Donald Urquhart
Dors
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
Click on images to enlarge
|
 |
The earliest of these drawings come from a series titled Peroxides on Parole made in 2000 to serve as flyers, posters and wall decorations for 'The Beautiful Bend', an eclectic and gloriously camp nightclub which the artist co-founded in the early 1990s. Drawn in black ink on the pages of an A3 sketchbook, Dors, Dusty, Jayne and Davis Scowl were originally photocopied, pasted up around the club's King's Cross interior, and taken home at the night's end by anyone who wanted them. The poses of these legendary movie stars in their simple, understated portraits were lifted from single or composite frames of different films in which they appear, carefully chosen by the artist and paused to allow him time to sketch.
|
Donald Urquhart
Dusty
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
 |
|
Donald Urquhart
Jayne
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
 |
| |
Donald Urquhart
Davis Scowl
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
 |
| |
Donald Urquhart
Squires Palladium
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
 |
A number of the other drawings were created with special theme nights at the club in mind. Squires Palladium was made for a night based on the colourful life of Dorothy Squires, the rags-to-riches Welsh singer who found fame in the music halls of the 1940s and 50s. She is seen onstage, soaked in the beams of spotlights as roses rain down on her from the audience.
|
Donald Urquhart
Sari Fly
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
 |
Sari Fly was one of several produced for a Bollywood-inspired night called 'Lady Blows the Singhs'.
|
Donald Urquhart
Down in Frisco
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
 |
Down in Frisco portrays a dazed and dishevelled individual wearing Elsa Schiaparelli's famous ''Tear Dress'' made of a fabric printed with trompe l'oeil rips by Salvador Dali, in a poster for a San Francisco Earthquake night.
|
Donald Urquhart
Noel Noir (Reindeer)
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
 |
The Noel Noir (Reindeer) was originally conceived as one of a set of five Christmas cards designed by the artist for sale in the streets of London as part of a theatrical project commissioned by Artangel and performed by a homeless actors' collective in December 2003. The dark subject matter was provided by one of the artist's co-workers, who participated in an organized deer cull as a pre-Christmas break.
|
Donald Urquhart
Kimono Dragon
2000
ink on paper
46 x 34 cm |
 |
| |
Donald Urquhart
An Alphabet of Bad Luck, Doom and Horror
2004
Acrylic Paint
8ft x 24ft |
 |
An Alphabet of Bad Luck, Doom and Horror is exactly that – a sequence of letters resembling a pull-out from a children's early learning book, originally painted by the artist over the course of five days in acrylic directly onto a wall at his London gallery for a group show entitled 'The Black Album'. The artist had made no plans or notes prior to starting; the almost comically doom-laden images were in large part a response to a stream of unfortunate personal events that befell the artist while the work was in progress. |
| |
Donald Urquhart
A Joan Crawford Alphabet
2007
Arcylic on canvas
215 x 300cm |
 |