Dr. Freakinstyle shirts

For a while I have been thinking about my discovery about the background of the clothing brand Superdry. I started checking them online, because I noticed that they make those very meaningless t-shirts by using random words that we associate with a 'wow' feeling. Can't describe it any better now, but examples of those words will draw the picture:

Elite
Team
Challenge
Trophy
Super
Epic
Real
Genuine
Class
League
Union
Legend
Crew
Authentic
Master
Race
United
….and many random names of places, provinces and countries.

I have always wondered why people would wear a t-shirt with, for example, 'Texas Challenge Trophy' without having been in Texas, without this trophy existing and even without those three words actually meaning anything, but that could just be me. I am the weird artist after all. So I didn't have to look far to discover that Superdry, which actually make some ok clothes but are ruining it with their 'empty' words,  is actually set up by to guys from Cheltenham and has nothing to do with Japan. Ok, there is a small link, this is from their website:' Inspired by a trip to Tokyo in 2003, Superdry fuses design influences from Japanese graphics and vintage Americana, with values of British tailoring. It actually raises lots of questions, but means they definitely don't come from Japan. Those random Japanese writing, could be anything really. Oh, and …..'unique urban clothing with incredible branding'….. Wow! I would love to wear a t-shirt with incredible branding, which basically means that it is all about the name.

Well, so to put my amazement and frustration about the mindless consuming of brands, I decided to make my own versions:

Yeah, so these are now on sale, off course I would like to gain some money over the efforts of two boys from Cheltenham selling meaningless crap! I see you might wonder why so much effort to point out a company that makes t-shirts? Who cares? Well, it is more my disappointment and frustration with society that people make so many uninformed choices as mindless sheep. The same thing can be seen around choices about our environment, economy, health etc. Examples are:

- Environment: always and always getting loads of plastic bags to carry their shopping, while they could have easily have taken their own bags.
- Economy: always thinking that you get a mobile for 'free' when taking a contract and still after ever finished contract taking a new one to get a new 'free' mobile phone.
- Health: thinking that only fat makes you fat and then buying 'light' products thinking that these engineered 'foods' would help them loose weight, it actually only fills the pockets of an industry that has made you fat in the first place, with some self responsibility off course.

But I also have these prints available, some in a distance based on the same idea, but won't bore you with that now:

Check them out on: www.shirtcity.co.uk/shop/drfreakinstyle Or drop me a line if you want something else!

GoGo the original

I have probably written more often about my GoGo bird, a crossover between Roadrunner and the extinct Dodo. This bird has popped up in my work every now and then in the last 4 years. It has popped up again, because the original sculpture based on this idea now finally has the base it needed. Four years ago, when I just was getting comfortable with this random idea to make sculptures, I create the first GoGo bird. Initially a test version with Fimo clay, which was the first clay I bought after being fed up with being unemployed. Then I decided to create it in epoxy clay so it would be more solid and this creation gave me the first feeling of; 'This is getting somewhere'!

Now for years later I have added the base to this sculpture that has laid the foundations the faith in myself as a sculptor.

After this sculpture I create more characters as crossovers and decided to clone them by creating a mould and casting them in resin. At the same time I was staring for 6 months at two skulls in my garden picked up during mountain biking and decided to use my style on them myself.
Initially, these two types of sculptures were quite separate and ever since I have been trying to mix them and in that process the GoGo has reappeared several times:

As a 'GoGo' skull:

As a GoGo fossil:

GoGo commissioned birds:

Last year adding to the story by adding a new predator in a fossilised scene:

I can't predict where this GoGo bird is taking me, but it was very nice to finally see a key piece getting the honour it needed by adding the base!

Oeps, I did it again!

I have been on a holiday for a few weeks, squeezing out the last few pennies on a holiday I'll probably won't make in the next decade. I went to those typical lovely tropical beaches with white sand and clear blue sea. I went to Thailand and visited some Islands in the south, deliberately not those famous tourist-run-over-alcohol-partying islands, no I went to some low profile islands with amazing beaches just for yourself. Off course I was most of the time disconnected from all the sculptures I wanted to make, but occasionally got some new ideas. However, this blogpost is mainly about what I saw there, with one item in particular.

I think most of you know my Urban Scoundrel called Traffic Cone Terrorist, which is based on the Hermit crab. Well, I saw loads and loads of these on the beaches of the islands I went to! They keep entertain me because they have such comical character. Every time I came close they would hide in their stolen shells hoping I wouldn't see them, often accompanied with the sound of  a shell clicking on the surface. Here is a video I took of one on our table.

Off course I found all kinds of shells, a knife and loads of other stuff, because that is how I am; I find stuff. Most of it I left in Thailand or gave away. I did saw two Dolphin skulls at the places I have been:

On the same island I found a vertebra of a Dolphin as well:

I didn't take it how to avoid any inconvenient Thai officials, besides, I already have bunch of these!

