A gallery of images of a recently completed maquette. What I like about this figure is that whether presented in a plausible configuration of human anatomy, or placed in positions that are more untethered at the attachment points than could be managed with a living model, it’s never less than compositionally engaging. Made in the likeness of American dancer, Jordan Morley, it’s one of several of him being used as compositional aids for new works I’m preparing for my forthcoming exhibition at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Dark Movements.
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Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Artlog: 
This is great. I love the ¿ violet ? gloves, and the way he uses them. Reminds me a bit of a treatise my grandmother gave me, on the use beautiful ladies of her youth made of fans. What they covered, what they showed for a tiny fragment of time, what every movement meant. They used their fans in special coded ways, as a kind of mysterious language.
The notion of Jordan’s violet gloves being the formal equivalent of ‘fan language’, is an intriguing one. I love the idea of the be-gloved hands hiding and revealing… as they do in my photographs of the maquette… and of them evolving almost into separate entities. I shall have to create an elaborate series of coded gestures for them, just as your grand mamma observed in the beautiful ladies of Spain, executing coquettish displays of allure by means of fans!
I don’t quite know how the gloves have slipped into this work. I don’t, as far as I can remember, have a glove fetish, though I clearly favour partial stages of undress to complete nudity, and I can’t deny the eroticism of Jordan’s semi-nakedness combined with those tightly fitted, vivid gloves. Certainly the jacket and the gloves together produce a fetishistic and homoerotic tone in the images. The maquette is in preparation of a series of paintings for my forthcoming exhibition, ‘Dark Movements’, and I think, Maria, that you have just upped the stakes for me in the way I envisage the paintings. Thank you!
WOW !!!
There are quite a lot of ‘sausages’ in this post, so I had to be very careful reading it whilst at work!
I love the colours against the background paper as well 🙂
Ha ha! What a tasty euphemism!
just beautiful!
And I love the brown paper background. It’s a gorgeous, muted palette.
Thank you, Judy. I’m so pleased you like this.
Excellent!xxL
It was a head-scratcher, but I’m pleased with the result.
Sending love to you and G. XXX
Wowed, you’ve totally nailed it Clive, the maquette looks so fluid and alive, it’s a very beautiful thing, the opportunities for different poses and compositions look amazing
Hello my little Berlin Buddy. I like to think of you watching over my endeavours from far away. This one has been tricky, but I like what’s emerged, and I’m pleased as punch you like it.
Big ones coming your way. XXXX
You already know I am rather a fan of Jordan’s blue gloves, rakish scarf and no trousers combo as a fashion statement. It certainly captures one’s attention!
On a more serious note, I am totally disarmed how you manage to imbue your maquettes with such life and character. I am left imagining your Jordan, when alone tonight in the studio at Ty Isaf, coming to life to rehearse for his forthcoming existential dance with the Mari Lwyd. Truly magical!
I’m sure that Mr Morley will be tickled by your liking for the odd combo of gloves and no trousers. Not a sartorial style one sees much of on the high street, but it seems to have become a theme of the work I’m currently producing.
If the Jordan maquette is rehearsing when my back is turned, I wish that I could catch him at it. Mind you, there have recently been some unaccountable sounds around Ty Isaf, including this morning when I heard a distinct snoring from somewhere, and at a time when Peter is away. Jack was in the room with me, and so it wasn’t him. What can be going on? Can this ‘mini-me’ Jordan be taking an unexpected step out of the notional and into the actual?
I wish! 😉
oh, look at him–he can’t stay still! of *course* he’s up there frolicking when your back is turned 😀
love these love these love these
Thank you, Mr Beam. I hoped you might consider them interesting. Glad that you found them to be so.