Missing parts

Jul 06, 2026

A painting of a friend’s daughter’s birthday party from a few summers ago. The party are all there under the water somewhere.

Went to see Ai Weiwei in conversation at Aviva Studios this week, in the run up to his big new show Button Up at Factory International.

Given the title, and his background as a prominent free-speech advocate, I was expecting the conversation to gravitate towards cancel culture and the censorship issues we now see across society. Instead they stuck with the literal – the title of the show originates from an anecdote about his trousers falling down in true Carry On fashion during his time in prison. It felt like a side-stepping of the elephant in the room. Annoyingly, there was no Q&A either, which was by far the best bit of his last talk here last year.

But it’s very easy forgive all that and I still warm to the guy. He’s refreshingly self-deprecating, has a child-like wonder about the world and is a softly spoken, quietly funny guy. He’s also clearly a bit of a mischief-maker and it’s interesting to consider his rise to prominence as an artist given what comes across as a low regard for the art world – although this might be more of a weariness that’s accumulated over time (he apparently likes to spends his spare time down the casino these days). He was wearing a sharp black leather jacket on stage and I couldn’t help but think of Mark E. Smith (not that he was self-deprecating or softly spoken, mind you). Now those two in conversation would’ve been a thing.

This is the escalator on the way up to the auditorium. Duplicated, rotated and solarised – I’m not sure where it will transport you to now.

I have six months left on the printmaking course and plan to focus on etching techniques as I continue to discover new ways to make mistakes. Here’s a rare plate I haven’t messed up with foul bite (yet).

Enjoying the juxtaposition of the weathered, burnt sienna bit. I like that it nods to the material qualities of metal even though, strictly speaking, zinc doesn’t rust.