My Shop Is Now Open!

 

Me, Me, Me, RTomens, 2025

I've just opened a shop. 

More items will be added over time so I recommend bookmarking the page because one day you might walk in and see that piece which screams 'BUY ME!!!'

Yah never know!

My work wants a good home. I hear it whimpering from within the boxes 'Please get us out of here...please.'

Thanks for looking.

TTFN

Vispo print: Shutdown & Cancelled / Mind Games booklet / Book: Least Wanted - A Century of American Mugshots / Vispo: Wrongthink, Understanding A Sentence, Now I'm Just A Number

 

RTomens, 2025

Some of you will recognise the Faceless Man from the cover of a booklet I made last year called Mind Games. There are still a few copies of the latest print run left if you'd like one. See here. I added 'Cancelled' to his face this week. Just 'cause I felt like it.

Most of the faces featured in Mind Games came from this fantastic book, Least Wanted  - A Century of American Mugshots...

I didn't know it at the time when I got it for a fiver in a charity shop but it's now out of print and pricey online. It's turned out to be one of the most cherished books in my collection, not only because I've used the images but because it's such a brilliant book. The character in the middle row, for instance, is featured in a piece called Wrongthink, which I made on Friday.

RTomens, 2025

Here's another...

RTomens, 2024

The text is by Wittgenstein. The piece is called Understanding A Sentence. Geddit? Of course you do. Here's one more. Title: Now I'm Just A Number.

RTomens, 2024

Be careful out there or you'll end up having your own mugshot...for a mean tweet.

TTFN!

Vispo: Normal Linguistic Exchange

RTomens, 2025

Yes, and we wonder...what is 'normal'?

"How are you?"

"Fine."

The truth can be too much to reveal, can't it? You may not be fine at all, but who is the right person to tell the truth to? Best friend? Partner? Wife? Husband? Sometimes, not even our nearest and dearest merit being told the truth. They merit a lie, because...the truth can be painful, upsetting....etc

Sorry, I didn't mean to be 'philosophical'. It just happened.

The piece above is the result of an almost painful process...by which I mean it was...awkward...not easy...quite...obstinate in its refusal to manifest itself. Other times, most times, the flow takes hold and bam-bam-bam! Normal Linguistic Exchange is...ugly. That's OK. I think it has an ugliness about it, although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, eh? I paused in the process more times than usual, for longer than usual. Would lines drawn in pen help? I added them anyway. More carbon marking? I increased the density of the blackness in the outer sections. The inner shape looks like a bird...on water...damn it! Perhaps you don't see that. I wish I'd never said it. Now you will see it.

TTFN

 

Vispo/Collage: That Memory / Punk collage

RTomens, 2025

A small piece (you can tell by the size of the type, can't you? Of course you can!). This was even more the result of rapid improvisation than my usual work In other words, I started with the squiggles using carbon paper, which means working 'blind', not being able to see where the marks will land, exactly. Suddenly they called out to be framed, which gave the type a definite space to be placed in and the type was very random, as were the marks at the top, which took on the impression of 'rain'. A base was created at the bottom, with no idea of putting anything on it until I noticed the cut-out figure lying on my desk amongst other cut-outs for collages yet to be made. I drew around him to see what could be done around the figure. Nothing elaborate...the 'Os' seemed to want to cluster around him and the straight typed lines created a kind of movement. The title comes from text in the figure.

It so happens that I've been wrestling with memory of late - nothing new there, I suppose. My recent talk at the Warburg Institute took the loose form of a retrospective, starting with collages made during the Punk rock era. It didn't quite go as I hadn't really planned, of course, but leading up to the event I dug deep into the archives, finding a lot of 'forgotten' art. 

Here's a collage from 1977, possibly my first ever. As you can see, it's a basic scrapbook-style collection of band images. It's a miracle it's survived this long...the same could be said of me.

RTomens, 1977

As I tried to say in the talk, the spirit of Punk is important to me. Don't worry, I don't walk around Camden Market wearing a leather jacket with 'PUNK'S NOT DEAD!' painted on the back, sporting a green Mohican haircut (that would have to be a wig in my case). I've no interest in seeing a band from those times (one surviving original member) either.

No, I mean, the spirit of DIY and the Punk aesthetic. That's DIY as applied to Art. But hey, don't all artists do it themselves? Some get others to do the actual making, as you know, but what I mean is that Art should be of 'the people' in the sense that Punk at it's best was a grass roots movement. No college course necessary. No qualifications. Some might call it Outsider Art, but even that's become an officially sanctioned movement.

I didn't start out with this philosophy. I just made art. The idea of writing, reproducing via Xerox and distributing was reborn during Punk, but instead of music-based zines, I copied and stapled together my art. I didn't attempt to get into Art collage, already having built up a strong aversion to any form of education since I was a kid at Junior school. 

Without wishing to bore you with my life story in Art, here I am, over 50 years later (I started drawing around the age of 11) making 'stuff'....mostly typing, these days, but also some prints and collage. Whilst the network for exposure has expanded to infinite proportions online, I don't work very hard at that. As another artist said to me the other day, for some online exposure is a full-time job. Good luck to them. For some of us creating is what's most important and we do as much online promotion as we can stand.

So I pack away the crusty old Punk collage...and carry on...

TTFN

Verse verso at The Warburg Institute / Vispo: Don't You Ever Give Up?

For one day only, I broke into the world of academia for the Verse Verso event. Others showed and talked about their work far more competently than I could...no matter! It was good to engage with those who took an interest in my table.

Here's a new piece I made this morning...

RTomens, 2025

 

Event: Verse Verso: Visual Poetry and Artist Books at The Warburg Institute

 

I'll be talking on Friday at this event. You can read more about it and an interview with the organiser here. 

I've not talked about my work in public before so I'm a bit nervous and fearful of ending up sounding like Andy Warhol, minus the knowing, deliberately evasive aura, being the clever sod that he was. Instead, I'm in danger of sounding like a mumbling idiot. 

My new booklet, Back To Earth (pic above) will get its debut appearance, being hot off the printing press. It would be logical to discuss that...but...I'm not known for demonstrating Spock-like logic. Talking of science fiction, Back To Earth has a sci-fi theme; the texts all being culled from old sci-fi mags. 

It struck me yesterday that I've been writing science fiction for over 50 years, my visual poetry being a continuation of alien themes i.e. 'alien' language and especially the alien nature of visual poetry to the uninitiated. In a sense, I am trying to 'decode' my ideas as they appear 'in space', the space on the page. The creative act is as mysterious as any fantastical fictitious creations. 

I'm sure I'll muddle through.

Meanwhile, here's another page from Back To Earth...

What's Your Type? exhibition photos

 

The exhibition last weekend.

Exhibition: What's Your Type? The Outsiders Gallery

 

Collage: Leave Me Alone

RTomens, 2025

 

Drawing 364

RTomens, 2025

Back to the drawing board because using the typewriter is tricky since the physical 'event'. I'm unable to actually lift the Olympia Beast. I can move a stool to where it sits but...

Making any form of art is a challenge now - oh no - the psycho drama...

Drawing 364 was done using carbon paper, as you can probably tell. I like the texture carbon paper creates. I like to think it's somewhere between Cy Twombly and El Lissitzky  - it isn't, but you don't mind me fantasising, do you?