2017 was jam-packed with work and events from start to finish. In the Spring the Música en Segura festival took me to Andalusia for Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time concert, for which I’d made images to be screened during the performance.
Back in the UK at the Lotte Inch Gallery in York, there was a two-person exhibition with my friend Sarah Raphael-Balme, and in Wales an exhibition at Oriel Tegfryn of all the drawings I’d made for the Random Spectacular Hansel & Gretel Picture Book published in 2016.
Below: specially-bound cover of Hansel & Gretel made for me by Christopher Shaw
The Hansel & Gretel Toy Theatre I’d designed for Benjamin Pollock‘s Toyshop in Covent Garden was launched, alongside a beautiful pop-up card based on the theatre and a handsomely packaged game of Hansel & Gretel ‘Pelmanism’.
I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts by Southampton Solent University. I lectured and/or taught at Southampton, Hereford and Cambridge, and these were wonderful interludes in an otherwise gruelling schedule of project deadlines. I guest curated an exhibition, Imagined Realms, at the Royal Cambrian in Conwy, and was able to invite a spectacular array of artists I both admire and love, to take part.
By far the lion’s share of effort went into completing the fourteen screenprint series in collaboration with Penfold Press, based on Simon Armitage’s 2007 translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in time for the forthcoming exhibition opening on Jan 10th at the Martin Tinney Gallery, Cardiff. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illuminating text from curator and art writer James Russell.
Below: separations on lithography film for The Exchange, and the completed print.
Below: Gouache, ink and pencil work on board – The Stain of Sin.
More news about what’s planned for the Gawain series to be announced shortly. News too of Hansel & Gretel, who are about to embark on a thrilling journey in the company of a whole bunch of old and new friends with whom to enjoy the adventure!
I’ll be making a visual accompaniment for Daniel Broncano’s Música en Segura 2018, this time to the music of Stravinsky –
– and there’s to be a sweetly pretty new Pollock’s Toy Theatre project.
In the US Marly Youmans has produced a scintillating new collection of poems that I’ll be making a book cover and decorations for, and there’s to be an edition of Jeffery Beam’s Spectral Pegasus poems, illustrated with my series of paintings from the Dark Movements series.
2018 is set to be a year of seeing long term projects developing in ways unanticipated at the times of starting them. Plenty of challenges ahead, then. And deadlines, of course. Always there are the deadlines.
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Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Artlog: 
Clive, that is an interesting roundup, crammed with the beautiful but also the unusual and sometimes quirky. And another Pollock’s piece to appear! Another magical toy window next Christmas…
I have a lot that may or may not happen next year that I am curious to see, but I know one that I can count on to be lovely and satisfying. Dancing with Clive, always wondrous!
Love and bushels of 2018 luck to you and Peter–
Dear Marly, may the year shine with adventures in creativity for both of us. It’s true that our dances together are always the most satisfying events, and I can’t wait to start on the one we have planned. I haven’t announced any details here because I thought that you or the publisher would do so when ready.
I will have to wait until the publisher does. (And I think they want the announcement closer to publication date, judging by another book.)
Well when everyone is ready, we’ll spread the news.
Simple…just have to “send chocolate!”
May your plates forever spin and it’s the ‘oops they might drop’ that’s surely part of the fun(?)
Ha Ha!
Love and peace forever and always…(and GOOD LUCK too)
B xxx
And if they drop and there’s an unholy mess, well I shall just have to make mosaics! Ha ha!
In your glorious, vivid colours…’many a true word spoken’…etc
B xxx
But not before I’ve had a good long rest. Ha ha!
Oh goody! lots of exciting things for us the ‘audience’ to look forward too! 🙂
My mind is slightly boggled by how much work you manage to fit into each year!
Ha ha. Reading back over what’s been done throughout 2017, I’m rather ‘boggled’ myself. It’s probably safe to admit now there’ve been several times when I’ve genuinely thought l’d taken on too much and that all the spinning plates were going to come crashing down on my head. But somehow I got to the end of the music and the end of the act without mishap, and here we are on the brink of an exhibition with all fourteen Gawain prints completed, a conclusion that hardly seems real after the many months of working long days and nights against the clock. The deadline for this project was always going to be tight, but as it turned out the amount of work required felt industrial in scale. It’s been kind of thrilling to work at such a pace, but right now I’m a man who could do with a week dozing in a hammock somewhere warm. Not going to happen!
Clive, thank you for sharing your art and your prose and for giving me an insight into a very different world. Without our random friendship through Facebook I wouldn’t have Hansel & Gretel on my coffee table.. Best wishes for 2018.
Paul, I too am grateful for the random connections and gifts of friendship that come through Facebook. For all that’s wrong with social media, there are many bonuses. A Happy New Year to you and yours, too. May we all shine and prosper.
viejecita commented on Farewell to 2017
“Really Impressive, Clive. Your 2017 was a year of nonstop work. For an Artist, and a Creator in so many fields, such work is Wonderful.
However, I hope this year you and Peter shall continue to reap what you sowed during the last two years, and that you shall have the leisure to relax, a little, and to enjoy the fruits of so much work. And then – and not before – that you shall start over with new paintings, new drawings, new projects, new stories. For your own enjoyment, of course, but also for the enjoyment of us all. And for the enjoyment of our children and grandchildren.”
So, Best Wishes for 2018
And Thank You for Everything
Love
María
Thank you Clive for saving my post from the dark
Congratulations Clive, what a fabulous and fascinating journey you are on, diversity is indeed the order of the day! Have a Happy and Healthy New Year xxx from rainy france!xxL
Oh my dear Liz, I send you and Graham a ton of love to spread across 2018. This year we WILL meet up. XXX
Exciting times ahead! You have already produced an astounding and outstanding body of work. Clive, this year make sure you make time to also look after yourself!
Congratulations.Xxx
Ahhh, sweet Lorrie. For me the ‘looking after’ is making sure there’s plenty of work ahead to get creative over. Health wouldn’t mean much without endeavour and anticipation, both of which are life’s blood for me. But I will do my best not to overdo things and conk out! Ha ha!
Sending love and oodles of it. xxx