The Kick-About
The Kick-About is a fortnightly creative challenge in which a loose community of artists make new works in a short time in response to a specific prompt.
Philip Cooper, Supermoon
Kick-About No.1
“A warm welcome to Red Kingdom’s inaugural Kick About – a showcase of new work generated by a group of artists and creative sorts in response to a specific prompt. Our collective jumping-off point was Max Ernst’s 1955 painting, Moon in a Bottle, and participants were encouraged to respond to Ernst’s image however they saw fit. Featuring work in a wide range of media, The Kick About surely proves that exciting things happen when we play.”
Kick-About No.3
“Metropolis – our last kick-about prompt – inspired a wide-range of creative responses from a wide-range of creatives. I experienced a proper thrill of anticipation as the submissions began to arrive via email, blogposts and Twitter. ‘Metropolis’ brought with it some very clear and beloved associations; many of us couldn’t wait to channel our inner Fritz Lang. Prompt No 3 – ‘Dance of the Happy Shades’ – was an arguably more elusive start-point inspiring another rich collection of responses in a variety of different media.”
Vanessa Clegg, Symbols
Kick-About No.5
“With Jean Cocteau as our guest referee, little wonder the Kick-About #4 was a game of magical doorways, shadowy thresholds and nebulous reflections. This time we have Alice Neel as our muse, whose uncompromising paintings have, hardly surprisingly, prompted a range of provocative impressions from our motley crew of up-for-it creatives.”
Gary Thorne, Ennui
Kick-About No.7
ennui: a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.
Marcy Erb, Short Ride In A Fast Machine
Kick-About No.9
“In marked contrast to our last creative prompt, which encouraged us to reflect on the slow, attenuated life-cycles of the cicada, this week’s jumping-off point invites adventures in velocity. As per, the range of responses is a delight. My advice? Slow down and have a really good look!”
Judy Watson, TRAPPIST-1e
Kick-About No.11
“By way of a preface to this week’s Kick-About, some info courtesy of Judy Watson: “TRAPPIST-1e is one of the most potentially habitable exoplanets discovered so far. Your descendants may be living there one day. It is similar to the size of Earth and closely orbits a dwarf star named TRAPPIST-1 which is not as hot or bright as our sun. One side of TRAPPIST-1e faces permanently towards its host star, so the other side is in perpetual darkness. But apparently the best real estate would be the sliver of space between the eternally light and the eternally dark sides – the terminator line where temperatures may even be a cosy 0 °C (32 °F).”
Our last run-around together in the company of Joseph Cornell encouraged many of us to journey inwards; this week’s creative responses are beaming back from many light-years further away.”
Jan Blake, Ersilia
Kick-About No.13
“Last time it was fairies and other flights of fancy. I think many of us enjoyed the opportunity for a spot of magical-thinking. This new edition of the Kick-About begins with the no less improbable city of Ersilia, one of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities – a conurbation of string.”
Kevin Clarkson, High Street
Kick-About No.15
“After the informality of our collective Boogie Doodle, this week’s responses take as their starting points the urbane visions of Eric Ravilious’ High Street, beguiling in their nostalgia and just as bitter-sweet considering our current circumstances. Somewhere out there, some opportunist on Instagram is no doubt augmenting Ravilious’ shop windows with social distancing stickers and ‘Please Wear A Face Mask’ notifications. I don’t know if this is clever or just very depressing.”
Vanessa Clegg, Andante quasi lento e contabile
Kick-About No.17
“This week, the woods remain lovely, dark and deep, as dreams of snow and ice continue to characterise this suitably festive Kick-About, with new works inspired by the third slow movement from Hely-Hutchinson’s 1927 A Carol Symphony. The Kick-About has been running for thirty-four weeks and was started, in part, as a response to the first lock-down. Throughout this time, our fortnightly shindigs have been a constant source of anticipation, comfort and satisfaction and I just wanted to say a big thank you to all my fellow kick-abouters for your creativity, conversation and always, the surprises.”
Phill Hosking, Fungi
Kick-About No.19
“Following the simple, unadorned charms of our previous still-life inspired Kick-About, in which we were encouraged to turn our creative attentions to objects rather ordinary and domestic, this week’s edition is a good deal more fanciful. With Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms in Nature as our collective stomping ground, we’ve generated between us a veritable coral reef of different ideas, processes and creativity.”
Tom Beg, The Five Canons Of Rhetoric
Kick-About No.21
“The Kick-About comes of age today, with Edition No. 21. Let me begin by saying how restorative, ordering and genuinely exciting I find our collective runarounds. Through your emails, comments and conversations, I know you value the Kick-About too, seeing it as an opportunity to make some new stuff, finish some older stuff, get something done, take risks, recreate, and get your hands dirty. It gives me great pleasure to host your work on here. Red’s Kingdom is lucky to have you. Long may we play together.
Last time, we tied ourselves in knots; even so, I suspect this prompt proved knottier.”
James Randall, Museum Pieces
Kick-About No.23
“Surely it was curiosity that drove Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez, the subject of our last Kick-About, to construct a submersible so he could paint what he found beneath the waves. Ole Worm, Danish physician, natural historian and collector, gathered the eclectic subjects of his curiosity into a remarkable museum, a wunderkammer, which is this week’s jumping-off point.”
