November 30, 2009
As we (Donald J. Rothschild & I) have just uploaded the latest chapter of our noir-art-novel-blog collaboration, Shadow Bay, here is a small selection of the latest images:
From Shadow Bay chapter 10
From Shadow Bay chapter 10
From Shadow Bay chapter 10
From Shadow Bay chapter 10
From Shadow Bay chapter 10
For the images to make any kind of narrative sense, you’ll have to read the blog.
November 21, 2009
Shadow Bay is the title of the noir-crime-novel-painted-blog collaboration with writer Donald J. Rothschild who wrote the original play, which was optioned as a screenplay for a while, & has now metamorphosed into this word/art venture. We just uploaded chapter 9. Here is a small selection 0f 5 of the 28 images which comprise the chapter alongside Donald’s words:
From Shadow Bay, chapter 9, 2009.
From Shadow Bay, chapter 9, 2009.
From Shadow Bay, chapter 9, 2009.
From Shadow Bay, chapter 9, 2009.
From Shadow Bay, chapter 9, 2009.
November 18, 2009
Many years ago, in the early 1990s, while I lived in England (Colchester, Essex) & then Paris, I produced a series of drawings & then paintings of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR for short.) It was quite a successful series, & was exhibited in its different forms around Europe in the early 90s, & then around the USA & on TV etc. in Canada in the late 90s (the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UDHR was in 1998.)
The UDHR has 30 Articles detailing rights & freedoms for the human race. Therefore, there are 30 artworks in each series, each depicting a single Article.
Here are some images from the series:
Drawing of Article 5 (against torture), pencil & ink
Drawing of Article 12 (protection of the family), pencil & ink
With the initial drawings (2 examples above), I wrote the text of the Article by hand at the top of each page, so as to be able to focus more clearly on the content of the image.
Painting of Article 7 (equality under & protection by the law), acrylic on card
Painting of Article 14 (right to asylum), acrylic on card
Painting of Article 24 (right to rest & leisure), acrylic on card
Over the years, the images have been seen & displayed in a variety of media. They were projected onto a screen at a symposium on art & human rights in Ottawa, Canada, in 1998. They have been seen on TV in Spain & Canada. There is a Powerpoint version with the paintings & UDHR text that has been used at a major event in New York City, & also as an educational aid by teachers around the planet. Some of the images have been reproduced in books & other publications, such as the image (Article 23) below:
Trade Imbalance, published by Cambridge University Press, 2007
The book was written by Susan Ariel Aaronson & Jamie M. Zimmerman, & is available from Amazon, etc.
Ultimately, I would hope that the UDHR series (plural, as there are drawings, the initial series of paintings & also a Spanish series, done in Seville, Spain in 1992) would find a home in a public collection of some kind, a museum or foundation, perhaps. If anyone is interested in that, or in obtaining a copy of the Powerpoint slideshow, please contact me via this blog, or my email at “info” “at” “ayton” dot “net” (that is to confuse spam programs, I hope it doesn’t confuse you.)
There is a web site dedicated to my UDHR artwork: www.udhrart.org, where you can see all of the drawings & paintings, & the details of the shows & so forth. The artworks can also be seen on various other places around the web.
November 14, 2009
As I recently sold 2 of these paintings, I thought I should focus on some images of the Tower of Babel. The theme has interested me for several years — the idea of a massive tower built by humans, and also of the chaos & confusion of languages that resulted in its downfall. Other artists have interpreted the idea over the years, the one most notable & influential to me being Pieter Breughel. Here are a few of my interpretations.
Babel, 2004, acrylic on plywood, 24" x 19.75".
Private collection, upstate NY.
Babylon by Night, 2009, acrylic on board, 10" x 8".
Private collection, upstate NY.
Tower of Babel, 2004, acrylic on plywood, 9" x 8".
Media Monolith, 2003, ink on paper, 11" x 8.5".
Above: an updated version from 2003, done as an illustration for The Citizen magazine.
Ziggurat, 2006, brush & ink on paper, 11" x 8.5".
The Tower of Babel might have actually been a ziggurat, a giant pyramidal step-temple.
November 9, 2009
Here is a new drawing of the Tree Man (probably derived from Hieronymus Bosch), followed by a couple of earlier versions:
One Man Forest, 2009, Pitt Artist Pen on paper, 11" x 8.5"
The above was done under the influence of a fading migraine headache, which might explain some of the branches.
Sketch of the Tree Man, 2009, marker on tinted paper, 11" x 8.5"
Lord of the Forest, 2007, brush & ink on paper, 12" x 12"
There are others, which I may photograph or scan in the near future.
November 8, 2009
This is just to mention that I’m included in the online UK web magazine Magnus:
http://magnusmag.com/WilliamTAyton/
There is a small gallery of images & a Q&A interview/artist statement. The magazine is definitely worth a look.
November 8, 2009
This was a blog I worked on for 50 days this summer, posting a new small artwork a day. While the blog contained some very good pieces, it was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of quality, & never got a large amount of traffic. As I just deleted it, here is a small selection of some of my favorite artworks from the series:
2 Figures in a Strange Landscape, 2009, brush & ink on paper
The Mountains of Heaven, 2009, acrylic on board, 10" x 8"
City and Sun, 2009. acrylic on board, 10" x 8"
Angel Pointing Upwards, 2009, brush & ink on paper
November 6, 2009
Here is a very recent (I just finished it this morning) painting:
Shadow Bay, 2009, acrylic on unstretched canvas, 55" x 53" approx.
Shadow Bay is, of course, the painted-noir-graphic-visual-novel-blog-collaboration (that phrase just keeps getting longer) with writer Donald J. Rothschild. The above is an enlargement of the “cover” (if a blog can have a cover) of the piece. If we ever publish the work as a book (& we want to, in case you’re a publisher reading this), then the above might be the cover. Here is the original, small-scale version, below:
Image from Shadow Bay, 2009, acrylic & china marker on card, 11" x 8.5"
And here is a simulated cover treatment:
Shadow Bay, by Donald J. Rothschild & William T. Ayton
November 5, 2009
From time to time, I’m asked or required to write some kind of artist’s statement. Today, this came up again when an online magazine (webzine, I guess) asked me to do this for a small article they were putting together. Here it is:
William T. Ayton’s work deals with myth, social issues, imagination and the human condition. Art is a means of reaching out to other souls in the hope of finding some kind of connection. There isn’t much else to say.
It always seems to me that art is either too complex to be reduced to a short paragraph, or it should be self-evident. However, I thought the above wasn’t bad. The artist’s statements I prefer to read tend to deviate from the norm (whatever that is) anyway. Not that I spend a lot of time reading artist’s statements…
November 5, 2009
The Trap Version A, 1993, brush & ink on paper, 16.5" x 12" approx.
Back in 1993, when I lived in Paris, I experimented a little with sequential drawings. It was very simple, just a “before” and an “after” image…I only did a few of these, but this one (above & below) was quite good, I thought.
The point was, obviously (I hope) to surprise the viewer with an unexpected outcome…
The Trap Version B, 1993, brush & ink on paper, 16.5" x 12" approx.
I have a few more of these, which I may photograph one of these days.
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