My holiday card

Okay, so it's after Christmas but at least it's before New Years....drum roll please, the Chris Beacham annual (except last year) holiday card!

Blooms in December. Ink and collage on watercolor paper, 2011

Quote on back: "Cease looking for flowers, there blooms a garden in your own home" (Rumi)

If you want one just let me know and send me an address. Oh and have a fun and safe New Years!

A new piece and a comment on Damien Hirst's Spots

I painted a new piece that is basically a series of squiggly lines with some of the created areas filled. It is a pretty simple piece from a simple process. It's been sitting there waiting for me to decide whether it is finished or not. I've been coming down on the side of "Finished!" knowing of course that unfinishing is always possible whereas continuing to paint can have disastrous and irrevocable results. So here it is as of today.

Squiggles #1. Acrylics on canvas, 24 x 20

Then this morning's NYT had an article on the painter Damien Hirst who is filling all 11 of Larry Gagosian's galleries across three continents with about 200 paintings -- all his famous spot paintings that go for upwards of $1.8 million each. I like some of Hirst's work; he's inventive, talented and unafraid. But his spot paintings.....not so much. So when I look at one of the paintings like this one....

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

You can buy the above print (signed edition of 300) here for just £10,000

....I think mine's not so simple after all. There's much wrong with the art scene these days and the fact that the spot paintings will move to the Tate Modern afterwards is one indication. This isn't as bad as a Jeff Koon's balloon dog but I don't think it's museum quality either. (And I'm not claiming mine is better. YMMV as they say.)