BUT, then I found this!

Some of you know I have been hope to get a Monkey skull for some time and I managed to find one. So initially I was very excited for 30 seconds and then realised it is illegal to just bring a Monkey skull into the UK, with the risk, although small risk, of getting caught in Thailand. Unfortunately I didn't bring it back to the UK and left it. One of the main reasons was that I would really like to exhibit it as well after I would have used it for a sculpture, but without any documents this would be a bit tricky. They don't go easy on these things. I am not too bothered with the illegal side of it, because I know I didn't take it by killing an endangered specimen and just having a skull like this in my house isn't enough for me anymore.
Yes, if anyone can donate a Monkey skull brought in the UK with the appropriate documents… I am still your man!

Anyway, I have proven again that I am able to find special bones and skulls in places completely new to me, but it might also be down to pure luck after also finding a Dolphin in the Algarve last year.

Cobra sculptures

At the start of the year I decided to create a new type of sculpture and decided to get inspired by the artists who were part of CoBrA. CoBrA was an art movement in the '40 and the name is a compilation of the cities where the leaders of this movement came from; Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.
The artist weren't very fond of the very intellectual art and the way other artists made their art too academic, so in contrast the preferred the abstract and spontaneous creation.

Both paintings by Karel Appel

So why pick this to be inspired by?
Well, first of all, I like quite a lot of the paintings. The use of bright colours is probably one of the reasons why I like them. Also, they were inspired by child like drawings and I like to create cartoon characters, both very child influenced.
Third reason is that these, mostly paintings, are abstract and I haven't done much abstract work and I somehow really want to make something more abstract.

First step was for me to start to making drawings of my own CoBrA-style and I picked these two as the best to base a sculpture on:

I made these drawings with vague idea of CoBrA in my head, so they are very different still. I have now started creating one of the two as a sculpture and already it moved away from the initial idea! The result will be fine, but realised my starting point was wrong. The sculpture coming out of it will look cool, though. This is a work-in-progress picture of today's result:

Not a great picture, but hopefully I can post the result soon on my fanpage on Facebook!

Sculptures vs paintings

I have recently been jumping around from sculpture to drawing/painting and back to use drawings to develop my ideas for new sculptures. I keep thinking about which is the most interesting medium to create things in and I think this just depends. In my case I just have a preference for sculptures in general, but it is always very tempting to create 2 dimensional artwork. For me it feels like making sculptures is the real thing and 2 dimensional artwork is recording the 3-dimensional artwork. Just like paintings were made to show what happened, what someone looked like (portrait), etc. Or photos to record important moments in our lives.

Even abstract paintings are a 'recorded' expression of something that exists, but nobody has every seen it in that way.

Off course it is easy to argue about the right paintings have in the art world and that it is just as real as sculptures, but for me it feels different. Nevertheless, I will keep making both because some things just work better on paper or canvas.
There is a benefit on having 2-dimensional 'recording' media; it is easier to get more events, ideas or feelings in your house by choosing a less space demanding form. Sculptures just take in more room.

Oh, by the way, I have changed the domain of my website into www.drfreakinstyle.com. The old address will stay available for now and I still need to change all the addresses on all my social media…...

Two great exhibitions: Chapman brothers & Grayson Perry

Two of my favourite artists are having an exhibition at the moment!

The first one is an exhibition of work from Grayson Perry. A few years back he made tapestries to describe differences between the classes in the UK and his research was made into a documentary. A documentary about the classes would have been interesting by itself for me not being British, but adding the work of Grayson Perry made it extra cool! I love his work in which he uses old traditional media to express modern things, mainly to describe different people. You can see his work in Manchester Art Gallery till 2nd of February.

The second exhibition is of artwork from the Chapman brothers. They have created some amazing scenes of small figures and they are quite grim!
This exhibition is held in the Serpentine Gallery in London. Bit far away for me, but would otherwise have definitely be planning to go there!

Pretentious art folk

Small adjustment to the art world of a quote from the film Pulp Fiction by the character Marcellus:


This profession is filled to the brim with pretentious motherfuckers. Motherfuckers who thought their ass would determine what is art and what is not. If you mean their subjective opinion leads them to pick boring conceptual crap nobody understands, you're right. If you mean choosing visual pleasing works that will have impact on the years to come, you're wrong.



And yet there are people that don't place themselves above someone else and don't feel the need to lift themselves or an artwork with complicated language. They just pick what they like and I love that! Even if they don't like my work, it is honest and fair.

There are only very few people in the art world that actually have skills in judging art without being caught in a spiral of hyping work to sell or to climb on a higher rank. They can tell the difference between innovative challenging work from random weirdness.


I can't I can only judge what I know. I find it very hard to judge an abstract painting for instance and just fall back by saying whether I like it or not.