Rachael House joins flyingleaps
Genderqueer Human Rights Deity, 2020
Rachael House is a very busy bee who makes events, objects, performance, drawings and zines. Currently on sabbatical from her role as co-director of Space Station Sixty-Five – an artists’ run space in Kennington, London, established in 2002 – she has made well over a hundred drawings in lockdown.
These monochromatic brush and ink works are graphically bold, inventively patterned and freshly rendered figurative images paired with hand lettered, pithy texts. More often ranging across two or four square panels, House addresses a spectrum of issues that also speak to the wider UK society and latterly our pandemic psyche. There’s also more directly political expressions in support of sacked South Bank workers and the Tate strike; animal rights; the Tory government’s malfeasance and incompetence as well as the Labour centrist betrayal of progressive politics. She doesn’t mince her words.
In more personal pieces there’s a tenderness and vulnerability that leavens the obvious exasperation. Subjects tackled include: the disabling effect of rolling news on her mental health where her visualisation captures that sense of being under siege many of us are feeling;
House’s disgruntlement at blokey, meaty BBQs might be a niche grumble but she makes a good case; her admitting to iffy balance and flawed sense of direction and plea for more open top buses is comical and relatable; the difficulties posed by having to wear glasses, hat and face masks at the same time as the weather gets colder is spot on.
With her debut flyingleaps poster House is emphasising that human rights include trans rights and genderqueer positivity. Displayed on the streets to coincide with International Human Rights Day on December 10th, House’s Genderqueer Human Rights Deity (2020) is one of a series of captivating single panel works that feature an ouroboros – a snake devouring its own tail – symbolising the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth. The sloughing of skin suggests the transmigration of souls and the tail biting snake is also a symbol of fertility.
In the void of the snake circle House has created variously serene, always arresting faces made up of ancient glyphs, signs and figurative details. Patterned textures and further protective motifs in the design afford a distinctive character to the works so that while they all rail against assorted injustices each has its own particular expression. There’s an owl-like Minerva, goddess of wisdom, quality to them that suggests a measured, calm, righteous questioning rather than aggressive confrontation. A thoughtful approach that is something of a breath of fresh air in these febrile times.
On the Street
Oh ‘Ello (2020) Magda Archer
In Archer’s ‘Oh ’Ello…’ (2020) a shiny, somewhat raw ‘n’ sore looking red bear opines wearily “More New Rules”, with the rollercoaster line ‘Here We Go!’ completing the picture. Kays’ ‘Tories’ (2020) writ large in a font and design that brings to mind a certain supermarket giant beginning with the letter ‘T’ is tagged underneath in a chirpy script… ‘Very Little Help’.
Tories (2020) Hayden Kays
Whereas Tesco might claim a smidgen of benificence while pocketing soaring profits the same cannot be said for our government. While MPs got a pay rise, key workers and the creative industries have been very poorly served throughout. And how on earth do you justify not ensuring hungry kids get at least one meal and day in the holidays? You don’t. They’re not even bothering to hide their malice but respond only with that oh-so-trite line about not letting people become ‘dependent on the state’. Dido Harding and the rest benefitting from dodgy procurements seem to be doing alright. If only the Tories were dealing with this pandemic as expertly as they’re delivering Brex… Oh.
Buy More Shit (2022) Modern Toss
Fact (2022) Modern Toss
Modern Toss is the legendary cartooning duo comprising Jon Link and Mick Bunnage. For nigh on two decades they’ve given us not just lols but also a form of much needed allyship when it comes to challenging social norms like the ‘advantages’ of work. There’s next to none if you’re stuck in a bullshit job. Turning their critical eye towards the consumerist economy and our finite planet in their brilliant poster we see a helicopter hovering over a drab busy street, its speakers blare out the apocalyptic double bind we find ourselves in: ‘BUY MORE SHIT OR WE’RE ALL FUCKED’.
Fact (2022) Hayden Kays
Fact (2022) Hayden Kays
The latest brace of flyingleaps artists’ posters to hit the streets proffer both a mind-boggling truth and seemingly insurmountable tragedy.
