TOMMYTEXT: Funston Parade: all the fun all the funston!

Funston Parade was my first ever Solo show. It ran from march 2006 to May 2006 at De Montfort Hall in Leicester. While it was on the main show at De Montfort Hall was Cats.
Im currently taking all pictures of my artwork of facebook because of the curfuffle about their rights to images, so I thought I'd put them up on here. there will be more to come.
Funston is not a place. It was rumoured in the press (I managed to a get in mentioned in The Metro, the Leicester Mercury and the Guardians's Guide magazine) that funston is the name of the world my drawings depict, but that is wrong. The things I draw are (unless specifically stated) set in our very own reality. Funston is just one of the words I like to use. I have a note book of drawings from summer 2002 called funston, and Richard Peel used to give me some space for my drawings in the first few issues of the fantastic (and sadly no longer produced) Magic Life zine, these pages where titled Super Funston. The Following images are from Funston Parade, they are all acrylic paint on flattened cardboard boxes, that i got from my old job at HMV (top dog for music, dvd and games). Cardboard is way better than canvas:

Here is a self-portrait. Its me. I did it. It wasn't actually a study using a mirror, I did it using a picture I found inside of my head. Pretty much all of Funston Parade was not drawn from life and came out of my head. It started off as a painting of a rabbit. I didnt fully cover the ears as some people called me Tommy Rabbit at the time I thought it wouldnt hurt. I nearly went for www.tommyrabbit.com for my website. Tommy rabbit is rhyming slang for pomegranite.

This is pretty much the first funston parade painting I actually did. I did it at the Dot Open Studios day in september 2005. Its actually two seperate boxes. It is now the property of a Mr Mark Brown.

This was the first painting I did after I'd been asked by Hugo from Leicester's City Gallery if I'd like to do a show in the space. Thanks Hugo. Hugo is a very nice guy. I got the news just before Christmas and it made me very happy. I'd actually failed to get some of them in the city gallery's annual open exhibition, but failed. While they were in the process of being denied entrance Hugo saw them. I didn't get into the open exhibition but got a solo show instead. Hooray!

This guy is one of my favourites, and its also one of the biggest paintings it was based on a sketchbook drawing I'd done in 2003 see below

This is my favourite Funston Parade painting, and it currently hangs in my livingroom. Its called Log, which is the name of the main guy. The background is based on the background of the Mona Lisa by an artist called Leonardo Da Vinci (see below). When I was doing my A levels we had to do a portrait painting about a famous painter, I spent ages recreating the background from the mona lisa to go behind Da Vinci (I made his face in 3d relief and painted the body, I remember it being quite good especually one of the hands but I think my memory of it is rose tinted). Ever since ive been really fond of the background hence my using of it here.

Da Vinci was popular in the old days for doing paintings and pretending to invent stuff like tanks and the helicopter. His work is still popular today despite being old fashioned and religious. Splinter named the turtle, Leonardo, after him. Da Vinci placed clues about the true history of Jesus Christ in the mona lisa (see the Da Vinci Code by historain Dan Brown)

This one makes me think of russian dolls and world war one. I always felt that people didnt like this one. I entered this one in the 2006 open exhibition. it didnt get in.

This one is nice and pink. I was happy to keep the cardborad box exposed in places and I think it works well on this one.

This ones painted a bit differently from the others. Its a flower head, which i used in one of my second year projects on my Fine Art Ba.

This painting is called Lampy Lamp. This was the painting the showed in the metro. I like it but felt it didnt represent the whole show. Log would have been my choice.

A little guy. This one is abit closer to my drawing style. With these paintings i was trying to connect the drawings I did with the kind of style I used to use in my life paintings. My drawings were always clear and precise. My paintings abit looser. All my paintings are done with the same fairly big brush. Its the only one I like to use.