I enjoyed carving the mindlessly indulgent filigree and lattice-work from that period.

Then, it was only a small step to attempt interweaving splashes and liquids.

The metaphoric concept of Liquid Engineering has always captivated me. I still wonder what ‘things metaphysical’ this net might catch.

Newton A-FUNNY-THING-HAPPENED
‘A FUNNY THING HAPPENED…’
Ferris Newton
JANUARY 1988    84.4 X 65.5 cm

This wheel, so rhetorically drawn in Flames, encounters an overly romantic incident.

Little more than a sketch, it could be another example of the struggle between Emotionality and Rationality.

SERPENTINE-ESPALIER
‘SERPENTINE ESPALIER’
Ferris Newton
1975            About 60 X 60 cm

Powdered ceramic onto woven plastic and wood

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‘RAKU II’
In New York Before 1965           
About 23 cm (ceramic)
Ferris Newton

‘RAKU I’
In New York, Before 1965           
About 23 cm  (ceramic)
Ferris Newton
 

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‘PROTECTED PLACE’
Ferris Newton
AUGUST 1991    90 X 40 X 13 cm

One of the Lapis Series… again building toward some metaphysical haven, but finding it difficult, even just to lift and support an ‘emotional roof’. It’s ‘adjustment system’ tried to allow for those days when the protective umbrella is much more needed.

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‘PRIMER’
Ferris Newton
This was the first ‘hinge’ that I used; made from very humble bits of scrap material, to give it an active ‘RE-LIFE’ (my “Enacto”). The scale and humility of the material was/is a sequence of ethical choices. There’s really nothing there except the ingenuity and flight of imagination which I used.

PORCELAIN-CANNON
‘PORCELAIN CANNON’
Ferris Newton
SEPTEMBER 1987      About 85 X 100 cm

Yet more emotional fireworks. But if this is a metaphoric weapon, then it may never have been used in anger.

How about an ancient sort of joy… and rather pointedly orgasmic, of course.

Ferris Newton (1934-2022)


BACHELOR OF FINE ART - INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

l960 - Pratt Institute - Ryerson Ave - Brooklyn, New York

After One Year, reading PSYCHOLOGY, at BAYLOR UNIVERSITY - Waco, Texas
In the remarkable Theatre Department, which introduced me to the world of Art…
with Teachers like Laban (movement), Charles Laughton, and Marcel Marceau
In some buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER:

Alcan Aluminium UK  [ 1970 ]  Berkeley Sq. - London

Designed the Alcan Pavilion, for the International Building Exhibition, Olympia

Donald Deskey Assoc.  [ 1964-65 ]  Madison Ave. - NYC

Head Model-maker

Raymond Lowey Assoc.  [ 1963 ]  Park Avenue. - NYC

Designs for Plastics  ( Formica Inc. - Plexiglass International )

R.A. Mac Plum Industries  [ 1962 ]  Long Island City, - NY

Research into new products, for new Industrial Technology (mostly Plastics)

Ettore Sottsass  [ 1961 ]  Milano – Italia  (who began )

Freelance Designs for Ceramics

Eva Zeisel Associates  [ 1960-61 ]  New City  - NY
Industrial Designer - China Glass, Furniture, Fabric - Model-making
Clients: Rosental, NY - Mancolli Ceramics - Firenze Italia - Museum of Modern Art, NYC
She was the first woman to have one person show as the Museum of Modern Art,  NYC

Gimbols Department Store [ 1958-60 ]  Broadway and 33rd St - NYC

Interior Designer  -  Giving Advise On Interiors To Customers

 

TEACHING - LECTURING

Goldsmiths College, University of London  [ 1972 - 98 ]
Lewisham Way - New Cross - London - SE 14 6 NW

Fine Art Department - Two days per week

Textile Fine Art Department - [ 1979 - 84 ] - One day per week

Cardiff Institute of Higher Education  [ l977 - 96 ]
P O Box 377 - Llandaff Center - Western Ave. - Cardiff - CF5 2SG

Fine Art Department - Howard Gardens
Occasional, up to two days per week, in Painting, Sculpture, and Alternative Media