The ingenious Hayden Kays is known for his unflagging visual invention, pithy wit and wry take on societal ills as well as human foibles. ‘FACT’ (2022) is a classic in this latter vein. Against a vivid pink ground in his signature black typewriter font Kays relays a truth that is a constant source of bafflement. Given that male behaviour time and again ranges from idiotic and self-entitled to frankly unspeakable the text presents a persistent riddle: ‘If you think sexuality is a choice, how do you explain the fact that women still like men?’
Phone Your Mum Back (2022) Lee Baker & Catherine Borowski
Phone Your Mum Back (2022) Lee Baker & Catherine Borowski
Poignant with a big ‘P’, political with a small ‘p’, the latest flyingleaps’ poster by Lee Baker and Catherine Borowski titled PHONE YOUR MUM BACK (2022) is also a subtle swat at the commodification of motherly love.
Some of us can’t, of course. Our mum’s have already ‘passed the Fields of Gazing Grain, […] passed the Setting Sun.’ And, perhaps even more dispiriting, there’s a few who would hesitate to do as the poster suggests for complicated, personal reasons.
On another level, with its lush colouring and the unambiguous nudge to do something considerate, PHONE YOUR MUM BACK is a gorgeous and kindly intervention on streets throughout the UK. flyingleaps is thrilled to play a part in supporting this latest public art foray by two inspiring artists.
The floral design features a giant, deep lilac and burgundy bloom together with a sumptuous red flower: both appropriately chrysantheMUMs. At the top of the poster a solitary bee skips amidst health-giving echinacea. At the foot, dark blue poppy petals crinkle in the breeze.
Blue flowers are said to connote love and inspiration. Another association is that the colour blue in flowers stands for people who would like to reach for the unreachable and wouldn’t leave a stone unturned in order to accomplish their goals.
Prisoner of More (2021) Benjamin Irritant
Prisoner of More (2021) Benjamin Irritant
Legend has it that Benjamin Irritant was raised by a colony of anarcho-syndicalist eco-warrior rabbits. He’s certainly been a distinctive voice on the street for decades. Irritant by name, relentless paste-aholic by nature, his work covers the spectrum from sweet utopianism to a screaming disbelief at the recurrent stupidity of humankind. Some of his interventions leave passersby in no doubt. Hence, four of his typically pithy texts on a wall read: ‘Success is based on growth’, ‘Growth is based on consumption’, ‘The earth has finite resources’, ‘You do the math(s)’.
Irritant has developed a wealth of captivating visual motifs. His rabbits play various roles. ‘It’s our world too’ reads a placard held by a rabbit in the throes of being arrested. Another forlorn solitary rabbit figure bears a sign that says, ‘Forget you ever saw me’. A more gangsterish half-masked bunny printed atop an exploded diagram is coupled with the phrase ‘We are ungovernable’. They may look simple, straightforward – that’s part of their allure – but the wordplay is always sharp, deft. And in a work referencing the invention of a magic trick: ‘The great wizard of the north’s hat rabbit says save the planet, smash the state. Don’t buy the illusion. Life isn’t beautiful until it’s beautiful for everyone. That’s where the real magic lies’ there’s a rich narrative history waiting to be discovered.
Anti-consumerism is a constant theme. Irritant’s goggle-eyed boy’s face with ‘They lie’ and ‘We buy’ plastered across his spectacle lenses being one iteration. A figure with a blocky object for a head – varieties of radio and television sets – accompanied by concise phrases often appears. The latest flyingleaps artist’s poster belongs to this rich vein of Irritant’s prolific output. A mottled figure with an antique radio for a bonce looms in front of the phrase ‘Prisoner of More’ on repeat. It’s the perfect antidote to Xmas excesses. There’s a label round the figures neck that also reads ‘Prisoner of More’ if anyone is in doubt.
In the street, gallery shows and personal collections Irritant’s innovative, witty, idiosyncratic collage style of image making spliced together with economic, conscientious wordsmithery is just what we need right now. As another of his human scale paste-up bunny interventions would have it: ‘The world won’t change itself’.
The Opposite to a Feminist is an Arsehole (2021) Sarah Maple
The Opposite to a Feminist is an Arsehole (2021) Sarah Maple
While studying art at college Sarah Maple relished the horrified reaction of a tutor and some peers when she showed a photo. triptych of her holding up signs. In the first image she’s wearing a hijab and modest full-length red dress with a sign that reads: ‘I wish I had a penis’. Second, she’s in a red bra and panties, her sign reads: ‘Because then I’d fuck you’. Finally, dressed in a dark suit and red tie, her third sign is: ‘Then steal your job’.
