Blog 7

I have done a few pieces like the four shown above.They are four broadsheet newspaper pages glued together and painted on .I like the size and the impact they have.The small protest signs peeping in the corners of these pieces have featured in a few of my sketchbook designs. Time Magazine voted 'The Protester' their person of the year for 2011.But fuck Time Magazine.

Blog 6

A lot of the pieces I did in this style were done in black and white.These ones are brightly coloured.I chose four broadsheet newspaper sheets, carrying stories relating to the economic crash as well as sheets with interesting illustrations and colours.I used collage on some of them.The blue one reads 'Big Huge Debt' and the orange one reads 'Process not Protest'.

Blog 5

I made some protest signs.I was interested in how the Occupy movement had so many points to make but no real clear manifesto.These signs carry no text.The peaks and lows in black and white are inspired by the buisness section graphs that are constantly pushing the seriousness of an economic situation most people do not understand.The banking class and governments of the world are making artists out of everybody.The people who protest invariably make a sign to take with them.Some use tape.Some use marker pen.Some use text.Some use images.Sometimes both.Not everybody is aware that they are making art.This I find interesting.

Blog 4

The interesting thing about the protest is that the protester has been motivated to make art by his / her desire for justice or equality,mostly unaware of the fact that art is being made.The motivation is often universal but the methods are very different.One of the placards on display at Occupy Wall Street read 'This Is A Process Not A Protest'.This is a moot point because the protester engages in a process when creating a placard for protest.

Blog 3

I am using text a lot in my work.The first piece photographed above reads 'anothernightofbrokenglasstheworkingfightbacktherulingclass' and features lyrics to a song I wrote last year.I have researched other artists working with text such as Christopher Wool and David Shrigley.I think the power of text is very under rated.If you look at some of the work by artists such as Barbara Kruger or Jenny Holzer you will often find text and not much else.Minimal and to the point, usually with a socially or politically aware undercurrent, these artists have mastered the 'less is more' approach to hard hitting art.

Blog 2

I am using newspaper as my main medium. Newspaper is dated. It carries the issues of the day. Or what the newspaper publisher deems to be the issues of the day. I like the fact that it is not a blank canvass. It is an immediate subtext. Quite literally. 2011 has been a year of protest and civil unrest. Europe is evolving from a social democracy into an oligarchy. Democracy and democratic values are eroded with every passing day.The newspaper loses the ordinary man in columns of economic jargon and stories of how we got here.A lot of it fiction.I like the idea of taking the shit they hand down, painting some truth on it, and putting it back up. 

Blog 1

To mark my first blog I have chosen to upload a self portrait which I did today.In the top left corner you will see newspaper.At the moment I am using newspaper as a medium a lot.I am painting on it.I am making collage with it.My project deals with Movement in a political context and I have been focusing on the recent 'Occupy' movement that has been sweeping the globe in the past few weeks.The fact that the mainstream media has been largely ignoring these protests and the fact that I am using newspapers as my canvas to try and make a visual representation of the mood that this movement and its sign art is potraying, has a healthy dollop of irony which I like a great deal.

Robbie Gannon