David Hockney - Nottingham Contemporary

Nottingham has always been a forward thinking city, unhappy to be looked over due to its relatively small size. Its grand plans often work out, from the tram system to the latest and long awaited development of Nottingham Contemporary.

And what artist could better represent the cheeky nature of Nottingham than David Hockney. He understood Britain, Yorkshire and its quintessential reserved nature back in the 50s and 60s. His sexuality and tongue-in-cheek humour feature in his paintings, and the artwork description cannot help but bring a smile.

Life Painting for a diploma, (value: >£1million ), probably expresses his rebellion and humour best. Uninspired by the constrained nature of college life drawing, he paints a man from the front of a body building magazine and an anatomical skeleton. This satirical piece, is a personal favourite.

Many of his paintings feature naked men in positions which reference homosexuality, a brave move considering the illegal nature at the time. Many of the works are set in San Francisco and often in water. Water is possibly more of a notable theme than homosexuality as his main experimentation is the manner in which he paints the water.

Russian Mafia Tattoos

Images from the russian Criminal Encyclopedia

Just found an amazingly site about Russian mafia tattoos. I keep on thinking about tattoo designs, and I like the images of power and fear in Russian images. There is something rather different about Russia, especially with the mix of Asian and European imagery and developing a new beautiful style. Their tattoos aren't the tear drop symbols of murder or other images I associate with British and western criminality.

The particularly skinny nature of them is due to malnourishment, quite a contrast from the muscle madness of my stereotype vision of a prisoner. Many of these individuals had torturous past lives and their tattoos are testament to this. Pornography, politics, alcohol, violence and religion all feature in the motifs depicted. I like the grim reality Sergei produces.

Sergei Vasiliev a prison warden, alongside other prison wardens and ethnographer Danzing Badaev compiled thousands of drawings and photos from 1948 to 2005. Supported by the KGB they produced a beautiful collection of images showing an amazing aspect of Russian history that would have likely been forgotten. In 2003, The publisher fuel, compiled these images in the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia. I hope you enjoy the images.