C.J.Hobby & R.J.Morey's Page

Relationship status

in a relationship

College / University

Chelsea School of Art

Graduation

21 July 1981

Member type

Artist, Collector, Gallery, Producer

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Conceptual, Digital, Event, Performance, Photography, Sculpture, Video

I am...

A multi media artist, working with glass, both fused and in the Louis Comfort Tiffany technique. In 1985 the owner of a very famous reproduction Tiffany chain of stores in the Kings Road, London, Christopher Wray, had heard of our unusual work in this technique, and contacted us to invite us to visit him and allow him to see some of our work. When we visited him in his plush office and unpacked the pieces, he fell to his knees to examine every part of them, he commented that if he were to put just one piece of our work in his store, nothing else he had would sell, quite a compliment from the man who knows most about Tiffany. I also work in various precious, semi precious and more humble, yet just as precious materials. I do not include precious metals and stones in my work for ostentation. They have metaphysical meanings and qualities long associated with mankind. For over a thousand years, monarchs the world over wore gold crowns with the most precious of stones, like diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies, all crystals have certain vibrations, like quartz that has the closest vibration to time as we know it, hence they are used for quartz watches. The stones mentioned above have the highest vibrations and hardness. The monarchs of old believed that wearing such gold and jewel encrusted crowns connected them to the source of the divine, and would enable them to receive guidance on the affairs of mankind. Such crystals also have been attributed healing energies. It is interesting that the blood in our bodies is basically liquid crystal, the blood salts, sugars and cholesterol are all crystaline, we have crystals that can form on the joints of bones, and other areas of the body, particularly the pineal gland, which forms apatite crystals. Also, it is fascinating that the lasers which i use in my work are also from a crystal source, it is refined synthetic crystals of ruby, sapphire , emerald etc., that are the most important part of creating the light of a laser beam, and recent modern science has shown that such laser light has a healing effect on our bodies, there is now available a healing modality for using laser lights like an accupuncturist, and it has been shown that laser light transmitted through the meridian points used for accupuncture will travel several centimetres into the body. Not only monarchs, but religious figures also attributed divine qualities to such stones, and lesser ones also, as in the jewish faith, the high priests would wear golden plates over their chest, inset with various agates and other semi precious stones. Religious literature describes the foundations of Heaven as being constructed from layers of varying precious and semi precious stones and various other stones and agates.

I also create in the digital medium. I create visual art and then animate it. You can see many examples on my video page here. They are created in high resolution and ideally are best viewed on a large HD liquid crystal TV screen or monitor, but I also create m4v files for iPod art as the iPod is also a perfect digital environment to experience them in high definition, and also the music system of iPods are square wave and this makes the music an incredibly crisp and clear sound. The music on the visual art animations, and this profile front page, is composed and created by The composer R.J. Morey. You can hear his music in the various samples in the playlist. The music you are now listening to are examples of his most recent compositions from 2008. The music is created to accompany the interactive crystal and laser device mentioned below in my brief C.V.

Picture disc CD's of one hour music, and picture disk DVD's with ten musical art animations in limited editions are available. 25% discount for artreview.com members.

We have several exciting project ideas in the pipeline, but have to keep details under wraps at the moment, but will announce them if and when they materialise.

10th June - 2008, you are cordially invited to this unique, interactive, online event and experience not to be missed.

http://www.artreview.com/events/event/show?id=1474022%3AEvent%3A270328

In 2005 i received a lovely email from the art writer and critic Mel Gooding. Mel talked about the new collection of crystal, gold and jewelled sculptural work i was putting together over 4 years, and told me he thought that one day my work would find its niche and that he considered me to be a modern faberge. Not all faberges work was the highly refined work one tends to see, he also created far more naieve pieces, some of which i have seen over the years and was an influence on my collection, examples of which can be see in one of my albums on my artworks page.

A month ago i received another very nice email for Nick Robertson, who was the graphic artist from Wordsalad, who collaborated with Brian Eno on his 77 million paintings project in the past few years. Nick had viewed my online work and mentioned that he liked it very much and found it inspiring to see and hear the experimental work of my music art animations, and intimated i might exhibit at an exhibition of his and Brians in Long Island, in 2009. We shall see !