Kerfe Roig, Age of Aquarius
Kick-About No.25
“With its associations with protest and freedom of expression, this week’s prompt, courtesy of Kerfe Roig, returns us somewhat to the untaming of our last Kick-About together, but just like everyone else, I suspect, I’ve had the song from Hair going around and around my brain these past two weeks!”
Tom Beg, The Song Of Love
Kick-About No.27
“The Kick-About No.26 – our one year birthday bash – was, at first glance, a collection of disparate things brought together into a single composition. In actual fact, however diverse, the work in the last edition of our fortnightly run-around was tightly associated: the shared dreams of an eclectic community. Our new prompt, de Chirico’s The Song Of Love, is another assembly of seemingly incongruous artefacts and what follows are our respective responses, taking in photography, painting, drawing, and collage, digital art and animation, poetry and spoken word.”
Phil Cooper, The Moon Did Not Answer
Kick-About No.29
“Our last Kick-About together was inspired by the lunar-like landscape of Dungeness beach and Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage. This week’s creative run-around-between-friends is inspired by the actual moon, or rather by Haruki Murakami’s evocative description of its silent, watchful orbit.”
Tom Beg, After Lotte Reiniger
Kick-About No.31
“Our previous Kick-About together was inspired by images of the human eye, resulting in an abundance of other-worldly imagery and one short story, in which an elderly man vanishes magically away in the middle of an art exhibition. The pioneering silhouette animations of Lotte Reiniger are likewise preoccupied with all things magical: magical lamps, magical slippers, and magical beings. This week’s showcase of artists’ work riffs on Reiniger’s unique aesthetic and narrative milieu.”
Chris Rutter & Evelyn Bennett, Is This Really Over?
Kick-About No.33
“After the epic, panoramic, and impressionist works riffing on Rutenberg’s Low Dense, I’m delighted to present an all-new showcase of work inspired by the improbable, homespun spectacle of Werner Herzog’s dancing chicken. (That’s not a sentence a person gets to write every day!).”
Charly Skilling, Little Red Tartan Box
Kick-About No.35
“Our last Kick-About together was illuminated by Marie Menken’s experimental film, Lights. Made in 1966, the glow coming off Menken’s film is as much powered by a certain nostalgia for a particular time and place, as it is by electricity. Our attachment to artifacts of the past, and commitment to keeping and collecting moments-in-time, however fleeting, is explored in this week’s showcase of new work created by an eclectic community of creatives in the short space of two weeks.”
Phil Gomm, Seed Heads
Kick-About No.37
“As a bit of a gardener myself, I am endlessly enthralled by the sheer variety of plants and their various habits and habitats: our previous Kick-About featured a uniquely rare blossom, and this week, it is artist Peter Mungkuri’s celebration of the treasured trees of the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of north western South Australia inspiring us to produce new work in a short time.”
James Randall, Children Of The Night
Kick-About No.39
“Our last Kick-About together was kicked-off by the cut-outs of Henri Matisse, and specifically his White Alga on Orange and Red from 1947. Inspired by one of Matisse’s less well-known cut-outs, regular Kick-Abouter, Kerfe Roig, treated us to something with touch of Halloween about it – a trio of rather dashing devil masks, and a foretaste of this week’s showcase. With dialogue uttered by Dracula himself as our starting point, it’s little wonder things have taken a spookier turn.”
Graeme Daly, La Ville
Kick-About No.41
From the ephemera of the last KA’s flowers of fire, to the more concrete energies of Fernand Leger’s La Ville, it’s another showcase of new works made in a short time by an eclectic group of creatives. We have ‘all sorts’ of different work in the mix – and quite literally this time too!
Gary Thorne, The Night Before
Kick-About No.43
“Our last Andy Goldsworthy-themed Kick-About together inspired some winter wonderlands (and some much less wintry offerings too, courtesy of Brisbane-based artist, James Randall). For this, our last creative runaround of 2021, we’re keeping things seasonal, with an illustration by Arthur Rackham for a festive classic. Enjoy this showcase of new works made in a short time, and wherever you are, and whoever you are, I wish you and yours all the very best. “Merry Christmas, one and all.”
Phil Cooper, Splendor Solis
Kick-About No.45
“From the effortless, airborne whirligigs of our last Kick-About together to another transmutation of matter into something elemental and illuminating! For this week’s creative challenge, we’ve been in the business of summoning the sunshine, and, at risk of seeming self-serving, I want to give special thanks to Gary Thorne for his contribution, which has something nice to say about all these continuing acts of creativity of ours, and the light they bring.”
Graeme Daly, Marriage
Kick-About No.47
“Our last Kick-About, inspired by the writings of Gaston Bachelard, encouraged us to examine our domestic spaces and think about the physical and emotional parameters of home. Now, with John Stezaker’s uneasy marriage between photographic fragments as our starting pointing, we’re exploring issues of identity, affinity and discord.”
Tom Beg, Spirals
Kick-About No.49
“From the lovely free-wheeling associations of our last Kick-About together, to the pared-down, typographic compositions of graphic designer and film-maker, Saul Bass, welcome to another showcase of new works made in a short time.”