Ever since then her wide-ranging practice been infused with critical wit. In 2009 Maple and thirty accomplices enacted an intervention across London by inserting an alternative Page Three into numerous copies of The Sun newspaper, it was the 40th anniversary of this tabloid ‘innovation’. The artist explained, “I wanted people to question why we have Page Three. It’s been forty years too long really.”
In the brilliant series ‘Portraits With Fans’ we see her standing together with ‘A-List’ male artists posing with their always-on faces while Maple looks marvellously glum.
The artist’s forays into mixed media have taken many forms including her ‘Celebrities in Stone’ series which translate inane tabloid headlines – MEGHAN MARKLE’S AVOCADO SNACK FUELS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES – into carved marble tablets which ironically highlights the facile nature of what passes for news in the mainstream media.
Maple pulls no punches. A jotted text in fuschia pink deftly makes the case for women’s social, economic and political equality: ‘THE OPPOSITE TO A FEMINIST IS AN ARSEHOLE’. Simples.
Same Shit Different Day (2021) Magda Archer
Same Shit Different Day (2021) Magda Archer
If our pandemic circumstances are not very funny then Archer’s rendering of woodgrain really is. Fat stripes and a few seagulls (like, after a bit, the artist got a bit bored of fat stripes). Archer often inflects her painting style to suit her subjects. Same Shit Different Day is spot on. It’s a painting – and we know paint is involved ‘cos it says so on the can! – that parallels our profound ennui. It’s angry too. A furious, furry cri de coeur.
We keep going. Not to let the side down please note s/he got ribboned up to go out vandalising. And it’s a blue sky day, clouds are doing that scudding thing they do, our bear has probably been detained by the authorities and can expect a long stretch of confinement for their anti-social outburst. Plus ça change? Archer has helped us smile at our melancholy.
*Apologies, cannibalised this line off the wonderful Emma Arnold talking about the inspiring Jeff Ferrell.
Daily Poo (2021) Chunky Mark
Daily Poo (2021) Chunky Mark
Daily Poo (2021) is the artist’s latest comical critique in a career that’s taken many forms: Dancing outside New Scotland Yard wearing a tutu and pig mask; Sending grannies into space by means of a customised shopping trolley and rickety wooden ramp (having first, of course, briefed potential candidates before lift-off, “Are you sure you’re going to cope with all the public interest that’s likely to follow your space mission?” (prescient shades of Bezos and Branson there!); Dining on corgi and swan in protest at royal misdemeanours…
During the stormy Brexit years McGowan’s pointed Dada provocations gave way to critical interviews with politicians, activists, journalists, academics and everyday folk as to the fall out caused by ex-PM David Cameron gifting the right wing of his party a UK EU referendum.
During the pandemic by various means he’s continued to call out Tory incompetence, their lies, the devious and criminal chumocracy. What’s more, while Chunky’s observations can engender rage, the artist also regularly elicits tears of laughter.
Look out for Mark McGowan’s work appearing in the forthcoming BEANO exhibition at Somerset House this autumn. As his Daily Poo (2021) poster typifies, critical mischief making is his speciality.
Monsters (2021) Bortusk Lear
‘Is this the sign you’ve been looking for?’, ‘Keep fuckin smiling’ and ‘Love every day’ is a boggle eyed, buck-toothed, dribbling gum bleed of a triptych. Leer creates monsters in various media but the trio of new flyingleaps posters echo his own forays into the street where he pastes up sheets of newsprint of single monsters holding up signs.
The messages literally signalled range from the profane to free advice on well-being. Beyond that the colours, inventive compositions, the graphic energy and gurning expressions convey an anarchic joie de vivre that’s contagious. Leer’s public workshops are hugely popular with kids and adults alike. Sometimes only minutes in the making, watching the artist devise a new monster it seems that their appearance is as much a surprise to him as anyone else. Their creation is a mischievous performance of discovery and fun.
