Art is Everywhere

It might seem like Old Ken has been offering a lot of posts about art recently. But this is not quite a fair presentation of the case. For art, that old strumpet, has simply been offering herself to yours truly with something like indecorous abandon. So, I'm going to keep my yappin' pretty short and sweet here, just so we can have a little glimpse of the amazing art to be found on the streets of London-town.



The gentleman you see represented in the two photographs above is one the O.K. has dubbed the "Yellow Man." As you will perhaps recall from the post about May Day festivities at Oxford, the "Green Man" is something of an important character in English vernacular folk culture—a symbol of fertility and rebirth. Our Yellow Man (as seen above in profile, with beady eye and darkened moustache turned toward our right) seems to derive from a less well known tradition. Composed in the present instance from what appears to be a clever concoction of construction site materials—some sort of light, congealed glue imbedded with rocks, glass fragments and vegetal matter—he must certainly be a golden god of summer. As he was recently discovered, might he be the patron saint of the summer solstice? I leave this to your erudite judgment.



From things golden and erudite, I'm afraid we next need to move on to something a bit more blue (in all senses of the term). As it was included within a collection of works on paper Old Ken found on the streets of South London (an absolute treasure trove of art, as suggested in the examples below), I feel required to share it. But, as astutely observed by a colleague, is she supposed to be wearing ice skates?



Another artful delight found in the pile described above. The most complimentary remark I can offer for this curiosity is the interesting use of black paper, which gives the whole affair a bit of a painting-on-velvet feel. If only we were so lucky!



Judging from the distortion perceptible in the representation of the model's face and the evident pleasure taken in such a cavernous presentation of her cleavage, Old Ken would have thought that the artist here might have been male. Therefore, it was some surprise to see the name "Alison" creeping up the righthand vertical border of the page. Have we just learned more about the predilections of Alison, or the biases of Old Ken? How, how!



Finally, it seems best to conclude with what might well be a self-portrait. The flattening of the facial features, which suggests work from a mirror, combined with the decorative, rather perfunctory treatment of the background suggest to Old Ken that someone (Alison again?) was perhaps completing her self-portrait requirements for art class. Well, she gets an A+ from yours truly.