The Fish Projector

This is an idea I played around with for a long time. I can't remember if it meant anything back then. Probably not. Er... I like fish and I drew lots of things (shrimps, lizards, etc) being projected at the time. Dunno why. I liked the image I suppose. Anyway it grew into something a bit more substantial.

Fish Projector Pencil on Paper 1993 (ten years ago - arg!)	Fish Projector I (Fuzzy Photo of) Oil on Board 1994
By tiny 15 year old me! The first (surviving) appearance. Its quite humanoid. Its projecting (or being projected by) a radiofish (something else I drew a lot back then, and can't remember why as are masks and daffodils. The stick-y fingers are the kinda thing I might paint now. I miss the raw ideas that I had then, and didn't need reasons for.)	One of my first ever oil paintings. I need a better photo of it. Maybe it's better fuzzy: You can give me the benefit of the doubt. The main development is that the fish becomes the projector. Funny landscape - easier to paint than the real thing.

 

Fish Projector II Fabric Paint on T-shirt 1994	Sketch for Fish Projector III Pencil and Marker on Paper 1995
Look! There's two of them projecting each other! This was the first T-shirt I painted. It belongs to Sarah. It was strictly hand wash only, and she forgot. It no longer looks like this. It also contains my sun face thingy, which was almost a signature back then.	I've included this as it shows that Fish Projector III is actually a projector, even though the lines of projection don't appear on the final painting. It also shows some of my written ideas, and the Beatles lyrics "try to realise than we're all very small and life goes on within you and without you".

 

Fish Projector III

Oil on Board

1996

This is what it all lead to! A big ol' fish flying over Stone Henge. The painting is currently in the private collection of Miss S. Zadik. I exhibited it at the (well posh) Holbourne Gallery in Bath, and some woman tried to buy it for 200 quid. Unfortunately I had already given it to my little oik of a sister, and woulda felt kinda bad about flogging it. It's a leafy sea dragon. They really exist but have never been sited over Stone Henge (at least not by any reputable source, since the '60s). The fish is copied from a BBC wildlife magazine left in the Arts Barn at Bath Uni. Stone Henge is copied from a postcard also left in the Arts Barn. They fitted nicely into my landscape from Fish Projector I. The green balls... er..... fill space? look nice? One of them's a sun face. The lamp-post/daffodil was a recurring theme at the time. Dunno why. The painting was one of my first to have conscious ideas behind it (a bit vague, as they should be): Something along the lines of "isn't nature amazing, but there's no reason to create religion to explain it away". Does it mean that to you? I dunno. Kept me happy anyway, hours of trying to replicate photographic detail and texture. ...Which is all lost on the pokey little picture above, so here goes: once more with feeling!

It's a low resolution print of a scan of a crumpled photocopy, so it looses an awful lot. I'll try to find you a better version. Bear with me.