[{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/architecture/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Architecture","type":"tags"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":" Profile # I was born in Nottingham in 1977, studied in Northampton, and now live in the east of Tokyo. My work is primarily oil on canvas supported by photography. The city, urban life have been the primary interests of my work.\nEducation # M.A. Art History. Open University. UK. B.A. Honours. 1:1. Art and Design with Philosophy. University of Northampton. Solo Exhibitions # 2021 Studies for State of Emergency paintings, Shibmata 485, Tokyo 2019 The Ballet of Shibamata Shinshokai, Shibmata 485, Tokyo 2017 Noriba, Galleryan Asukayama, Tokyo 2015 Bus Paintings, KOMAGOME1-14cas, Tokyo 2012 Highway, Shibamata 485, Tokyo 2007 Geikoten, Rainbow Kitchen, Tokyo 2007 Yanaka Bossa, Tokyo Group Exhibitions # 2025 From the Rubble Soars Life, Roppongi Stripe Space, Tokyo 2015 International art circle, EM Gallery, Tokyo 2014 L’Empirente, Tokyo 2014 When two nights meet, Yamagoya, Tokyo 2007 Space Q, Tokyo Projects # 2015 Ebisu festival, Children\u0026rsquo;s art workshop, Tokyo 2015 Nomad art, Tokyo Contact # Email: rgwartist@gmail.com\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/bio/","section":"Home","summary":"","title":"Bio","type":"page"},{"content":" Bus No.1. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.2. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.3. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.4. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.5. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.6. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.7. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.8. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.9. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.10. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.11. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.12. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.13. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm. Bus No.8 Detail. Oil on canvas. 33cm x33cm.\nExhibition photos # ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/paintings/bus/","section":"Paintings","summary":"","title":"Bus","type":"paintings"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/city/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"City","type":"tags"},{"content":"Ebisu Bunkasai children\u0026rsquo;s art workshop November 27, 2015\nMy first workshop. A step into the unknown; not knowing who would turn up or how the final painting would turn out. Fortunately I had great support from Sachiko and Atsuko Shintani and Natsuko Funakoshi at all stages from planning, getting hold of materials and translating.\nAs a local artist I had been asked to hold a workshop at the annual Ebisu Bunkasai (culture festival) The idea was to present some of my own paintings then work with the children to collaboratievly produce a large landscape painting of Ebisu.\nThe workshop was aimed at elementary school age children. There was a reasonable turnout of children accompanied by parents and grandparents who were happy to join in.\nAfter a brief outline of the workshop plan and presentation of my work I elicited some features of the surrounding landscape by drawing pictures on the whiteboard. We then asked children and adults, in groups, to draw small pictures of as many things that they could remember seeing on their way to the workshop that day. After a few minutes we collected the ideas together, writing ideas on the whiteboard. We explained that we would have to divide up the words between the groups to ensure that we could include everything in the final picture. We then asked groups to choose at least two words to draw until they were all taken. We outlined a few guides for the drawings such as using all of the space on the paper and avoiding too much time consuming detail then set everyone off drawing. We stopped everyone after about thirty minutes then started cutting out the pictures and glueing them onto the canvas. when all of the drawings had been stuck on we demonstrated that all of the blank canvas needed to be filled. There was some creative use of the rollers to paint roads and railway lines and a few embelisments to the sky such as a rainbow and UFU.\nI was pleased to see how the final image worked out.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/prep-holding/ebisu/","section":"Prep-Holding","summary":"","title":"Ebisu festival","type":"prep-holding"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/education/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Education","type":"tags"},{"content":" Images seen and unseen # This series of paintings was shown at\u0026hellip; in Palestine exhibition\nFigures and landscapes # ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/paintings/figures__landscapes/","section":"Paintings","summary":"","title":"Figures \u0026 landscapes","type":"paintings"},{"content":" Boy. Oil on canvas. 45cm x 53cm. Brown highway diptych. Oil on canvas. 60cm x 50cm (x2) Crossroads. Oil on canvas. 53cm x 53cm. Crossroads diptych. Oil on canvas 53cm x 53cm (x2) Cyclist. Oil on canvas. 60cm x 60cm Highway triptych. Oil on canvas 60cm x90cm (x3) Night highway. Oil on canvas. 53cm x 53cm\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/paintings/highway/","section":"Paintings","summary":"","title":"Highway","type":"paintings"},{"content":" ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"Home","summary":"","title":"Home","type":"page"},{"content":"Kids ART Studio\nApril 13, 2016\nI held a workshop for pre-school children at KOMAGOME1-14cas during my exhibition there. Tomoko Sekineruns Kids ART Studio every Wednesday above the gallery at Tokyo Studio or in the gallery with visiting artists when they are exhibiting.\nWe asked the children questions about the paintings such as where they thought the scenes were located, what time of day it was, what the season was and their reasons why they thought what they did.\nWe then asked them to find paintings containing certain aspects such as actions, clothes, expressions and colours.\nWe demonstrated how the children could draw their own evening view into a bus on black paper then make a window with clear plastic and a frame. We asked them to think carefully about the various aspects that we had looked at in my paintings such as actions and colours when creating their own picture.\nIt was very interesting to hear the stories that some of the children told around the people in their drawings and also in my own paintings. Also very interesting to see which aspects of my paintings and their own experience they found significant. For example a young, very quiet girl spent her time blending a few colours together which I originally thought was unrelated to the paintings but she had used the same basic colour scheme as in my work and had obviously been looking closely.