Phil Gomm, Kindergarten
Kick-About No.51
“Following the linear, pared-back abstractions of our last Kick-About together, the folk art of Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko inspires our fifty-first showcase of new works made in a short time. Art, and the making of it, allows us welcome respite from what is dispiriting about world events and our feelings of powerlessness in the face of them. That said, art, and the making of it, also allows us the opportunity to say something about those same world events, and in so doing, feel a little less numbed, a little less muted.”
Colin Bean, Circus
Kick-About No.53
The last edition of The Kick-About marked our second birthday and two year’s of fortnightly creative challenges encouraging artists of all stripes to make new work in a short time. As such, it was something of a three-ringed circus, an eclectic, celebratory showcase with a little bit of something for everyone. How appropriate then our first prompt of the new Kick-About year should focus our attention on the circus paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec. ‘Roll up, roll up!’
Phil Cooper, After Basquiat
Kick-About No.55
“Our last Kick-About together was characterised by a whirl of ingenuity, with our community of artists reaching for ad-hoc materials and digging out old tools by which to produce their ‘new works in a short time’. With Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings as this edition’s start-point, the range of work is no less inventive, and in common with Basquiat’s Untitled (1981), offers up an intriguing x-ray of the creative mind.”
Jordan Buckner, Mervyn Peake
Kick-About No.57
“From the percussive, delineated sound-shapes of a Sandy Nelson drum solo, we are this week riffing on the appreciably softer tones of the drawings by Mervyn Peake, and likewise the richness of his imaginary worlds and all their eccentric inhabitants…”
Kerfe Roig, Augustus Osbourne Lamplough
Kick-About No.59
“Our last Kick-About together was fired off by the super-saturated decor of Henri Matisse’s 1908 painting, Harmony in Red, also known as The Dessert. As Vanessa Clegg observes, there is but a small difference between the word ‘dessert’ and ‘desert’, but a whole world of difference between Matisse’s spatial effects and use of colour and those distinguishing the paintings of Augustus Osbourne Lamplough. With Lamplough’s evocations of exotic landscapes as our muse this week, enjoy this latest collection of new works made in a short time.”
Phil Cooper, I Remember
Kick-About No.61
“Our last Kick-About together was a celebration of the idea of tea-making, tea-drinking, and its various rituals. Without this activity, with its powers of comfort and displacement, I wonder sometimes how we would otherwise negotiate some of life’s disappointments, large and small. Disappointment is one of the themes of Molly Drake’s I Remember, and it is Drake’s delicate, if devastating song that has this week inspired us to produce new works in a short time.”
Graeme Daly, After Hammershøi
Kick-About No.63
“Our last Kick-About together was inspired by continual movement and the accompanying changes of scale and perspective. This week’s showcase of new works made in a short time is, by contrast, a mediation on silence and stillness, as we explore together the hushed, pensive environs that feature in the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershøi.”
Claire-Beth Gibson, Père Lachaise
Kick-About No.65
“From the noise and extravagance of our soundsuit-inspired Kick-About No.64, we’re striking a more melancholy mood this week, as we meander our way past the silent crypts, effigies and monuments of the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. With All Hallows Eve but a few short days away, what better time to ruminate on the gossamer veil between the living and the dead…”
Phill Hosking, El Anatsui
Kick-About No.67
“Our previous Kick-About was an explosive affair, as Turner’s Mount Vesuvius in Eruption re-surfaced the land, sea and sky with glowing skeins of lava and fired our imaginations. No less spectacular are the sculptural installations of artist El Anatsui, whose enormous, glinting mosaics drape gallery walls like bejewelled magma.”
Phil Gomm, Christmas Tree
Kick-About No.69
“With the season of goodwill fast approaching, enjoy this latest selection of new works made in a short time, and with the Christmas tree – in all its creative incarnations – as this week’s inspiration.”
Vanessa Clegg
Kick-About No.71
“If our last Kick-About showcased new works made in a short time inspired by an extraordinary artist with which some of us were unfamiliar, this week’s online exhibition takes its cue from a very famous double-act, famous, that is, for wrapping landmarks and landscapes in swathes of material.”
Phil Gomm, Somewhere An Octopus Is Dreaming
Kick-About No.73
“Our last Kick-About was prompted by a work of art celebrated for its complex commentary on the act of looking. The subject of this week’s showcase of new works made in a short time is no less enigmatic – the otherworldly cephalopod. Enjoy this latest dive into the deep waters of creative play…”
Graeme Daly
The Kick-About No.75
“Our previous Kick-About together was inspired by the organic, floating vessels of Ruth Asawa, exemplars of restraint. Much less so, the teeming visual motifs characterising Bosch’s extraordinary three-act painting, a maximalism of symbols, detail and hybridity. Bosch’s garden has made for a fertile stomping ground for these latest works made in a short time.”
Vanessa Clegg
The Kick-About No.77
“We spent our last Kick-About together riffing on a surrealistic painting by Lucian Freud – a depiction of a strange artificial-seeming room filled with improbable objects and an air of unfinished business. Courtesy of an extract from part two of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, we’re this week occupants of another theatrical interior, as ripe with arresting imagery.”
