A warm welcome to Red Kingdom’s inaugural Kick About – a showcase of new work generated by a group of artists and creative sorts in response to a specific prompt.
Our collective jumping-off point was Max Ernst’s 1955 painting, Moon in a Bottle, and participants were encouraged to respond to Ernst’s image however they saw fit.
Featuring work in a wide range of media, The Kick About surely proves that exciting things happen when we play.
Thomas Smith
twitter.com/peachflandango / instagram.com/peachflandango / linkedin.com/in/smithomas
Emily Clarkson
“I’ll be honest… I couldn’t connect with the painting itself so, I ended up going down a more literal word association route. There was just something whimsical about the idea of the moon in a little bottle, like it was something homemade and stowed on a higher power’s kitchen shelf or something. Plus I learned a new AE trick in the process!”
instagram.com/eclarkson2012 / twitter.com/eclarkson2012 / linkedin.com/in/emily-clarkson
Charly Skilling
Graeme Daly
“I really enjoyed this. It may have just inspired an idea for a future film!”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly
Jordan Buckner
“It started off a bit more moody blue cliffs and glowing sun. And I wanted it to be a bit more textural and collage, but it slowly edged towards something a bit more sci-fi.”
instagram.com/jordan_buckner / twitter.com/jordan_buckner / linkedin.com/in/jordan-buckner / jordanbuckner.co.uk
Philip Cooper
Supermoon
Time was when you only had to worry about sleeping with a pistol and a silver bullet by your bed once a month. It was a chore, but, well, once a month, most people could handle and attacks were rare in the city anyway. That was two years ago. Everything has changed – everything!
I remember seeing the first batches of the Supermoon stuff on the shelves in the corner shop; ‘Like the Moon in a Bottle’ the advertising said. People laughed, and we bought some, drinking it for dares int the local woods. Everyone was telling us kids it was so dangerous, that it should be banned and we shouldn’t touch it, so what else were we going to do? Government ministers and various ‘experts’ dismissed the stuff as a hoax, said it was just soda water, marketed by charlatan looking to fleece the gullible. Just a few weeks later, though, and stories began to emerge on the news; odd, gruesome killings, usually in remote parts of the country.
Still no need to worry, they told us, it’s a one off, a ‘lone wolf’. Then, very quickly, the truth emerged. Supermoon WAS like the moon in a bottle, it really DID make werewolves transform into their wolf self with just a mouthful, at any time, even in broad daylight and a week away from a full moon.
Then the authorities started to take it seriously; hunting for the makers, the labs, the factories, the supply lines. But it was too late. There was so much of it out there by that time. The werewolves had got hold of litres of it and the havoc and devastation they were causing was like something from a movie. Things fell apart in a matter of days. The cost of silver went up to 7000% times that of gold, wars broke out to take control of the silver mines, communities turned on each other. Rumours and conspiracy theories spread like wildfire, weird cults sprang up; crazy people wanting to get bitten, join the emerging new power, get out of their mundane little lives and have an adventure – and they got bitten all right.
We’re the lucky ones, we keep being told. Mum and dad took us all to one of the compounds and made it in just in time.
But we don’t sleep much. We thought were were safe here behind the 3m thick concrete bunker walls and the gun towers but things aren’t going well. It seems the werewolves are getting smarter and working together. We heard that the compound down south near Southhampton has fallen, that they got in somehow. How can this be happening?
No, we don’t sleep much, and we all have a pistol by our bed with a silver bullet. It’s the new normal.
Anon. 13th June, 2024
instagram.com/philcoops / hedgecrows.wordpress.com / phil-cooper.com
Phil Gomm
Glen Coleman
Glen: His name is Wane.
Phil: As in a ‘waning moon’, perhaps?
Glen: Yep, haha.
Phill Hosking
“I was always going to go this route as an opener. Really enjoyed it. Can’t wait to see what the rest of the collective have come up with.”
instagram.com/eclecto2d / linkedin.com/in/phill-hosking
Simon Holland
“I did a thing, charcoal, pastel and other sh*t!”
twitter.com/simonholland74 / corvusdesigns.blogspot.com / instagram.com/simonholland74
So, who’s up for another kick-about in the park with jumpers for goal-posts? We have a brand new prompt, courtesy of Emily ‘Sun-In-A-Jar’ Clarkson, and a new submission date. See below – and if you’re looking at this thinking you’d like to get involved too, get in touch and we’ll sort it.
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