Around the time I was doing my A level in art I had an idea for a project based around William Blake's
Proverbs of Hell. I was introduced to the work of Blake by father who loved Blake's writing and ideas but wasn't a fan of his images. I probably liked the fact that Blake was a South londoner like myself. I remember being amused by observations like, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". My friend Rowland Smith and I joined a printmaking club in Deptford and told them our desire to make a poster for each of Blake's proverbs. We both made one poster each but when we returned to club (which I think was held at the Albany Empire) a week later, we were told someone had broken in and stolen all the printmaking equipment and therefor the club was closed. A few years later, when I was doing my printmaking degree at Winchester School of Art, I began working on the project again but there were too many distractions - although, in 1995, when they made a book featuring a photo and quote of each student that graduated, the quote I picked was Blake's "if the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise." A college friend called Gemma Shedden invited me to curate an exhibition at a space she co-ran in Paris. At the tail end of 2000, inspired by Mark Francis's fig-1 project (which involved 50 different art shows in 50 weeks), artist Mat Humphrey asked me to curate two of four shows that he wanted to put on in a disused shop Marlborough Court (off Carnaby Street.) The show I was most keen to put on was, 'Enough or Too Much?'
Above: Part of the flier for the show
Above: "The bird, a nest, the spider a web, man friendship" by
Adrian R. Shaw
Above: "he who desires by acts not, breeds pestilence" by
Ben Spires
Above: wall one
Above: wall two
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more images soon
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