Phil Gomm
The Kick-About No.79
“Our last Kick-About was a celebration of three year’s worth of mucking about with materials, making, inventing, re-imagining and re-purposing. As a result, I suspect some of us have spaces in our homes beginning to pile high with ad-hoc accretions of creative stuff. In terms of scale, none of us may quite have reached the heights of this week’s prompt, the giant textile installations of Sheila Hicks…”
Vanessa Clegg
The Kick-About No.81
“Charles Sheeler, our prompt for our previous Kick-About, transformed his man-made landscapes into flattened, graphical patchworks. Klimt’s painting, Tannenwald is similarly transformative, magicking a forest of ubiquitous pine trees into something as tactile and richly textured as tapestry and is this week’s muse.”
Phil Gomm
The Kick-About No.83
“If our last Kick-About together saw us journeying into the weird and wonderful world of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, this week’s prompt is no less otherworldly: Delia Derbyshire’s s1968 soundscape Pot Au Feu…”
Tom Beg
The Kick-About No.85
“Our last Kick-About together featured Murano glass as its muse, which included a work by Francesca Maxwell, in which some formerly broken pieces of artful glass were fused together to make a new and satisfying whole. Inspired by the artist, Michael Landy, this latest showcase of new works made in a short time is likewise preoccupied with the breaking things down and building things up again…”
Gary Thorne
The Kick-About No.87
“Our previous Kick-About was inspired by the orderly, taxonomic horticultural portraits of Karl Blossfeldt. A little less orderly is the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, an artist working across a range of media and scale whose work invites us to explore complex narratives of gender, identity, and societal transformation.”
Tom Beg
The Kick-About No.89
“Our last Kick-About invited us into the wonderful realm of the sea anemone. Just as Actiniaria exhibit a diverse array of vibrant colours and patterns, Carlos Cruz-Diez’s art employs a spectrum of hues and optical effects to evoke dynamic visual experiences…”
Charly Skilling
The Kick-About No.91
“Our last Kick-About together was inspired by the simple figurative line work of Jogen Chowdhury. The human figure is front and centre in this latest edition too, with this week’s ‘artworks made in a short time’ riffing on Harry Clarke’s illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales Of Mystery & Imagination…”
Itta Howie
The Kick-About No.93
“Enjoy this latest selection of ‘new works made in a short time’, inspired by one of nature’s most thrilling phenomena…”
Vanessa Clegg
The Kick-About No.95
“If our previous Kick-About transported us into a world of ice and some of its fantastical denizens, courtesy of Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak, this, our last KA of 2023, is a celebration (of sorts) of things we may associate with the big fella in red and other emblems of Christmas…”
Phil Gomm
The Kick-About No.97
“Our previous Kick-About, inspired as it was by the paper-layerings of artist Maud Vantours, prompted a number of us to consider the ephemera we collect about us and repurpose it. For this edition of our fortnightly run-around, we find ourselves similarly preoccupied with ideas of temporariness and the inevitable passings of time…”
Graeme Daly
The Kick-About No.99
“Our last Kick-About together was inspired by the orb-ish flesh and faces of Fernando Botero. This week it’s the mightier spheres and gas giants of the Hubble telescope’s mind-blowing photograph of the cosmos…”
Phil Cooper
The Kick-About No.101
“Our last Kick-About celebrated our 100th prompt, with new works made in a short time on a theme of that auspicious round number. That’s a lot of new-things-tried and experimentation – much like Mainie Jellett’s exploration of abstraction, which broke away from conventional artistic norms.”
Marion Raper
The Kick-About No.103
“Inspired by Raoul Hausmann’s Mechanical Head, our last Kick-About had fun with disembodied body-parts. Similarly, this week’s new works made in a short time have been inspired by the image of a woman’s hand, rendered spectral by Roentgen’s pioneering x-ray…”
Tom Beg
The Kick-About No.105
“Our last Kick-About was a celebration of four years of having bright ideas and doing something about them. That makes this new edition the start of a new year of fortnightly creative challenges, and we’re kicking things off with Mark Rothko – who needs little in the way of introduction.”
Phil Gomm
The Kick-About No.107
“Last time out, it was the remarkable mini-protrusions of slime moulds that so excited the Kick-Abouters into producing some ‘fruiting bodies’ of their own. This week, it’s the far-bigger structures of Albert Paley…”
Graeme Daly
The Kick-About No.109
“There is certainly something vibrant and energised about the work of last week’s Kick-About muse, the artist Atsuko Tanaka. Getting the party started this time out, it’s the Chinelos, traditional Mexican performers known for their lively costumes and lampooning of the establishment...”
