{"id":245048,"date":"2023-05-26T13:45:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T12:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/?p=245048"},"modified":"2023-05-26T14:11:01","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T13:11:01","slug":"bedsheets-pins-alistair-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/leeds-united\/bedsheets-pins-alistair-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"Bedsheets & pins: Alistair Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alistair Woods is an artist living and working in Manchester, but in 2017 ‘A Portrait of Jack Charlton’ was a bit of a giveaway that his allegiances are with the light side of the Pennines. Newer work at Castlefield Gallery in Manchester featured a player whose legend could have been enhanced if he’d taken up Bill Fotherby’s offer and joined Leeds in 1988.<\/p>\n

“Diego Maradona’s in my recent work due to a recent trip to Naples,” Alistair told me over email. “The amount of tributes to him around the city was almost sacred, and felt the same as seeing all the, what I\u2019ve seen described as \u2018votive aedicula\u2019 shrines all over the place.<\/p>\n

“Using Maradona is not only being able to incorporate football into my work, to an extent a bit of humour too (let\u2019s face it, the bust is pretty ridiculous) but also an attempt to tap into that energy of devotion that comes from football fans and how it compares slightly to paintings of the Virgin Mary from the 15th century, for example.<\/p>\n

\"A
Touch of class, 2023 by Alistair Woods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I\u2019ve been making references to football in my work for quite a few years now, mainly by using items synonymous with football either as details or to make marks on the canvas. I\u2019ve lost track of the number of times I\u2019ve included pin badges bought outside of Elland Road pinned to a canvas or betting slips for Leeds to win the FA Cup nailed to a gallery wall. In making the initial compositions, I often use initials of casual groups or the imagery taken from banners and I\u2019ve developed a technique of staining the canvas with smoke bombs.<\/p>\n

\"A
Rough Justice, 2021 by Alistair Woods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“The use of flags and banners, often created with simple means, the bedsheet and a can of spray-paint being a firm favourite, is similar to the likes of a beautifully created trade union banner, both essentially bits of fabric for the working class to stand under\/behind in order to help identify themselves and beliefs. These types of banners are beautiful and for me hold the same importance and elements of symbolism as a classic still life painting from the 16th century.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m particularly drawn to things like pin badges featuring The Simpsons or a scarf that has characters from Frozen on. I like the idea of taking something that doesn\u2019t belong to you and using that to create a whole new meaning.”<\/p>\n

\"A
A Portrait of Jack Charlton, 2017 by Alistair Woods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
Detail from A Portrait of Jack Charlton, 2017 by Alistair Woods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I asked Alistair which Leeds players should be thought of as artists:<\/p>\n

“From everything I\u2019ve seen, Eddie Gray should very much be considered an artist, same goes for Pablo Hernandez. We\u2019ve all seen what Klich can do with a can of spray-paint so that shouldn\u2019t be ignored. Batty and Radebe tackles were works of art. Bielsa transcended art, and for me is godlike. And I hear Rob Price is pretty good at collage too.”<\/p>\n

See more of Alistair’s work at alistairwoods.co.uk<\/a> or @_alistairwoods<\/a> on Instagram. <\/p>\n

(This article is free to read from TSB magazine 2022\/23 issue 08. To buy paper copies or read more, click here<\/a>) \u2b22<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alistair Woods is an artist living and working in Manchester, but in 2017 ‘A Portrait of Jack Charlton’ was a bit of a giveaway that his allegiances are with the light side of the Pennines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":245056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1993,1673,1972,832,2476,7,831,1728],"tags":[2481,616,1600,914,2477],"posts-jet-categories":[2475],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245048"},{"taxonomy":"posts-jet-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesquareball.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts-jet-categories?post=245048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}