Guest Critic, for End Of Year Shows - 1981 and 1982

Art And Aesthetics Department - Howard Gardens

Two days per week,then .5 of a Senior Lecturership  [1995 ]

West Surrey College of Art and Design   [ 1983 - 94 ]

Faulkner Road - Farnham - Surrey - GU9 7DS
Fine Art Department - Up to one day per week  

Byam Shaw School of Art  [1984 - 94 ]

2 Elthorne Rd. - London N19 4AG
Fine art - Up to one day per week

Royal Academy For Arts  [ 1992 - 93 ]  Piccadilly - London - W1V ODS

Painting Department - Occasional visits

Statens HÀgskole For KunsthÎndverk OG  [ 1990 ]

Institutt for Keramisk KunsthÎndverk - StrÀmgaten 1 - Bergen - N-5015

Ceramics Department - Fine Art Visitor

Houndslow Borough College (now West Thames College) [ 1982 - 94 ]

London Road - Isleworth - Middlesex - TW7 4HS
Department of  Art and Design
External Assessor [ ‘82 - 84 ] - and now, Occasional Visitor

The London Institute - Chelsea College of Art and Design  [ 1972 - 95 ]

Manressa Road - London - SW3 6LS
Printed Surface Design Department [ 1972 - 78 ]
Product Design, Textiles, Technical Drawing and Perspective, Plastics Technology
[ 1994 - 95 ] Guest Critic (End of Year) Foundation / Sculpture

Guildford College of Art  [ 1965-69 ]  Guildford, Surrey, UK

Three Dimensional Design Department
Product Design, Surface Pattern, Technical Drawing and Perspective, Structures, Plastics Technology

Lighthouse For The Blind  [ 1964 evenings ]  East 60th Street – NYC

Teaching Ceramics, to Blind Children

 

EXHIBITIONS:

The Eagle Gallery - Farringdon Road - London

[ 11 March - 2 April 1993 - One Man Show In Two Parts ]

Tecno UK - Bond Street - London

[11 March - 2 April 1993 - One Man Show In Two Parts ]

Glenvivian Gallery  - Swansea

 ‘Resources’ [ 1990 - Group Show (GS)  -  Cardiff Sculpture Staff ]

Old Library Gallery - Cardiff

 ‘Resources’ [ March 1990 - GS - Cardiff Sculpture Staff ]

Southern Arts - Guildford

[ 1981 - GS ]

Goldsmiths Gallery - London

[ 1974 OMS - 1981 GS - 1983 GS ]

Courtauld Institute - London

[ 1970 - OMS ]

Messerdamhallen - Berlin

[ 1970 - GS ] -  ‘London Now’  A large Group Show of young Artists working in London

Camden Central Library - London

[ 1970 - OMS ]

Piccadilly Galleries - London

‘The Sacked Staff From Guildford’ [ 1970 - GS  ]

The Show was opened by John Lennon and Yoko Ono

 

Redmark Gallery  -  [ 1968 ]  Group Sculpture

Grosvenor Gallery - London

[ ‘The Image of Man’ - 1967 - GS ]

Foyles Gallery – London
[ 1967 ]  -  “Knock-Down Carry-Around”  - GS

Allen Stone Gallery - New York

[ 1964 - GS ]

Collectors’ Gallery - Meridan, Conn.

[ 1962 - OMS ]

The Hardware Show, Chicago
[ 1963 ]  -  “Tools For The Hand And The Eye”

IBM Gallery  -  Madison Avenue, New York City

[1960 - GS ]  -  “Tools For The Hand And The Eye” 
Designs from Pratt Industrial Design Department

 

CONFERENCE PAPERS

‘Words Get In My Way’ -

Theoros Conference - Cardiff Institute [ 26 JANUARY, 1996 ]  -  In Conjunction with
The British Society for Phenomenology, and The British Society for Aesthetics

‘Student Self Assessment As A Vehicle For Learning Within An Art And Design Program’

Government Conference on ‘Innovations In Student Assessment’ [ 20 APRIL, 1996 ]

 

Group Show (GS)   -  One Person Show  (GPS)