Lewis Punton
The Kick-About No.111
“Our last Kick-About was inspired by performative birds-of-paradise with their quirky and eccentric behaviours by which to garner attention. No less quirky (and no less plumaged!) is this edition’s muse – the ceramicist, George Edgar Ohr – otherwise known as ‘the mad potter of Biloxi’…”
James Randall
The Kick-About No.113
“Following the optical excitements of our last Kick-About—inspired by Victor Vasarely—this week’s collection of new works made in a short time dims the lights and invites us to marvel at the illuminations of the magic lantern…”
Gary Thorne
The Kick-About No.115
“The last edition of The Kick-About took us to the preferred habitat of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests—empty horizons of sea and sky: all the better for directing our focus on Jansen’s remarkable ambulatory creations. This week, we’re preoccupied by absences too: how negative space likewise sharpens our attention, pushing us to consider what is present, even when it isn’t…”
Charly Skilling
The Kick-About No. 117
“Our previous Kick-About together was inspired by the mid-century modern textile designs of Lucienne Day, and a number of her patterns feature graphical, cobweb-like forms. With Halloween fast-approaching—and bringing with it all the usual trappings—this latest edition of The Kick-About find itself fascinated by spiders’ silk and the ingenuity of their webs…”
Phil Gomm
The Kick-About No.119
“Our last Kick-About together was inspired by the Perseid meteor shower—a dazzling display of celestial lights streaking across the sky. Asteroids, meanwhile, was an iconic arcade game released in 1979, capturing imaginations with its simple, vector-based graphics, and the aesthetic of computer games inspires this week’s creative muse, textile artist Melissa Cody…”
Tom Beg, Metropolis
Kick-About No.2
“We were all surprised and delighted by the response to the first Kick About, with a whole range of work in a variety of media triggered by Max Ernst’s 1955 painting, Moon In A Bottle. We got sculptures and paintings both analogue and digital, drawings in pastel and in Sharpie Pen, animated loops, and even a verse or two of original poetry. The Kick About #1 also garnered interest from other creatives up for a bit of running around, which means this second edition is a veritable cornucopia of creativity.
This time out, our prompt was a single word: metropolis. When I look across this eclectic range of work, I’m reminded of another collection of cities – Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, a book in which Calvino describes an array of architectural marvels, all of them different, but all of them ultimately revealed to be expressions of the characteristics of only one city – Venice. Here too, a single name for a city inspires multiple impressions.”
Marcy Erb, Orphée
Kick-About No.4
“Our previous kick-about together was a game on the theme of happy shades, which originated a showcase of reflective, nostalgic and mediative responses. Phil Cooper’s Orpheus-inspired prompt has led some of us at least down some shadowier, more mysterious paths, as we consider alternate worlds and the allure of leaving this one.”
Kerfe Roig, A Field Guide To Getting Lost
Kick-About No.6
“Arguably, all previous Kick-Abouts have been a response to this same prompt, courtesy of Francesca Maxwell, with each resulting showcase of work offering a guide to the ways in which different people take unpredictable journeys into new and unexpected terrains. As is attested to by a number of the works in this edition, ‘getting lost’ is never about losing time, but rather gaining experience.”
Phill Hosking, Cicada
Kick-About No.8
“Our last Kickabout prompt, based off Sickert’s painting ‘Ennui’, inspired a range of new work by our participating artists on themes of listless, languor and waiting. When you consider the prolonged incubation times of your average cicada, you could say we haven’t moved all that far this week! That said, we’re a long away from Sickert’s rather drab little parlour, as instead we seek to celebrate the life, times and associations of these extraordinary insects.”
Vanessa Clegg, Romantic Museum
Kick-About No.10
“I don’t mind admitting I’ve spent a few moments dabbing my eye as I put this latest showcase of new work together in response to Joseph Cornell’s Romantic Museum. There’s a lot of love in the mix this week, with reflections on beloved relationships, time passing, and the making and keeping of memories. If the last Kick-About was a short ride in a fast machine, the Kick-About#10 is about the long ride we’re taking together.”
Charly Skilling, The Cottingley Fairies
Kick-About No.12
“It’s tempting to draw the obvious conclusion from the recent choice of prompts offered up by the kick-about artists of late. Last time it was the exoplanet Trappist 1e, with its promise of new beginnings ‘off-world’, and an escape from this one, which seems smaller by the day and rather dimmed. This week it’s fairies – or more accurately, the need to go on believing in them, a yearning for something as-yet-unspoiled and magical. In these different ways, we seem preoccupied with escapism and realms more expansive than those afforded by our current circumstances.”
Charly Skilling, Boogie Doodle
Kick-About No. 14
“The previous edition of the Kick-About featured a rather precarious vision of a civilisation held together by threads. I won’t labour this analogy any further, but suffice to say civilsation feels a good deal more secure this week! I feel a bit of a celebration coming on. Anyone fancy a boogie?”
Philip Cooper, The Woods Are Lovely, Dark And Deep
Kick-About No.16
“After the civilised environs of Eric Ravilious’s well-to-do High Street, our latest Kick-About goes off-road, heading into the deep wintery hush conjured by Robert Frost’s 1922 poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Night.”
Gary Thorne, Still Life With Prawns & Avocados
Kick-About No.18
“After the heightened atmosphere of our last kick-about, and the rich food of the festive season now largely behind us, Leger’s simpler fare was a welcome offering. Leger’s still life was brought to the attention of the Kick-Abouters by artist, Gary Thorne; well, Leger can keep his roast beef. I’d rather get my hands on all those delicious-looking prawns and creamy avocados.”
James Randall, James Knots
Kick-About No.20
“The Kick-About always casts its net very wide. Our last haul, inspired by Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms In Nature, landed a shimmering catch of creativity. Our nets don’t always require knots, but this week’s edition of the Kick-About is all about the nip!”
Graeme Daly, Pools
Kick-About No.22
“After the deep intellectual waters of our last Kick-About together, we find ourselves submerged once more, joining Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez in his submersible. It’s a bit of squeeze in there, not least because I’m happy to welcome two new kick-abouters into the mix: Jackie Hagan and Brian Noble. All aboard!”