About my artwork

Mystical Cornucopia from the Collective Unconscious
Christopher's art inspires lust. Not sex but shopping. It calls out “Take me! Own me! Carry me off to your palace or hovel, and ravish me with your eyes and all your senses!” It is the stuff that spills out from an Aladdin’s cave of the unconscious. It emerges from a hidden source of alchemical symbols, mediæval wizardry, myths, cultures far off in space and time. It plunders our dreams, our inner reflections of nature, and clothes them in the most beautiful textures that the physical world offers, at least those which are inert and can be fashioned with tools. It might make us yearn also for the sheen of skin in candle-light, but let’s talk only of art. Its use of natural materials such as nacre, wood, crystals, precious stones and metals, with a sensitive respect for their properties, ensures it is grounded. In this respect, his abstract and figurative art is superior to works executed in the “dream media” of oils or watercolour, where the earth’s textures are merely represented, and may not be grounded in the physical. His works bridge the gap between spirit and matter, by clothing the one in the other. You may say that this is the function of all art. It should be so, but his art is not that of the Post-Renaissance tradition. It would be understood in the courts of Byzantium and Carolus Magnus and by the hordes of Goths and Huns and Magyars and Vandals, who pillaged their way through the Dark Ages. It would be understood by the ancient Egyptians, whose images it often borrows, or any culture in which Shamans practise healing arts.
In today’s blasé world, it would be all too easy to dismiss Manalien’s work as “dungeons-and-dragons kitsch”, or anything to deny its status as art. It’s part of a pre-European tradition which links all the primitive art-objects in the world, where craft, adornment, fetish and totem are not separate. It is to the content of art galleries what the World Music genre is to the classical music of the concert-hall.
When I first encountered it, I loved the shells and pearls and turquoises for themselves, but resisted the seemingly sentimental butterfly and fish shapes into which they had been fashioned. I don’t like the lily to be gilded. I don’t think roses should be painted red. My refined quibbles were soon over-ruled by the primal resonance of these pieces. The fishes and scarabs he has fashioned are not from this world, but the one of dreams.
His Angel heads—haunting presences carved from crystal with big eyes like aliens who visit to enchant or abduct—remind us of familiar beings from a different dimension, that our waking consciousness usually blanks out. He uses crystals not just for their visual light-plays, but also their play with invisible waves and corpuscles that affect the human aura.
It is clear from one of his essays that “magick wands” have a special place in his art. He reinvests this word “art” with its more ancient meaning, associated with occult power rather than the fashioning of beautiful things; but it is the hallmark of Christopher’s art to achieve both simultaneously. His wands can be illuminated from within, like the light sabres in Star Wars. But they are not toys. Forget the wish-fulfilment fantasies of children’s stories. These wands are to facilitate real magic, that is to focus the energies in matter and make them “the instruments of the practitioner’s will”.
His work belongs in that realm where the mythical meets the real, where magic rules. The nautilus, mermaid, scarab, unicorn, dragonfly, the sun-god Sol all flourish there, though we would call some real and some imaginary. The artist-magician is a Shaman, able to roam in other worlds beyond the Terra of common experience. Perhaps everyone could learn to navigate the doors and staircases which lead to those worlds, but they can do it vicariously too, not via psychotropics but via magical objects. The great psychoanalyst C G Jung, seeking to reconcile the recurrent symbols of diverse cultures with modern psychology, coined the term “Collective Unconscious”. Christopher, an artist and Seer, native to this earth yet perennially alert to its wondrousness, invokes these symbols in works which move us strangely.
The urge to possess and accumulate beautiful objects is common to all humanity and even some species of birds. Jewels, precious metals and finely-worked artefacts have value and meaning in every realm, including, it must be said, the financial. They may increase in value as the years pass. Jewellers and goldsmiths in all eras strive to produce works to tempt a king or a princess, or, as we would say today, “a gift for the person who has everything”. If I could wave my magic wand—one crafted by Christopher, obviously—and miraculously afford some of the most beautiful objects in the world to lay at my beloved’s feet, as a token of adoration, from where would I plunder them? Tiffany’s? The tomb of Tutankhamun? The Crown Jewels in the Tower of London? No, I would consider them to be vulgar displays, bankrupt of living creativity. I would seek out a living artist, one whose imagination is constantly replenished by visions “out of this world”. I would go to a certain primitive artist in Dorset, whose art is to reveal the inner beauty of his materials, turning them into the ultimate eye-candy, yet also objects of mystical resonance perceptible to the pure and sensitive soul. His works will interact with something deep in the heart of their possessor, or even their casual admirer.
“I want! I want!”

© Ian Mulder 2005


1954 South London Press most beautiful baby of the year. You should see me now.

1971 4 of my large mosaic works were in an exhibition at the Camberwell School of Art South London Gallery.

1972 3 of my stainless steel pins and silks relief sculptures were in an exhibition at the same venue as above.

1973 I was invited to show my collection of stainless steel pins and silks sculptures on one of the most popular teenagers magazine TV shows at the time, - Magpie - I was interviewed by Jenny Hanley and Tommy Boyd the infamous B.B.C radio presenter. I appeared with the famous wildlife artist David Shephere O.B.E and awarded the C.B.E in june 2008, and we had lunch together in the teddington loch studio restaurant, served by a wonderful lady who was an original Tiller Girl.

1973 An editorial feature on my artwork in the Daily Express.

1974 a full page centre spread editorial on my stainless steel pins and silks sculptures in 'Weekend' magazine.

1974 The legendary female impersonator Danny La Rue was featured in a 'Woman's Own' magazine feature on his favourite things where Danny was photographed sitting with 4 pieces of my work that he had.

