Christopher Madden

  • Lunging Figure – gouache on paper

    contemporary art works on paper lunging figure

    Lunging figure

    Gouache on paper. 350 x 250mm November 2018

    A gouache work on paper featuring a lunging figure.

    The work is from the imagination and was created as part of a series of relatively spontaneous, unmediated artworks.

  • Bell

    contemporary art sketch hanging man bell

    Hanging man. For whom the bell tolls

    Digital sketch December 2023

    A sketch created using Procreate on an iPad.

    The sketch shows a bell. Inside the bell, in the place where the clapper should be, is a hanging man.

    The image came to me spontaneously while I was looking at a (much smaller) bell. I think that part of the idea may be that the bell marks out time, announcing the hours,and therefore marks out life.

    Bells are also tolled to mark out death.

  • Drawing from the imagination: Strange clothes, strange propulsion

    Drawing from the imagination

    Drawing from the imagination: Strange clothes, strange propulsion

    Digital sketch. 16th July 2023

    A quick sketch from the imagination drawn using Procreate on an iPad with an Apple Pencil.

    I find that drawing quick sketches with no particular end in mind is an excellent way to open up to new possibilities. Obviously the same themes and styles keep cropping up, but often with minor variations that move the sketches off into different and new directions. That’s the nature of evolution of course – small changes over time gradually end up creating something new.

    I’ve drawn quite a few sketches of people or strange creatures that seem to have a wheel instead of legs. Haven’t managed to work out why yet.

  • Stilt Walker

    stilt walker - contemporary art sketch

    Stilt Walker

    Digital. 2023

    A digital sketch of a person on stilts. The stilts have wheels.

    Stilt walkers have been an occasionally recurring theme in my work since about 1975.

  • Surreal sea creature. Drawing from the imagination.

    contemporary art surreal dada bizarre sea creature

    A surreal sea creature drawn from the imagination.

    Digital image. 6th May 2023

    A bizarre sea creature created digitally in Procreate on an iPad. The shape of the sea creature is based on the number six, as the image was created as part of an exercise in which I sketched several images on my iPad based on the numbers between zero and nine. The concept behind the exercise was that by having to take into account the restraints of including a number in each image I would be forced to work with forms or shapes that I might not think up straight from my imagination.

    When creating the sketch I was attempting to produce a bizarre, weird and sinister image. The result looks as though it owes a debt to surrealism, dada and the symbolists.

  • Contemporary art watercolour painting with digital additions

    Contemporary art watercolour painting

    Watecolour painting with digital additions.

    Watecolour painting using collage (April 2021) with digital additions (Oct 2023).

    A spontaneous semi-abstract watercolour painting with additions in Adobe Photoshop (added several years later, so it’s not that spontaneous).

    The watercolour rock-like object is collaged onto the sky, with the line work added later digitally.

    The painting is meant to have a sinister edge to it, with the rock-like form being some sort of creature. I’m very interested in the way that people see some creatures as being cure (baby mammals, especially furry ones being a prime example) and other creatures as being repellant (even at the baby stage).

  • Striding figure

    contemporary art striding figure

    Striding figure

    Digital sketch April 2023

    A monochrome sketch, created using Procreate on an iPad, depicting a striding figure.

    The work is from the imagination and was created spontaneously with no specific concept in mind.

  • Pen and ink sketch – sweet chestnut tree

    dip pen and ink sketch sweet chestnut tree

    Dip pen and ink sketch of a sweet chestnut tree. Drawn from life.

    Dip pen and ink. 13cm x 18cm. 4th September 1991.

    This is a dip pen and ink sketch of a sweet chestnut tree in the Dordogne region of France that I drew from life on quite a cold day.

    There are numerous sweet chestnut trees in this part of France, as they were cultivated for their nuts, which I believe were a major part of the local diet.

    The tree was very old with lots of dead branches. There were also lots of leaves, which I think may have been growing on relatively new branches that may have sprouted lower down the tree when the tree recovered from a trauma of some description (and which nearly killed it off). Behind the tree is a ramshackle hut which appeared to have almost become part of the tree.

  • Stilt man

    Stilt man

    Digital sketch. 6th November 2022

    A quick sketch of a man on stilts. He has a stilt fastened to each leg and is holding two further stilts.

    I’ve been drawing people on stilts on and off for a long time. I think my first one was about fifty years ago.

  • Different artists having the same idea

    Humorous contemporary text-based art

    An example of the same concept by different artists.

    Drawing. 2019. Photo: Harrison and Wood, Frieze, London. 2022

    An example of different artists thinking of the same idea independently.
    My cartoon drawing is a joke about text-based art from a book of cartoons that I produced on the subject of contemporary art and humour in 2019 ( See here ).
    The photograph is of a sculptural text-based work by Harrison and Wood that was exhibited at Frieze London in 2022.