Vanessa Clegg, Wild Here Once
Kick-About No.24
“Arguably, the wunderkammers gathered together by the likes of Ole Worm – our last prompt – represent pure expressions of human curiosity, untamed by such things as order, category, reason, or taxonomy, where the real and the imaginary are given equal footing. Now, with Isadora Duncan’s clarion call for free expression and non-conformity ringing in our hearts and minds, the kick-abouters this week are running wild and free.”
Kick-About No.26
“Welcome to this first anniversary edition of The Kick-About, a fortnightly blog-based creative challenge in which artists of all stripes come together to present work in response to a given prompt. I asked contributors to choose a favourite work of their own from the previous twenty-five editions so I could celebrate them all together here.”
Judy Watson, Prospect Cottage
Kick-About No.28
“Our last Kick-About prompt was a painting by Giorgio de Chirico, an artist whose work is characterised by emptied vistas and other-worldly spaces. Inspired by Howard Sooley’s short film, this week’s showcase of new work is inspired by another improbable landscape – the beach at Dungeness and Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage and garden.”
Gary Thorne, Bees Snuggling Into
Kick-About No.30
“The Kick-About No. 29 was inspired by Murakami’s description of the all-seeing moon, and this, our latest creative shindig together, has been prompted by an image of the human eye no less planetary.”
Graeme Daly, After Rutenberg
Kick-About No.32
“From the previous Kick-About’s deep and velvety shadows, courtesy of animator of silhouettes, Lotte Reiniger, to this Cinemascopic vista of glowing, saturated colours by the painter, Brian Rutenberg, and all the new work Low Dense has inspired in the same short space of fourteen days. Enjoy the view.”
James Randall, Now I See The Light
Kick-About No.34
“How do you follow a dancing chicken? This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, I know, but after the previous Kick-About’s riffing on a theme of performing poultry, where next for our fearless community of creatives? Fortunately, we have Marie Menken’s Lights to illuminate the workings of our respective imaginations, as this week we showcase new works created in response to Menken’s 1966 experimental film.”
Chris Rutter & Evelyn Bennett, Leigh Bowery Look 8
Kick-About No.36
“With its sepia tint, post-card proportions, and London landmark, this week’s prompt, Sheila Legge’s Phantom of Surrealism, might just as easily have surfaced as part of our previous Kick-About, inspired by the word souvenir – though, as holiday snaps go, this one could take some explaining. This week, Legge’s abstruse tableau has prompted paintings, collage, computer-generated landscapes, creative writing and some rather extraordinary headgear.”
Gary Thorne, Partial Still Life
Kick-About No.38
“Our last Kick-About together introduced me to an artist I didn’t know, Peter Mungkuri, whose monochromatic and illustrative paintings simplified plant forms in feathery marks and concentric circles. This week it’s Matisse, an artist with whom we’re likely more familiar, but whose cut-outs remind us of the joy of colour, form and working directly.”
Marion Raper, Flowers Of Fire
Kick-About No.40
“After the gothic shadows of our last Kick-About together, how about a bit of flash, dazzle and colour? Inspired by the delightful illustrations from various collections of Japanese firework catalogues, the Kick-Abouters are lighting things up with a vibrant display of new works made in a short time. Whizz bang ooh ahh indeed!”
Kerfe Roig, Ice Spiral
Kick-About No.42
“After our short city break for the KA No.41, we’ve taken a brisk, bracing detour out into the wintry countryside, where we encountered Ice Spiral by the celebrated land artist, Andy Goldsworthy. Enjoy this latest collection of artistic responses to Goldsworthy’s fleeting installation of ice, light, place and form.”
Phil Gomm, After Calder
Kick-About No.44
“After the pudding-weight of festive expectations associated with our previous Kick-About, Alexander Calder’s light-weight dance of shape and colour sends us turning gently into the new year, with another showcase of new works made in a short time by a loose group of artists with homes all over the world. A happy and transformative 2022 to all of you!”
Vanessa Clegg, Not An Inert Box
Kick-About No.46
“If our last Kick-About together introduced all of us to subjects far-removed from our daily lives and wonderfully esoteric, this week’s prompt, courtesy of Gaston Bachelard, returns us to more familiar spaces, as we explore together what makes from a house a home, and between us producing new works in a short time.”
Kerfe Roig, Blown In
Kick-About No.48
“If the last Kick-About got us circling around ideas of different pieces and the ties that bind them, this week’s showcase, inspired by the free-associating permissions of Lousie Baldwin’s contemporary textiles, is an offering no less preoccupied with fragments, layers, and bits. Enjoy this latest collection of ‘new works made in a short time’, in the knowledge that civilisation is a fragile thing, configured from acts of creativity, however small.”
Jan Blake, Pods
Kick-About No.50
“The swirling spiral introducing Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is one of Saul Bass’s most iconic designs, and our last Kick-About celebrated Bass’s bold, pared-back visuals with all the usual eclecticism and creativity. Our latest Kick-About originates from another spiralling form, Naum Gabo’s Linear Construction No. 2.”
