Swallow/s Body Section Work-In-Progress

Continuing to work from my prototype during the glorious recent weather, I have built the bodies of the swallows using recycled plastic, cardboard and tape.

Here you can see my prototype on the floor next to the sculpture.

Lastly I have constructed a new wing to attach to the swallow above the other.

Next stage to follow is applying plaster of paris...

Swallow/s Plastering Body Section Work-In-Progress

I have applied plaster of paris to the body sections

Finally placing the wings and the body sections over eachother to create a closer version to Swallow/s I had envisioned

Next stage is to coat both sections with finishing plaster hopefully to be sanded down and smoothed. More to follow...

Swallow/s Wing Section Work-In-Progress

Images of work-in-progress for Swallow/s sculpture

More to follow...

Jacob Epstein's Doves

Not long ago I mentioned the series of swallow sculptures I was making to a friend Andrew Lee (Yale/Courtauld). He sent me this lovely image of "Doves" by the famous sculptor Jacob Epstein to which I can see a relationship with my own swallow piece; two beings in one whole, overlapping.

Andrew and I at the afterparty for GALERIE8 Grange Garden Sculpture Commission
juried by Yinka Shonibare amongst others

Interestingly, the doves also look like two penises touching eachother! Phallic and sexual. A beautiful piece of work, I admire this concept. I'm glad to know that somehow, consciously or subconsciously I am in some ways treading in similar thoughtsteps or on a similar page as another great sculptor.

© The estate of Sir Jacob Epstein

Doves 1914-15

"Swallow/s" New Sculpture

Swallow/s (2011)
Prototype 1
Cardboard, Newspaper, Tape and Paperclips

Two birds in one stone.
Dualities. Split Gender. The Male and Female combined.
Two personalities in one body. Split Sexuality; Bi-sexuality, Pansexuality.
Two halves, a whole.
Two lovers, one collision.
Dead and Alive.

Less Thought More Action

Today, I'm happy to have been born.

1) Isn't failure just as important as success? Some of the best books, the best journals, the best works are compiled before the days when an artist or writer gets given success. And very often the great failures are better than the successes. They are the diamonds in the dirt that haven't be found or won't be found. We are all born and live beautiful lives. Don't let it become a silly sperm race.

2) Insanity=Why?

If we keep asking ourselves why we make work and what we make work for or about we will eventually go into the madhouse! "Why?" can be asked repeatedly to the infinite point of insanity. Why the materials?..why are you saying this?..why make this point? etc. etc.

Perhaps rule #1 of an artist's job is not to question things too much. So "why?" when a youngster gets to artschool do all they want to do is make them question their work constantly? Whilst people must learn to challenge themselves, they must also be careful of falling into this trap, surely?

Let the art critics spin themselves into thick webs. Too much thought and critical theory reduces an artist's actions and creativity. Keep it simple. Get back on track. Enjoy the aesthetics and the craft of your skill, without pondering too much serious thought upon the subject matter. Let a critic write you away with your subject matter, let the critic do away with your skill, your talent, your usefulness, let a critic enhance or destroy your contribution to the sperm race!

Just kick back, relax, enjoy the sunshine and make the work you wanna.

Yes, today I'm happy to have been born!

To Cure the Soul By Means of the Senses: LGBT Drawings

To Cure The Soul By Means Of The Senses, 2011
3 x A2 Pencil and Cum on Drawing Paper
Image © Leo Cohen 2011

A triptych of stylised drawings exploring LGBT identity, sexual icons in juxtaposition with a six- point star. It presents three cases for desire, which becomes appealable to heterosexual/lesbian/homosexual/bisexual/transsexual audiences.

I often use sperm as a visual metaphor for sexuality. Within the star segments each sperm leads or chases towards a hole in the intersections. I drew this to symbolise the fact that every hole is sacred and beautiful and that without each and every hole of the human body one would not be able to live. They should be loved, cherished and understood as should each person and their sexual preference. The drawings offer a form of sexual spirituality becoming accepted within the boundaries of the six-point star.

This work is an ongoing series in which I have created marriages and beautiful spaces for different sets of values to join harmoniously together. Nietzsche claims that art "is more powerful than knowledge because it desires life, whereas knowledge attains as its final goal - only annihilation". Through these artworks I hope to build a powerful home for what to some might seem like oppositions to exist. For Nietzsche, oppositions as we see them "do not exist in themselves" but express "only variations in degree that from a certain perspective appear to be opposites". We should not see things in the world as oppositions and different, but rather as "transitions".

Whilst Nietzsche challenges the basis of the subject/object distinction, later becoming important to the field of Semiotics and especially "the crisis of representation", I am also interested in the misappropriation/misuse of/and education surrounding symbols.