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/prep-holding/kids-art/","section":"Prep-Holding","summary":"","title":"Kids Art","type":"prep-holding"},{"content":" Land Art # The Land art syllabus is an art based English syllabus that I designed and taught at Morimura Gakuen elementary school from 2011 to 2015.\nLearning to describe artworks\nThe children learn about the work of British land artist Andy Goldsworthy. They look at photos of his work and extracts of the film Rivers and Tides and learn the English to describe aspects of the works such as nature nouns, colour, texture, size, shape and prepositions of place.\nIn this photo one child is describing an artwork whilst the others guess which picture it is.\nDesigning an artwork\nThe children think of ideas for possible artworks within the limitations of available time and materials then choose one design to build.\nCollecting materials\nThe children have to build their artwork using only natural materials and within the worthy minutes of the lesson. They need to organise themselves as a group to collect materials.\nCollecting materials\nMaking the artwork\nWork in progress\nFinished artwork\nThe children write a description of their artwork in their groups using language that they studied earlier in the course. When it\u0026rsquo;s been checked they practice and give a \u0026amp;nbsp;presentation of their artwork to the class which they record and publish\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/prep-holding/mm-land-art/","section":"Prep-Holding","summary":"","title":"Land art project","type":"prep-holding"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/landscape/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Landscape","type":"tags"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/modernism/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Modernism","type":"tags"},{"content":"Nomad art is a project which began with myself and Stephane Leroux transporting our paintings across Tokyo by public transport to an exhibition. We started early that morning but realised that we would be hitting peak commuting time. With time to spare we decided to wait with our work at each station where we transferred. We had been discussing ways to open up public space to use for art but in a way that would not lead to confrontations with any authorities.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/prep-holding/nomad/","section":"Prep-Holding","summary":"","title":"Nomad art","type":"prep-holding"},{"content":"Nomad art is a project which began with myself and Stephane Leroux transporting our paintings across Tokyo by public transport to an exhibition. We started early that morning but realised that we would be hitting peak commuting time. With time to spare we decided to wait with our work at each station where we transferred. We had been discussing ways to open up public space to use for art but in a way that would not lead to confrontations with any authorities.\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/texts/nomad/","section":"Texts","summary":"","title":"Nomad art","type":"texts"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/paintings/","section":"Paintings","summary":"","title":"Paintings","type":"paintings"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/photoessay/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Photoessay","type":"categories"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/prep-holding/","section":"Prep-Holding","summary":"","title":"Prep-Holding","type":"prep-holding"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/project/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Project","type":"categories"},{"content":" Riverside No. 1. Oil on canvas. 80cm x 60cm Riverside No.2 Oil on canvas. 65cm x53cm Riverside No. 3. Oil on canvas. 80cm x 60cm Riverside No.4.Oil o canvas. 60cm x 50cm Riverside No.5. Oil on canvas. 33cm x 24cm Riverside No.6. Oil on canvas. 33cm x 24cm Bridge No.1. Oil on canvas Bridge No.1. Oil on canvas Bridge No.1. Oil on canvas Bridge No.1. Oil on canvas\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/paintings/riverside/","section":"Paintings","summary":"","title":"Riverside","type":"paintings"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"},{"content":"2026 September 9th\nOn my final full day in Ho Chi Minh city, at the end of a tip to Vietnam this summer, I came across the book: Southern Vietnamese Modernist Architecture: mid-century vernacular architecture by Mel Schenck, with photos by Alexandre Garel, published in 2025. Schenck argues that Southern Vietnamese modernism is was an innovative modernist style that peaked in its golden age between 1945-1975, in which Vietnamese architects developed a modernist style, adapted for a tropical climate.\nI only had time to flick through the book but also had the pleasure to come across Alexandrea van der Essen\u0026rsquo;s website which contains a number of well illustrated and referenced articles about Southern Vietnamese Modernist architecture.\nI had been impressed by the design of the independence palace the previous day but had not been particularly observant of the modernist style of other buildings.\nThe style usually include some or all of the following architectural aspects: brise-soleil - sun blocking elements double wall construction intricate design cellular design abstract composition expressive composition My final morning in the city I managed to get out early to try to find some of the buildings.\nI visited -\n9-Nguyen\nAn Bin Hospital\nRadio station\nScience library\nStudent dorms\nUniversity of medicine\nTurtle Lake After being introduced to the key features of Southern Vietnamese Modernism, examples soon started popping out in shophouse buildings I passed as I was whisked between buildings on my list on the back of bike taxis.\nShenck argues that it is the shophouse buildings that Southern Vietnamese Modernism is really expressed as a vernacular style.\nShophouses\nThe creative way that the key elements are used becomes apparent as soon as you start looking.\nYou can find Shenck\u0026rsquo;s book here.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53209963-southern-vietnamese-modernist-architecture\nAlexandra van der Essen has a great site here: https://alexandravanderessen.com/ which contains well referenced articles and great photos. She introduces the concept of mundanism Interesting article in the Saigoneer\nLinks\n","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/prep-holding/south-viet-mod/","section":"Prep-Holding","summary":"","title":"Southern Vietnamese Modernist Architecture","type":"prep-holding"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/texts/","section":"Texts","summary":"","title":"Texts","type":"texts"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vietnam/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vietnam","type":"tags"}]