1978 I was invited to be a member of the audience in a music video that was being made by a Rock legend and one of my favourite all timers - Paul McCartney. He and Linda and his band Wings were making a music video at the Baron recording studios in twickenham. I was there all day and it was a real golden day. I new all the words to Paul's new song 'With a little luck' and was dancing with a girl in the audience, and i was singing the song. Several times during the takes, Paul kept looking at me from the stage and giving me the thumbs up sign, and during one of the breaks, he and Linda made a beeline for me as he wanted to know how i knew all the words to his song, as it had not even been released yet. I had lunch with Paul, Linda and the band, and we chatted for about an hour, and i even got paid for the pleasure !

You can see the video of that day, here :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFqKN8yhA54

1980 I was awarded a ILEA major county award to study architectural mural design at The Chelsea School of Art, Lime Grove, London.

1980/81 Chelsea School of Art.

1980 A live appearance in Norwich on Anglia TV show - About Anglia with the steel and stil sculptures.

1983 Live interview and exhibition of my Louis Comfort Tiffany, copper foil technique, leaded and bronzed, sculptural stained glass collection of work.

1983 A full length program of the above work, filmed in my home and then interviewed in the bygones parlour, in the studio of another Anglia TV show, in fact the most popular TV show they ever had, which was revived last year - Bygones, interviewed by the director of Anglia T.V - Dick Joice

1985 regular appearances of the same work at Gallery Circa 1900 in Camden Town, London. and Chelsea Glass in London.

1985 Designed textile designs for The Allan Thomas textile design group, which sold around the world, including Japan, Italy, Germany, France and the U.S.A where a leading design group fell in love with a cavepainting on real cork design, and decided to purchase it just to hang on their wall, instead of as a fabric. My very first three designs were purchased by Linda Beard of the then famous Coloroll interior furnishing group.

1996 Six pieces of my stained glass sculpture were on loan to an international celebrity and were featured in a GMTV series on beautiful homes and gardens. They were on display in the celebrities mansion for a year.

1998 3 day one may show Exhibition of my stained glass sculptures at Tiffany Glass Kunst, in Germany, which was attened by the fused glass artist - Narcissus Quagliata, who was working on an amazing futuristic dome for St. Peter's Basillica in the Vatican. I have a book about his work which he kindly personally autographed for me, and he drew a line drawing of an angel, that he said he saw standing by me.

1988 A small collection of six pieces of my artwork was on view over two weeks at the Royal jewellers 'Aspreys' in London.

1998 I was invited to present Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II with a piece of my stained glass sculpture which Her Majesty keeps at Windsor Castle. The presentation was made at Sherborne Abbey commemoration of a new stained glass window. The sculpture was in the form of a multi coloured angel fish. You can view the photograph of myself with Her Majesty, here :-

http://www.artreview.com/photo/photo/show?id=1474022%3APhoto%3A313479&context=user

and this is a photograph of the piece :-

http://www.artreview.com/photo/photo/show?id=1474022%3APhoto%3A325628&context=user

1998 A feature and interview in my fused glass studio on Anglia TV's - Deep South.

2005 I was a finalist in the Spitalfields public art project, London. I designed a granite and rock crystal lightbox with the rock crystal sphere illuminated by multi color lasers.

2005 the Crystal Laser Sabre was featured in an interview in my home on B.B.C's 'Freddies'
when Freddie Rostand interviewed me in my home, and i gave a demonstration of the device, here :-

http://www.artreview.com/photo/album/show?id=1474022:Album:270180

and you can see a very short video of the device in action during its development, which we made three years ago, it has been improved upon since and we will soon try to produce a better video that will better convey the amazing projections, which need to be viewed over a much wider projection space, with the introduction of smoke to materialize the projections in 3d, and you can view a 2 minute video of the scepter in action during its development, three years ago, here :-

http://www.artreview.com/video/video/show?id=1474022%3AVideo%3A344251

This scepter was used by Rev. Canon Jim Richardson O.B.E who was the church cleric for the young Lady Diana and the Althorp family. Jim fell in love with the scepter and interacted with it for almost half an hour and afterwards commented that the experience was one of God and creation !

We have designed a very hi tek futuristic dome environment for this avant neue performance art interactive device, that will be a multi sensorial, uplifting and spiritual experience.

2006 a one hour interview and music on HopeRadioFM.

2007 invited to submit examples of my digital art for inclusion in the permanent collection of M.O.C.A the museum of computer art :-

http://moca.virtual.museum/

July 2008, i recently received a mail from Don Archer the director of the above M.O.C.A after he had viewed some of my latest animated digital art, very brief but to the point " Excellency, I salute your art " !


2008, June 01. A strange thing happened to me on the way to the forum, i stopped by the mag/blogs and i saw that Saatchi-online had published that i was their video artist of the day. so funny.

The centre of the artworld is

my studio

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