RECENT WORK: JIM DUNKLEY.
Email: jimdunkley@googlemail.com
Over my career as an artist most of my work has drawn its energy and subject matter from life on the streets. In earlier work I built temporary sculptures on urban sites and more recently, as a performer and in videos and drawings I attempt to explore imaginatively the secret drama of the lives of the people we pass daily on the street. I feel that we are all part of a social nexus yet we are ingenious in our ability to create political and social systems that divide us. As an artist and writer my work contains an enduriing interest in political engagement and is available to everyone and owned by no-one.
While the drawings, performance and my writing are based on my response to the people in the environment where I live and work in Hackney, I recognize in the work an echo of my childhood upbringing in Leicester in the forties and fifties on streets long demolished and of people that exist only as ghosts in my memory. My work in performance also contains echoes of a childhood embedded in a family where everyone was expected to perform; to sing , tell jokes , stand on your head- just do something! As a shy boy I’d watch from the edge in wonder and later in life began to develop strands in my work that drew on this early experience.
I find sketchbooks useful for working out ideas and to gather information. Some of my sketchbook drawings are done for their own sake and a long series of drawings done at jazz venues have become just as much a part of my visits there as the jazz itself. Examples of my sketchbook work have recently been published in ‘Extraordinary Sketchbooks’ by Jane Stobart, published by A & C Black , now available to order from Amazon. A double page from this book is viewable in Jazz Drawings along with further examples of jazz club work.
You can see videos of my performance work on Youtube at my channel jimdunkley2. See examples in menu to right .
LATEST WRITING NEWS!! May 2012. A new story of mine ‘Accident’ has been accepted by Ether books is now downloadable. Seven other stories of mine are also available from Ether Books, an internet publisher providing fiction direct to your phone. Check out etherbooks.com to download the free app to your Iphone at http://bit.ly/bpvC84. Some of my stories are free, for others you pay a small fee. Stories include ‘My Lost Brother’ , ‘That Christmas Feeling’, ‘Getting the Joke’, ‘One Phone Call’ , ‘Everything Had Seemed Fine’ and “Marge , Judy Garland and me.’ and ‘Second Chance’ So get reading!!!
My stories are dark humoured, surreal and dramatic narratives. I hope to have further stories at Ether Books soon. See in menu for examples of stories you can read now.
I have also had two stories accepted at Raging Aardvark , an Australian short story website.
In recent work in progress I have responded to my first hand experience of the riots in Hackney near where I live and work. The Law and Order series is a personal and satiric interpretation of the chaotic disorder on the local streets. My interpretation of the subject is influenced by the many hours I have spent in the British Museum, where I teach drawing, absorbing the 2d and 3d work of early civilisations.
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Hoodie Jive 2012. 140x110cm ink on newspaper
Hoodies Run. 2012. newspaper and ink. 130×22
Police Force. 2012. newspaper, Ink. 240×175
Law and Order 2. 2011. 173x248cm. size variable. ink on newspaper
Law and Order 1. 2011. ink on newspaper. 173x210cm size variable
Hoodies Run 2. 2012. ink on newspaper. 170x210cm
Hit Copper. 2012. ink and newspaper. 230x230cm
In 2006 I began to make large scale drawings of people in my local community in Hackney. The figures are 3/4 life size and drawn in marker pen on polythene. They can be viewed individually or hung together to form groups, either wall-based or in an interior space as installations. During 2010 I further developed the drawing series by hanging them within cardboard constructions. In ongoing work I combine images with text to explore the internal world behind appearance.
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Seven Women. E8. A selection of drawings made of people in Mare st , Hackney. Figures 3/4 life sized .
What do you want? 2011. ink on polythene.67x87cm
Today’s news in Hackney. 2011. 84x170cm. marker pen, polythene,newsprint, clips.
Mort. 2011. 46x59x12. marker pen on polythene, clips.
Magic. 2011. 180x130cm. marker pen on polythene.
Spike after and before. 2011. mixed media.
Mag and Max. 2010. mixed media. 160x200cm
Frendz. 2010. mixed media. 160x200cm
Bag and lolly . 2007. Marker pen on polythene.
