HELTER SKELTER, my first solo show in the Czech Republic (Czechia), presented a series of 50 fired porcelain paintings that I interpreted from both photographs taken in Czechoslovakia during the 1980s and my own photographs and memories of my first visits to the country in 1989.
My research for photographs taken in Czechoslovakia in the ‘80s first began online where I came across several evocative photographs by Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková. I then decided to further enrich the archive sources with a few of my own photographs from 1989 and amateur photographs contributed by Czech and English friends, who were all living in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s.
My first visits in 1989 had a profound effect on me and went on to influence my decision to eventually live there from 1994 to 1997. With ‘Helter Skelter’ I wanted to revisit 1980s Czechoslovakia through a combination of all the above source material to try and understand what was behind the spell that the place had over me in my early twenties. Was it the atmosphere, the friendly intelligent people, the strange otherworldliness behind the Iron Curtain, the architecture and so on…or maybe a cocktail of all this?
Thanks to my friend Ivo Lorenc who runs the Galerie Kavárny Kolíbka for the hosting the show and all those who contributed their personal images for the source material.

Images (all work on porcelain is handpainted with oxides, cobalt and iron, & fired at 1240ºc):
01 – Poster for Helter Skelter Exhibition
02 – Helter Skelter – 50 handpainted fired porcelains
03 – Phossil 672 – After a personal memory from Litomērice in 1989
04 – Phossil 708 Barbara Day photographed by czech secret police StB
05 – Phossil 708 Barbara Day photographed by czech secret police StB – Detail
06 – Phossil 708 Barbara Day photographed by czech secret police StB – Detail
07 – Phossil 678 After Libuše Jarcovjákova’s photograph
08 – Phossil 714 After Zdenek Kovar’s photograph – detail
09 – Phossil 714 After Zdenek Kovar’s photograph
10 – Phossil 674 After my photograph taken in cafe off Wenceslas SQ 1989 – detail
11 – Phossil 674 After my photograph taken in cafe off Wenceslas SQ 1989
12 – Phossil 674 After my photograph taken in cafe off Wenceslas SQ 1989
13 – Phossil 703 After Mr Wenigerova’s photograph of his daughter Lucie – detail
14 – Phossil 703 After Mr Wenigerova’s photograph of his daughter Lucie
15 – Phossil 703 After Mr Wenigerova’s photograph of his daughter Lucie
16 – Phossil 692 After Anna Cochrane’s photograph of Karolinka Vočadlo – detail
17 – Phossil 692 After Anna Cochrane’s photograph of Karolinka Vočadlo