Red's Kingdom

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The last edition of The Kick-About took us to the preferred habitat of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests—empty horizons of sea and sky: all the better for directing our focus on Jansen’s remarkable ambulatory creations. This week, we’re preoccupied by absences too: how negative space likewise sharpens our attention, pushing us to consider what is present, even when it isn’t. For all previous editions of The Kick-About click here.

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Graeme Daly

“I’ve recently started a new gardening gig, bringing more greenery to West London’s urban areas. I’ve been captivated by the juxtaposition of these sprawling concrete landmarks against the sky, and hopefully, in the future, there will be much more green! Here are a few photographs of these areas, including a particularly cinematic and derelict red-and-green changing area that I adore!”

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@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog

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Gary Thorne

“Following a somewhat traditional approach—where the space around a solid form supports and substantiates the positive shape—this simple still life introduces an element of camouflage to create a sense of confusion or mystery in the painting.”

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linkedin.com/in/gary-thorne

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James Randall

“Well… I was halfway through the sad mountain when the last call came and well, I thought, it fits right in with all the shapes with bits out and then the carved into mountain. So I then fooled around with lines and shapes and arms and came up with the second image with reversed out arm – a bit looseygoosey but there it is – fun to play.”

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Phil Cooper

“What a stimulating prompt—so many directions to go in, I think ‘negative space’ could generate a lot of work and keep me going for weeks if not months! For my contribution this week, though, I’ve kept things pretty simple. I started playing with some photos of winter trees from the allotments across the road from our flat; flattening things out and bringing up the sky… I think I’ve now got a good starting point for some large-scale woodcut prints, but that will have to wait for another day…”

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instagram.com/philcoops

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Marion Raper

“I remembered that I did an embroidery some time ago, which involved a sketch of the spray from Niagara Falls—would you believe? I drew the enlarged shapes in pen and ink and found a suitable design. The technique is called Carrickmacross, and it is usually done with white thread on a black background. You make a three-layer sandwich consisting of your pattern, then some net, and finally fine cotton fabric on top. You then outline the pattern with couching thread and cut away the excess fabric. It’s very tricky! The history of this lace goes back to the Great Famine in Ireland, when women were probably paid a pittance for this skilled work to earn money for food.”

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Charly Skilling

“On the night of 23/24 September 2023, the lovely old sycamore tree that had stood by Hadrian’s Wall for about three hundred years, guarding the gap in the hills, was cut down in a seemingly random act of criminal and environmental vandalism. This tree and its surroundings (known, unoriginally, as Sycamore Gap) is an iconic place, the image of which had become known worldwide. (If you ever watched the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, you may recall Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman running and jumping around this very spot.) A year on, two men have been charged with criminal damage, and their trial is due to begin in December this year. In the meantime, it seemed an excellent example of ‘negative space’ and a timely reminder of the positive image it once was.”

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Phil Gomm

“I took inspiration from Rachel Whiteread and her casts made from the interior spaces of objects and environments. Similarly, I was interested in ‘visibilising’ otherwise invisible spaces in the form of objects. These three sculptural forms were created in a classic Kick-About style—by first lining three cardboard toilet rolls with thin sandwich bags (really stuffing them in there…) and then filling the tubes with quick-drying filler. Once dry, I cut the tubes away and peeled off the plastic bags. Because the plastic bags were creased and folded up on themselves inside the tube, they created all these fissures and surface textures. Finally, before photographing them, I mashed some charcoal into water to produce a wash, which I applied with a fine, dry brush.”

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philgomm.com

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Kerfe Roig

“This was an accident (as so much art is, really). I had cut out a figure for one of my tarot cards and set it on a winter landscape. That made me think of all the other figures I had cut out, or cut pieces out of, to make other Tarot cards—hence the Egyptian themed responses.  Some of them have a Magritte flavor as well.  And then I had to write a poem.“

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Negative Spaces

What isn’t here is somewhere else
which could be anywhere or nowhere at all

So many holes to fill–shadows
of the lost, the missing, the unseen

Which side is the entrance, which the exit?
What flows into all those empty spaces?

Serendipity.  A passing thought.
A random intersection of space and time

Superimposed on nothing
but what was never really there

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kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com

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Lewis Punton

“This latest Kick-About manifested in the way that most creative nudges tend to; as an initial thought that quickly shifts gears once the wheels are rolling. In this case, meaning that my early plans to hit the Negative Space brief by animating photographs from an earlier post (Speleology) morphed into a short series of animations depicting the light being emitted from a phone screen on my partner’s face once all the lights were out. Pair with the horrific sounds of a canned audience that plague the majority of rubbish telly—and the result is a weird combination of the visual and sonic uncanny. I’m quite the sucker for scratchy cycles like this, but more than anything glad of the pleasant reminder that sometimes inspiration strikes when other plans are already afoot!“

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“I was running a little ahead of schedule this week, and feeling the urge to take the negative space prompt one step further (and in a completely different direction) I decided to mock up a quick sheet exploring an original character that could take full advantage of such a prompt… Simon in the Shadows!“

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lewismakesthings.wordpress.com

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And for our next creative excursion together, the textile artist, Lucienne Day…

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