for
MICHAEL COPPELOV
written on the occasion of his exhibition
TEN YEARS TOO LATE
This is a list
Goodbyes and hellos
Colours mixed
Highs and lows
One-way tickets
Don’t-you-knows
From Glasgow
Ormskirk
Walthamstow
Whatever works
To make you not a worse impression
Of what you were
We are unfinished
And if this is a big ask
Be unembarrassed
Be ready to entertain
Tell a joke
Say goodbye
Be broke in the Smoke
And show no impulse control
Against a canvas that calls
“Michael! Michael!”
As darkness falls
On YouTube tutorials
How to paint
People
Animals
Buildings
Clouds and sky
Hello, sun-blue lives
A Hollywood pause
Hackney surprise
A prayer board
And a canvas primed for goodbyes
At gruesome Euston
Ring ring
A nuisance call
From Paul
That’s me
Your master guru guide
Completely unsolicited advice
For painting and life
Favourites and likes
Like
When someone asks
What kind of art do you make
Tell them fuck off
Do you have a studio
Fuck off
Do you make a living off it
Fuck off
This is London
A fuck off cityscape
That takes and takes
And maketh the man
A tomb effigy
Cigarette in one hand
In the other ice cream
From Iceland
Ice queen
Sunglass skinhead
Somewhere in between
Glam and am-dram
And a second five-year plan
Not working out as you planned
And so what
Can we not pack our lives in bin bags
Measured by the square metre
Years
Rejection letters and CV gaps
Those ones that laugh at white walls
Open calls
Pay to play
Are we having a ball
In this take-away town
Of Uber Eats up all day
Up and down Hoe Street
Where three worlds meet
At a bus-stop Utopia
Hot tubs
Graham Norton Shows
And applause
For those happy days and years
Followed by less than happy days and years
Until
A lick of paint
Dipped in national treasures
Firebombed
It gives me great pleasure
To introduce a goodbye to all that
At long last a goodbye
Work in progress
Goodbye out of focus goodbyes
Everything has changed
So if you’re not quite ready
A goodbye
——————
Cover painting by Michael
michaelcoppelov.hotglue.me
released May 5, 2018