Kick-About No.52
“Welcome to this anniversary edition of The Kick-About, marking two years of creative activity undertaken by an international community of artists… which, when you put it like that sounds very impressive indeed! While those of us who participate in these fortnightly challenges might not regard ourselves as grandly as all that, this is my opportunity to thank everyone for their continuing creativity and companionship over this last year. I also want to reflect on the very real and demonstrable benefits of ‘kicking about’ together: yes, it’s another thing we have to think about, and yes, things don’t always run smoothly or go to plan, but ‘making work’ is always a magical act, and life-affirming too. Thanks again to everyone in the KA community for your boundless imagination and sticking power. Look at what we did!”
Gary Thorne, Whirligig
Kick-About No. 54
Our last Kick-About together invited us into the spectacle of Toulouse-Lautrec’s circus paintings, and so to spin around for a bit in the company of clowns and acrobats. Thanks to Kick-Abouter, Gary Thorne, we appear to be turning in circles again this week, and departing on other flights of fancy…
Phil Gomm, For Drummers Only
Kick-About No.56
“There’s something stripped back and uncompromising about the paintings of Basquiat, the prompt for our last Kick-About together. Likewise Sandy Nelson’s For Drummers Only, a 12 minute drum solo from 1962 that has likely had a few of us bopping about our respective work spaces or reaching for saucepans and wooden spoons to make a noise with…”
Graeme Daly, Harmony In Red
Kick-About No.58
“Never happier than when making break-neck changes of direction, this latest gathering of new works made in a short time is inspired by Henri Matisse’s celebrated punch of fauvist colour. Boom!”
Gary Thorne, Chawan
Kick-About No.60
“I wonder if Augustus Osbourne Lamplough (our previous Kick-About prompt) ever sipped tea as he laboured at his paintings under some far-off afternoon sun? We’ll never know, but tea is clearly a tonic for the Kick-About collective, as these latest examples of new works made in a short time will illustrate.”
Phil Gomm, Powers Of Ten
Kick-About No.62
“From the internal and endlessly expansive spaces of our memories, as inspired by our previous Kick-About together, we’re this week exploring the mind-boggling extremities of different scales, courtesy of Charles and Ray Eames’ 1977 short film, Powers Of Ten. Enjoy this latest showcase of ‘new works made in a short time’, the big and the small and everything in-between.”
Charly Skilling, Soundsuit
Kick-About No.64
“If our last Kick-About together was characterised by muted tones and pensive atmospheres, this latest showcase of new works made in a short time is a celebration of colour, movement, costume and dynamism – and how could it not be, inspired as we have been by the artist Nick Cave and his sumptuous soundsuits?”
Graeme Daly, Versuvius
Kick-About No.66
“In contrast to the sombre and sepulchral offerings of our previous Kick-About together, this week’s collection of new works made in a short time is a more explosive affair. Inspired by Turner’s painterly apocalypse, enjoy the flash and sizzle of our own creative outpourings. Boom!”
Gary Thorne, Harriet Powers
Kick-About No.68
“In common with the quilts of Harriet Powers, our previous Kick-About was inspired by works of art comprising fragments and scraps, brought together to impressive and thought-provoking effect. While Powers’ quilts are smaller, simpler things, they are no less arresting, more so for their scarcity and testament to the act of making as an act of living.”
Kerfe Roig, Hilma Af Klint
Kick-About No.70
“Our last Kick-About together celebrated that deep-winter symbol of light-in-the-darkness, the Christmas tree. Our next creative foray (our first of 2023) is likewise exploring the desire for illumination, but with artist and mystic Hilma Af Klint as our muse. Enjoy this latest selection of new works made in a short time and also Happy New Year!”
Vanessa Clegg
Kick-About No.72
“The last edition of The Kick-About featured the works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, artists celebrated for shrouding familiar things by which to re-vivify their significance. This week, our collective creative muse is Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas, another famous artwork equally shrouded to produce speculation and especial attentiveness.”
Charly Skilling, Ruth Asawa
The Kick-About No.74
“In common with our last Kick-About together, which was inspired by cephalopods (those buoyant, ballooning denizens of the deep), this latest showcase of new works made in a short time features a further array of responses to floating, globular forms – specifically to the work of Ruth Asawa…”
Gary Thorne
The Kick-About No.76
“Our last Kick-About was inspired by Bosch’s painting, The Garden Of Earthly Delights, famous for the unknowability of many of its signs, symbols, allegories and imagery. No less perplexing perhaps is this week’s jumping-off point, a painting by Lucian Freud that shares little with his unflinching representations of the human body, and more with the uncannier tableaux of the likes of Dali and Magritte.”
The Kick-About No.78
“Welcome to this anniversary edition of The Kick-About – a fortnightly creative challenge in which a loose community of artists make new works in a short time in response to a specific prompt. Gathered here, and in no particular order, are selections from one year’s worth of online exhibitions, with works inspired by a richly eclectic range of starting points, so everything from drum solos to volcanic eruptions. To everyone who participates, regularly or otherwise, a great big thank you for all your time and energy. I enjoy your company and relish your creativity and very much hope we continue to meet in the park over the coming weeks and months with our jumpers on the grass for goalposts. Happy anniversary to you all!”
The Kick-About No.80
“Textile artist, Sheila Hicks, inspired our last Kick-About together, and it was all soft, cushiony forms, meshes and string. This time out, we’re keeping company with Charles Sheeler and his crisp, clean expressions of modernity.”
