User:Nealehowells

hello i am the artist neale howells and i live in a little place called wales... but my life started a long time ago.. i was born in neath a market own in wales which incidently is part of the united kingdom.. it must have been something in the water because there has been some great creative people from this area and i mean local... ray milland, richard burton,various film connections with two people bein instrumental to the buggles video killed the radio star... the first ever video that was shown on mtv... alfred russel wallace the scientist who had his work of evolutional controviousally nicked by the bald english guy charles darwin... micheal sheen around the corner baglan edward thomas now head of the dr who team... arhhh who else now... well look thisis supposed to be about me so if i remember any more of these starts ten ill drop them in... i got involved in art purely by accident... it was offered as the only alternative subject at my local college in neath... yep so i took it up... but due to there being a great teacher ian wagstaff heading the course then it was possiable to see art in a different way... yes i got excited by how what a creative media it was... so i dillegently studied hard... being in the art studio everyday as long as i could... this was a part time course mind you but my imagination was openned... i was in and just could get enough... so after they locked those doors then i would carryon working outdoors... it was really nearly twent four hours a day but i loved it.. well you had to be that committed... in those two years i was there i felt i produced enough work of five years... i learned quickly... i was later to be awarded for my commitment with a itv arts award from the college... a big silver cup which i could keep for a year...  i set off for bath college after getting an unconditional entry which we later found out meant that i was in no matter what qualifications i had... but you know what... when i got to college i realised somethig quite quickly and that was i new nothing... this realisation mademe work harder to understand what art was... the answer to this was simple... art was a set of rules which once yo learned you ripped them up and done your own thing... some artists believe that if you are an artist then why go to college... well my answer would be if there is and easy or hard road take the hard road becauseyou learn more... and college was certainly that.. if art is about questioning yourself then college made you question everything you done... it was hard.. but its what i wanted.. i was into art not for an easy ride but to push myself... and i believe i did that... i didnt get easy for me either with me missing two terms by being in hospital there... but it was while lying in that bed that i read and started seeing letters as something other than thet were... as if they were drawings... so that let me thing about language and how perhaps its humans best invention... so these things may happen for a reason.. well you just get on withit all and justify it.. i remember having a spritual encounter which later let me start thinking about is there really life after death.. i then startedloking into black magic and soon found out how mant artists had some connection with area... i began looking into other artists and started to wonder if they to was involved like henry moore... i know henry moore the best british artist ever in my opinon... i used to locate his actual works and take pencil rubbuings off them.. i noticed how the markings would look like some strange writtings and so try and make a relationship with that and perhaps some incantations... yeahso done that for a while and i tell you what we had such a great libary in bath as there was plenty of books on the subject... not specifically mr moore but others like felican rops who was a french artist that was found dead in mysterious circumstances in a public toilet in paris sometime in the 19th century covered in blood.... so college was great.. done some interesting stuff.. well i thought so but i was definately more of a hands on person rather than the intellectual type... i mean i could compete with the otehr students there and give them something to think abou perhaps but art for me is more about using your hands than using your mind... i can remember when susan hiller was a visiting lecture and she used the word concept in her question... well i just asked i dont know that word what does it mean... it was if some one had sh*t in her mouth... she looked at me and said you dont know what that word means.. i said no are you going to tell me... and she didnt... she would not tell me... now i hadnt heard that word before so how was i to know it.. this woman is now a video artist with quite a considered repretation...but thats art for you... i have always been more working class than upper class...art for me is real... not something that is more about talking... i see that today though where art is so much written about that the people who write it have forgotton what they are writting about.. you like the look of it... thats good enough for me...

when i first got to college i shared a studio with paul harrision and helen jones... both doing very well in the arts... paul has teamed up with another paul... a paul wood and call and call themselves harrison and wood and produce homourous videos... i occasionally see those i was in college with but its a rarity... the college years soon went and then it was ime to think about after college... we were all told to apply for post graduate so i choose london as my destination... it was slade college for me... it stood for those who were doing something slightly different.. i didnt get and interview and was told they really like students to take a year out... well that stretched to fivein my case so by the time i reapplied i felt i had done my postrad... but i was forunate to get an interview but duringthat i decided to have what homer simpson eventually had... an aphinany... a sudden realisation of great truth... and my gresat truth was i was talking shit.. i told them this and they all nodded.. five of them mind you and all relentlas in the questioning.. so its no wonder i sort of freaked out.. anyway i felt a huge weight had been lifted of my shoulders as i didnt need to impress anybody any more.. and would you believe it they asked me if i wanted to start there... na they didnt but i would have stil gone if they ha... i really like the slade but it was not to be... i started exhibiting soon after which made not getting in a little better.. it was 1995 and it was my first national eisteddfod of wales.... iwan bala and jill percy were the judges then.. they chose two pieces.. i new things was going to go to plan when i felt like ripping them of he walls when i seen them at the show.. it was about the time damian hirst won the turner prize and i have always felt that he was my contemporary.. anyway to get on in the art world you must be bold so seeingthe works that i did just sitting there not really doing muc pissed me off... i think anger seem to come through a lot of the work that i did.. anger as a way of finding a real point of expression for a work.. thats just the way it was for me... anger on my own work.. anger with other artists work... i was out in cyprus at a summer school where i trashed theis girls work... i cut it up with a knife... i mean the sherk she made that next day... crying and sobbing... i felt a little responiable but that what art was for me... ill give you an exmaple... the same girl was painting one day.. very accurately so asked her if she would like to have a go on mine.. she eventually said and suddenlystarted expressing a way of painting that was more energetic exciting even... so what was it that made this person change the way she painted... well it had to be the fact that she felt imprisoned by her own work but free when she thought it wasnt her own work she was spoiling... so that was my initnal impulse.. give her a real understanding of art by slashing her work... its just one of those things which you look back on... its not life or death just a way of learning... and yes at the time i would destroy the work i was doing and invite others to do it although that never really quite worked out... http://www.artistnealehowells.webs.com