Displayed in the street Leer’s monsters assume the role of urban jesters, mocking the attention seeking consumer spectacle. Spray painted and marker penned on top of the daily news, obliterating pages of The Sun or Telegraph, etc., they also imply a mocking attitude toward the constant stream of distraction offered up by the mainstream media. But most of all they bring a smile to people’s faces. And that is a generous gift, especially during a global pandemic. As it says on the artist’s Insta. bio. ‘Art’s not serious, being dead is.’
All that we've got (2021) Angry Dan
Rainbows? Monsters? Comic Artrage? Sharp, virulent visual and text based socio-political poster interventions on the streets? All of the above, of course. Kicking off with Rainbows…
Our latest flyingleaps collaboration is with the artist and poet Angry Dan who’s earning quite a reputation for himself across London and further afield.
His eye-catching prints and murals that pair delighting, vivid and witty imagery together with wise-cracking limericks are a fillip for the eyes and smile inducing balm for sore spirits. Oh, and sometimes a heart-breaking call to action when you take a moment to stop and think for a while.
‘All That We’ve Got’ (2021) might at first sight seem like a lightweight paean to drippy optimism. It’s not. Sure it’s bright, looks gorgeous and you can’t really miss noticing it but the full quote takes us to an ever more pressing ethical and existential dilemma.
We are fucking over planet earth at an exponential rate. And, as astronomer Carl Sagan noted, now and for the foreseeable future it’s the only home we’ve got. This lonely speck, a pale blue dot in the great enveloping cosmic darkness, needs not just our remedial attention. It needs a complete overhaul. The earth can’t breathe.
Oh 'Ello (2020) Magda Archer
As if enduring a third lockdown wasn’t grim enough, January 2021 witnessed the frenzied final throes of the UK Govt. painfully, destructively unloading their hard Brexit from the EU. It didn’t have to be this way. Right leaning Tory hubris and greed, cloaked in ‘global Britain’, ‘levelling up’ and other spurious lies have ushered in a new era of economic and social unease and bewilderment. That’s on top of COVID.
Years of deception by the mainstream media and cynical, self-serving bluster dished up by a privileged few played on genuine fears and grievances. The EU was, is very far from perfect. But Boris Johnson and his cronies peddling false hopes as to the benefits of ‘going it alone’ symbolically, and in practical terms, flies in the face of the cooperation, mutual support and the progressive policies and investment in people we need to achieve fairer societies.
Simon Roberts’ ‘Stonehenge’ (2020) was the 51st flyingleaps poster since the day of the UK/EU ref. back in 2016. His ‘Welcome to Little Britain’ image mimicking official tourist industry propaganda seems to chime with the end of a chapter in our history: ‘Visit the wonders of Stonehenge and experience a post-Brexit Britain, cut off from Europe and enamoured of its own insularity.’ So, what’s to be done? What’s the way forward?
Dr.D aka Subvertiser
While the debate goes on as to whether flyposted and other oppositional art or visual activism has any direct effect in bringing about sociopolitical change, what it can do at its best is feed into the publics’ disposition.
Through strong imagery, cogent or quizzical text, humour, relatively speedy production and distribution, via its capacity to occupy anomalous spaces in the urban environment and through an imaginative, enacted engagement with matters of concern it can generate social media interest and help inform, even propel, opinion.
Dr. D’s targets include surveillance culture; the social effects of neoliberalism; commodification; mealy-mouthed and uncaring politicians; abuses of power in the media… Much more than bald sloganeering Dr. D’s imagery and text pieces often emerge, on reflection, as enigmatic meditations on twenty-first century existential angst.
Transgressing boundaries can reveal hidden rules. One could cite the precedents of the carnivalesque ‘telling truth to power’, vaudevillian comedy, Dada gestures in art but all of these, in a – it’s only a bunch of pucks/entertainers/artists – sense, operated in ‘sanctioned’ arenas. Dr. D’s contributions to the urban environment are rarely sanctioned and it’s this that contributes significantly to their traction and incisiveness.
The urban spectacle would have us believe that its over-riding character is, yes aspirational, but emphatically neutral and apolitical: that generally we’re going to be just fine if we carry on pretty much as we are. Dr. D’s pithy interventions, highlighting so many germane issues and employing such a variety of modes of address, repeatedly suggest otherwise.
