P.Wharton
Retrospect. Early years
Early years
My only recollection of a teacher’s criticism was in primary school when it was noted that I was easily distracted. They could have said I was easily
inspired ran with that.
Me. Philip
To let go
I must have been around five years old and although it was dark out, it must have been summer time as I wasn't too cold. Maybe 00: 30am. My
mother was spurring me and my older sister on to race ahead down the street. We were all being chased by a man with a knife. My mother's drunk of a partner. So easily we could have safely raced
ahead but for the tether of concern for our mother between us and this desperate situation.
Hopefully the tethered rigid tension and angles of this little figure standing ground presents a sense of great urgency and concern. like the caveman and child, I strived to convey the human experience in me but without my usual surface embellishments. Again, on the surface, so beautifully primary.
Back to the drunk with the knife. We did all get away safely as an approaching police van sped up to arrest him. My mother did say that on visiting him the next
day at the police station, he was black and blue. So make of that what you will.
Framed
Medium/pencil on tracing paper/cream backing paper
W/40cm/H34cm/D/4cm
Q&A
“At what age did you realise you were an artist?”
“...I think we all start out in life as an artist, but I can only recall being arty from around the age of six. And art has never been something I ever had a desire to be schooled in.“
“...Around my early teens/13 we moved onto a newly-built council estate, festooned with abandoned offcuts of wood and nails. I was always sawing and hammering at some new invention, or scavenging railway embankments for wheels and bike parts. This may have been my schooling by exposure. I make stuff!”
Boxroom17
Boxroom17 evokes as many fond memories of my youth by way of its construction as it does now the finished piece. It was my intention to use nothing but an assemblage of off-cuts of timber
from past projects for this piece. Almost like building with odd Lego blocks as I did when a child.
In total, only seven small cuts were made to accommodate the clock movement.
It represents all the small spaces that had nurtured me throughout my youth and the very cramped spaces that later doubled as much a studio as a bedroom.
From the single pillow on the bed, to the maze like route around the bed to the wardrobe. To the little portable TV, table, and stool at the foot of the bed. To the rug at the left of that
tv. To the books and bookends on the top of the clock towering over the bed. To the triangular sculpture on the ledge to the left of the wardrobe. To the canvas stretchers on top of the
wardrobe. To the awkward view through the window/door to the right of the pillow. To the giant light switch on the wall at the right foot of the bed. These are all personally iconic symbols of
those times to mark a few.
Medium/Wood
W/37/H52/D18cm
Battery Clock with bell chime and Pendulum
Very early bedroom and studio
Q&A
“What materials do you like working with the most?”
“Pewter and cement. I’m taken to working with cement. It’s a material I’d like to explore on a grand scale, but circumstances don’t permit it at the moment.”
Other very early bedroom and make do studio spaces
Is this art? Does it mean anything?
Talk about early bird catches the worm. Got up at 5:30am. Washed the dishes after breakfast, and on Squeezing out this baby wipe to clean the taps, this little bird appears out of the crush. All I’ve done here is wipe the water from the wipe off my hand and put the wipe back as it emerged from my hand . Is this art? And if so, who claims credit for this piece?
Some would say, maybe it’s a sign. Or Maybe, a Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush? It’s all a matter of personal translation? For myself (on this occasion) it’s a good philosophical debate.
From a Human perspective, whatever the interpretation, this will always appear to be far greater than the sum of its parts. Why?
Q&A
“Do you ever run short of ideas?”
“...Subjects are presenting themselves 24/7. And I’m so easily inspired.
I’ll run out of life first.”
Me. 2004. My photography years
Q&A
“Would you say you are spiritually influenced?”
“..Definitely in as much as I can’t take all the credit. I’m sure it’s someone’s spirit. I take what comes to me, then wing it the rest of the way. I don't bite the hand that feeds me.“
The synth years/aged 20/Me and my sister Lorraine.
In my very early 20s, my synths and my Yamaha CX5M music computer were everything. Then my sister died. I moved out of the family home and the heart fell out of my music. I dabble a little in music now and then, but only on my iPad via StaffPad.
Q&A
“...Do you listen to music when you are working?”
“Almost always. Anything that will sustain the mood I need to be in.”
Omen
When you have had a very long run of bad luck, misfortune, or loss, you can't ever imagine life is ever going to be more than just a mere existence. But if you can get a long enough break from it, you can start to heal a little. Live a little. Maybe not as you were, but anew.
Omen is an owl form draped with a veil. A mere existence. And the weathered cracks in the Veil, a well needed break from that mere existence. A glimpse of anew through the veil.
Medium/Solid
Air dried modelling clay
Acrylic paint Waxed
W20cm/H26cm/D20cm
Totem/a strange one
I sort of lost my mojo in 2013 after my mother died and Totem was in response to this. I don't altogether wish to understand it presence other than I felt it watched out for me. It
just emerged from the vacuum.
In a sense, the figure in the centre of the frame is holding back the dark from enveloping the whole frame. It was after this that my artwork took flight with the
piece entitled Night Owl.
https://www.boxroom17.net/artworks/after-life/
Designed to be either free standing or wall mounted.
wood/black and white/H54cm X w26101 X D7cm
Presence of their absence
Presence of their absence. MP3 music By P Wharton
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vyglezapf3n529h/2021%20pota.mp4?dl=
Q&A
“What do you mean when you refer to the "presence" of a piece?”
“...I often use the term, "presence’' because subjects often present themselves infectiously, seemingly out of the blue with such enthusiasm that I tremble with drive in fear that this presence will fade."
Very early stone work and clay
All stolen from storage
Print