Batcow Artworks History

This is what Batcow Artworks website used to look like, and a snapshot of some artworks from the dawn of time

The message inherent in all parts of the website was that, in the words of Oscar Wilde, “All Art is Quite Useless.”

Click on an image to see a larger photograph


7 Star (1983) – 14cm x 14cm x 0.4cm Wooden lollipop sticks	The Post Boxes of Blackpool, England (2002) 37 photos of pillar boxes along with some history - currently posted on the internet at www.ausgang.com/collect/post.html		Cu Jimmy (2003) – 1.77m x 85cm x 45cm Reclaimed copper piping

Heffalump Trap (2008) – 49cm x 90cm x 55cm A musical instrument to be played with sticks and have its strings plucked. It's sprung so the trap will snap viciously shut at random	Fifty Pieces of Silver (2009) – A4 A birthday present for pStan Batcow's niece. Banknotes in clear plastic pouches then laminated; if she removes the notes the artwork is destroyed.		Eye (2009) – 49cm x 67cm x 15cm
RooH, who owned 'Eye', explained why he liked this piece of artwork so much: "First off: there's an obvious parallel with a certain famous album cover, but it's an eye not a prism. But then whilst a prism may split white light into its constituent colours, it takes human intellect (often symbolised by an eye) to name them. Eye = intellect - insight, vision, imagination. Also 7 colours, really? Newton was a bit nuts about numbers and rather liked the number 7 so there had to be 7 colours in the spectrum (I mean indigo / violet = light purple / dark purple) so there's a link to the artist. And 7 lashes! Then I got to thinking about the left-to-right bias in our society. It's obviously white light being split into colours by an eye. Why is it not colours being combined by human perception into the white light of truth? Because we read left-to-right. Ditto comics, storyboards, flow-diagrams, instructions. But this is not universal, other cultures would see the colours being combined. This made me feel dismay for the human race, if people of different cultures cannot look at a piece of recycled scrap metal and agree what it means then there really is no hope for us as a species. But then, if we can produce a simple artefact which evokes such deep questions, is that not proof of our fitness to survive?" RooH died in 2010, and is fondly remembered.

Poco Loco busking bucket (2010) - 53cm x 28cm x 32cm a drum-styled bucket for when the band plays, for coins to be thrown into	PetrolBurners (2011) - 80cm x 26cm x 26cm functional ornaments for Dr. Adolf Steg's garden		PetrolBurners being used in Dr. Adolf Steg's garden
Tables

Arsetable (2007) – 45cm x 1.1m x 45cm A recycled coffee table with a mosaic design lovingly executed thereon		Mosaic Table (2007) – 62cm x 49cm x 49cm A recycled coffee table decorated with a spiral mosaic design
Motorised

Radar (1999) – 28, 20, 10 Both the radar dishes rotate, at different speeds	‘Exorcist’ (2000) – 22, 12, 8 Both the girl's head and the soldier rotate		Spires (2002) – 33, 42, 20 Both the spires rotate, at different speeds
Environmental



7 Star Sticks (1993 Ireland) – 1.3m x 1.3m x 3cm Seven sticks woven together, leaning against one of Finn McCool's Fingers	The creation of Stanhenge (1993) Seven stones taken from a riverbed at Brock Bottom and set in a cement base		Stanhenge (1993) – 22cm x 28cm x 28cm Now weather-worn after years in the garden.

Skull Tower (1995 Scotland) – 1.4m x 40cm x 40cm Sticks and an animal skull	Bridge (1997) – 1.2m x 1.3m x 40cm Prunings from a damson tree		Claw (2010) - 1.63m x 1m x 1.27m Prunings from a rowan tree
final construction	after painting		after installation
Devil / Angel (2009) – about 2m tall pStan Batcow helped Sue and her family clear out their wildly overgrown back garden in 2008. During the process, many old and very rusty pieces of metal were discovered in the undergrowth or buried in the soil, and Sue asked if a sculpture could be made out of them. Liking the idea of replacing what was once so much trash back into its original location but in a completely reborn state, pStan Batcow created this sculpture with a pickaxe for a head and a garden fork for a tail. It has now been concreted into position at the bottom of Sue's garden, as a watchful guardian.

[BACK TO TOP]