PETE'S PIPE PICKLE...PETER DOHERTY, ARTIST, COB GALLERY LONDON

I know...I couldn't believe it either, is there no end to this bohemian oaf's talent? A difficult one to defend I won't deny but I maintain my respect for Doherty's determination to live life entirely on his own terms - two fingers to the red tops and dreary suburbanite haters, (styled by Primark, engaged to university sweetheart, holidays in Mallorca) lurking around office water coolers across this green and pleasant land accusing him of leading the kids astray with his blatantly drug-addled buffoonery or worse - obvious lack of talent. Lets face it, the guy is hilarious with his antics and if he was good enough for Cocaine Kate then hes good enough for me. Its called rock'n'roll people!! Nobody gave a shit when Keef spent half the '70s on the nod.

Peter, being a Rimbaud-reading boho now lives in Paris where his brand of louche decadence is perfectly acceptable, positively encouraged in some arrondissements. Everything about Peter from his nonchalant sartorial elegance to his pretty-boy-lost-in-a-dream-world-of-fey-literary-heroes-adrift-in-Arcadia countenance seems to fit like a glove with the je ne sais quoi, that indefinable charm of the City of Light. His reported recent friendship with a certain Madame Sarkozy seems the perfect Parisian fusion of his charisma and her inherent rebellion. Underneath the artifice...they are two sides to the same coin, the post modern Birkin and Gainsbourg.

LL Cool P....Parisienne mademoiselles know the score...

So Mr. Doherty has now evolved his notorious blood fetish into a new career as an emerging visual artist - his idiosyncratic canvases recently exhibited at the Cob Gallery in London's Camden Town. A few of Doherty's mono and neutral toned multimedia pieces were mildly interesting (below)...combining elements of collage, his own putrid blood, tabloid newspaper imagery plus the detritus of a chaotic life with his largely illegible 'word vomit' pencil scribblings.

Far more striking were the installations in the gallery's basement. Featuring all manner of symbolic, Dohertyesque objects (Babycham anyone?), the subterranean opium eater's cave was draped with threadbare flags, sweat-stained backstage passes, ancient typewriters, vintage guitars and beautiful antique crucifixes. The only things missing were burnt foils, dirty spoons and a crack pipe stained with Amy Winehouse's lipstick. Vinyl punk albums littered the floor and a decrepit Beatles poster from the (sadly) now defunct News Of The World gave the installation a real sense of authenticity, as though you were poking through this genuine music fan's own personal wreckage of the Albion Rooms circa 2001. Which I probably was. I love Doherty's celebration of his Englishness and pride in the ancient motifs of a once great country now consigned to the imagination of poets and dreamers. As a songwriter, Doherty's talent lies in evoking this lyrical imagery of a lost utopia. As a visual artist he offers up the tangible, literal interpretation.

MATTHEW ROSE'S PARISIAN BOHEMIA

One of my artistic inspirations of 2010 was collage artist Matthew Rose, after seeing his October solo show at the Orange Dot gallery in Bloomsbury. Back in April of this year, Matthew was lovely enough to allow me to visit his studio in the faded bohemian district of Montparnasse on Paris' rive gauche. Ascending the grand staircase in Matthew's modernist apartment building, I was greeted by the amiable American artist and shown around his top floor studio/apartment - its warm, timber interiors punctuated by the endless stacks of cuttings, materials and messy paraphernalia characteristic of the collage artist.    

It was a real honour to finally meet Matthew in the flesh and have an opportunity to discuss his work, much of which had been featured on his various online presences including his sales blog here. Some of my favourite pieces included the the witty, tactile text-based works pictured below, each one featuring a clever satirical spin on a well known song lyric or little known artistic movement alike.  

Matthew utilises a range of imagery in his work, recontextualising innocent looking, vintage-inspired aesthetics (in predominantly pastel hues) to create nonsensical, amusing and often disembodied comic book style collages. His pieces evokes an almost feminine, retro Americana...a feeling of a more innocent time of soda pop, diners and juke box jiving. Combine this with the inevitable European influence years of Parisian residency has injected into his work and you have the makings of a very interesting body of work.   



This great poster below advertises Matthew's imminent Paris exhibition featuring his latest work and is available to download free from his blog here.