Vanessa Clegg
The Kick-About No.82
“Our last Kick-About together sent us deep into Klimt’s pine forest, where inspiration waited for us between the trees. Something else waits for us in the woods this week.. Beware, the Jabberwock!”
Charly Skilling
The Kick-About No.84
“From the rather austere and ominous sonic manipulations of Delia Derbyshire and our last Kick-About together, to the mouth-watering eye-candies of Murano glass…”
Jan Blake
The Kick-About No.86
“Our last Kick-About was inspired by the work of Michael Landy, and artist notable for breaking things into fragments. This week it’s the photography of Karl Blossfeldt, an artist as interested in separating the whole into separate elements…”
Phil Gomm
The Kick-About No.88
“Niki de Saint Phalle was the jumping-off point for our last Kick-About, and maybe it was her colourful, sausage-y sculptures that inspired this week’s one-word prompt – the latin name for sea anemones…”
Kerfe Roig
The Kick-About No.90
“After the interplay of light and colour of our last Kick-About together, enjoy these new works made in a short time inspired by the figurative lines of Jogen Chowdhury…”
Phil Gomm
The Kick-About No.92
“After the monochromatic density of Harry Clarke’s macabre illustrations, our prompt for The Kick-About No.91, we’re going off with a bang in this latest showcase of new works made in a short time, inspired by the pyrotechnics of gunpowder artist, Cai Guo-Qiang…”
Graeme Daly
The Kick-About No.94
“The Kick-About No.93 took wing last time out, with the murmuration of starlings as its muse. This week, our loose, but loyal collective of creatives have been finding inspiration in the feathered subjects of Inuit artist, Kenojuak Ashevak…”
Charly Skilling
The Kick-About No.96
“Our last Kick-About together was a seasonal affair, with the figure of Father Christmas as its muse. Now that Christmas is done and dusted, we’re likely reflecting on the mountains of cardboard and paper produced by Santa’s insistence on ‘more, more, more’. With that surplus of paper in mind, Maud Vantours is our inspiration this week for these new works made in a short time…”
Charly Skilling
The Kick-About No.98
“Our previous Kick-About, on a theme of vanitas, got us contemplating the effects of time on our minds and bodies. Meanwhile, the portly subjects of Fernando Botero’s paintings are in rude health, inspiring this latest collection of new works made in a short time…”
Phill Hosking
The Kick-About No.100
“Our last Kick-About was a fantasia on some pretty big numbers; for example, the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field photograph’s million seconds of exposure reveal about 5500 galaxies! We’re celebrating a biggish number too this week – our 100th edition of The Kick-About!”
James Randall
The Kick-About No.102
“Our last Kick-About was inspired by the Irish modernist Mainie Jellett. This week’s prompt, Raoul Hausmann’s Mechanical Head, finds thematic resonance with Jellett’s abstract paintings by exploring the disintegration of traditional forms and the reimagining of human identity in the modern age…”
The Kick-About No.104
“Our previous Kick-About was inspired by an iconic image from the realm of science – Roentgen’s X-Ray – which enthused us to go beyond the surface of things and marvel at what we found there. This week’s big number is not some similarly scientific muse, but rather the number of weeks The Kick-About has been up-and-running for; that’s four years of quick-fire ideation, experimentation, playfulness and discovery!”
Tom Beg
The Kick-About No.106
“Our last Kick-About inspired new works made in a short time exploring the wide, unbounded expanses of Mark Rothko’s paintings. This week, the Kick-Abouters turn their attentions to the weird and wonderful world of slime moulds…”
Itta Howie
The Kick-About No.108
“From Albert Paley’s street-sized curlicues of metal to the colour, energy and molecularity of Japanese artist, Atsuko Tanaka…”
Lewis Punton
The Kick-About No.110
“Our last Kick-About featured as its muse the splendid and colourful costumes of the Mexican chinelos. This week it’s those equally showy performers from the bird of paradise family inspiring this latest collection of new works made in a short time…”
The Kick-About No.112
“Our previous Kick-About celebrated the idiosyncrasies of the ceramicist George Ohr, whose vessels are characterised by their deformations and glossy, melty glazes. As preoccupied with optical wobbles is this week’s muse, Victor Vasarely…”
Jordan Buckner
The Kick-About No.114
“Our last Kick-About together explored the simple proto-cinematic delights of the magic lantern. This week we’re sticking with fantastical sights—the ambulatory beach-bound sculptures of Theo Jansen…”
Phil Cooper
The Kick-About No.116
“Our previous Kick-About was a rumination on the theme of negative space—an aesthetic consideration no less vital to the work of this week’s muse: the textile designs of Lucienne Day…”
Francesca Maxwell
The Kick-About No.118
“Our previous Kick-About had a touch of spookiness about it; this week, it’s less spook more sparkle, as we cast our eyes skywards to catch a falling star or two…”
Gary Thorne
The Kick-About No.120
“Our previous Kick-About celebrated the blending of customs old and new, with the textiles of Melissa Cody, whose work combines traditional techniques with computer gaming. I suppose Advent calendars are a form of gamification in their way—each day a hidden reward revealed, a small but tangible thrill that keeps us moving forward…”