Exercise Three // Michael Aurel

April 28 2020
Hi  Michael,   to kick off exercise one,  where are you? 
I am currently Isolating in the comfort of my sisters home in north Oxford, my studio is taken the form of a garden, where every morning i sit with a coffee And the sun on my face, reading and writing with the birds waking up and sining to start my day.
 
How has your process changed since staying at home?

Its become a reflective period, studioless its given me a chance to turn my back on old paintings and old ways of working, it feels like a time of cleansing, a chance to let life open up again.

 

Last or current song you listened to (no cheating, we all have naughty comforts)?

Dylan’s newest unreleased track ‘Murder Most Foul’ its 17 minuets of lyrics (stick with it), a perfectly pairing song for the times

 

and the last or current show/film/video you watched ?

Instagram has been a way of staying close with family, friends and the art world some stories that i have been really enjoying are @joe_Warrior_Walker and @aliceellisbray. I’m fascinated recently at how other artist are responding to all this, these two artist are little Cornish treasures and certainly making the most of it.  Oh and a Video by Mark Jenkin on Vimeo called ‘David Bowie is Dead’ 

 

What are you reading right now?

‘The Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Poetry’ always have this by my side.

 

What's the last thing you cooked? (recipes welcome!)

Melanzanie Parmigiana and Homemade Garlic Bread

 

What's the next thing you are going to cook?

been thinking of home and the sea lately (Cornwall) been a while since i have had some decent Fish that be nice.

 

If everything in your house was going to be the same colour what colour would you choose?

i couldn’t choose id like everything to be the colours of a Gauguin    Polynesian Painting tho.

 

Which words or phrases do you most overuse  ?

‘Im Over It’

 

Do you have any superstitions? 

Saying Good Morning to every Magpie i see. done it since i was a kid

 

What makes you laugh (feel free to share any  videos, memes, record a joke, your pet)

 The old pissed up Cornish boy’s chat in the pubs..i miss them

 

Which artist-living or dead would you like to share your quarantine practice with? Why?

Egon Schiele - i could watch that man draw all day.
 there is such a delicacy yet visceral-ness in his lines.

 

Karl Weschke - i like to sit with him, perched on a rock somewhere in Cape Cornwall and just talk, think he had some stories.

 

Exercise 2

Write a drawing prompt you would like someone else to receive:
Try writing a piece of Poetry - then Draw it - then Paint it. see what the out come is.
 
We are probably going to get through a lot of these homework sheets - so write a question for other people that you want to know the answer to ? 
If you were to change you're culture/beliefs what would you change them to??
 
 
We are putting together a mixtape - what’s your go to song
chilling out ? - Big Theif ’Shark Smile’
falling in love ?  -  Something in Dylan’s Disography

 

For  Exercise Three, we ask our artists to  pick one of the following subjects as a starting point to make some work using an A5 piece of paper/cloth/whatever you like to the size  with no restriction on media. These will be published on our website and available for £110 each.

  1. Still life: pick 3 items from your surrounding and recreate them

  2. Draw the last text you received/Page 15 from a book you are currently reading 7th sentence down

  3. Draw the last exhibition you saw/in style of the last exhibition you saw

 

 Check out Michael's exercise three piece here