  • Leaping man with antlers

    contemporary art print – sketch from the imagination

    Leaping Stagman.

    Pen and ink plus digital. 30x21cm. 2020

    A sketch of a leaping male figure with antlers.
    I’ve drawn several images featuring men who have antlers growing from their heads. They are something to do with the concept of alpha males, or males who try to pass themselves off as alpha males. Linked to concepts of freedom and over-reaching ambition.

  • Pencil sketch – imaginary winged creatures

    contemporary art pencil sketch from the imagination - imaginary winged creature

    Imaginary winged creatures.

    Drawing from the imagination. Pencil on paper. 21.3.2022.

    Drawings from my sketchbook. Imaginary creatures consisting of spheres with anatomical features such as wings or legs recur quite often in my work. I like the way that in anatomical terms a sphere can be both a head and a body at the same time.
    This is a drawing from the imagination (obviously), drawn during a spare moment over a coffee in a cafe.

  • Spider heads – pencil sketch from the imagination

    contemporary art spiders - pencil sketch from the imagination

    Spider heads.

    Pencil on paper. 20.6.2022.

    I frequently draw imaginary heads in unusual situations. On two of these ‘spider heads’ I’ve turned the hair on the heads into long spider legs, with the heads forming the anatomically incorrect spiders’ bodies.
    I think the spider legs in these sketches probably owe something to the spiders of Louise Bourgeois. The spiders may also be influenced by the work of Symbolist artist Odilon Redon, whose The Crying Spider has definnite similarities, although I don’t remember having seeing it before I drew my sketch. I did read a book about Symbolism back in the 1970s, Dreamers of Decadence by Philippe Jullian, so maybe it was in that (When I say I read the book, I mean that I looked at the pictures).
    Like many of my imaginary sketches these were drawn over a cup of coffee in a cafe.

  • Pencil sketch from the imagination

    contemporary art drawing from the imagination

    Ball with multiple arms and legs.

    Pencil on paper. 10.8.2022.

    I often carry a sketch book with me in case I have a free moment when inspiration strikes. I drew this in a cafe over a cup of coffee.
    It incorporates several motifs that recur in my work (spheres and arms and legs).
    I think that the idea is that the imaginary creature in the drawing moves forwards by rolling from leg to leg rather than by swinging its legs as we do.
    Like most of my work, it’s purely from my imagination (and the imaginations of artists and illustrators that I’ve seem previously and that have seeped into my subconscious).

  • Pencil sketch from the subconscious – balls on stalks

    contemporary art pencil drawing from the imagination

    Balls on stalks.

    Pencil on paper. 16.6.2022.

    I frequently draw sketches from my imagination with little or no preconceived idea about what I’m going to draw. This is one of them.
    These ideas frequently reappear at a later date as part of a more finished concept.

  • Contemporary art print: dandelion clock figure

    Contemporary art print - dandelion clock figure

    Dandelion clock figure.

    Pen and ink drawing with digital additions. This version: July 2022.

    This print shows a dandelion seed head, or dandelion clock, with one of the seeds in flight. The seed resembles a human figure.
    The image could be symbolic of freedom, although the slightly sinister nature of the image makes this ambiguous.

  • Drawing from the subconscious

    Drawing from the subconscious

    Abstract figure drawn from the imagination

    Pencil on paper. 2021.

    A semi-abstract figure drawn from the imagination with no preparation.
    I have a feeling that my semi-floating figures like this owe something to the Symbolist painter Odilon Redon.

  • Prancing figure: sketch

    Contemporary art charcoal drawing - prancing figure

    Prancing figure

    Charcoal on paper, digital colouring. 2022.

    A sketch of a semi-abstract figure in a landscape. The figure is of a type that I’ve drawn on and off for the past thirty years, so it obviously has some sort of significance.

  • Tree and sphere. Ink drawing with collage

    contemporary art tree and sphere painting

    Tree and sphere. Ink drawing with collage

    Pen and ink, gouache 30x40cm May 2022

    A pen and ink sketch of a tree drawn from the imagination, with a collaged sphere painted in gouache.

    The sphere is meant to have a slightly otherworldly quality about it, as though it’s from a different dimension or reality.

  • A visual metaphor for mental states.

    surreal drawing anthropomorphic padlock

    A person with a padlock as a head

    Digital sketch 2014

    A sketch of a person with a head in the form of a padlock. The person is carrying a walking stick in the form of a key.

    I’ve used a padlock as a head in several works. I think that it probably signifies mental states of various kinds. States that need unlocking.

    The key in this sketch probably acts as an aid or a crutch.