I went out to Australia to seek rejuvenation and new lands within myself. The trip back got me thinking about the nature of identity, as I reconnected with old friends and reinstated myself within the family unit again I noticed my Australian accent getting stronger, old phrases coming back into my vocabulary. All these things made me reconsider the nature of craft, as a separate theory from the human animal impossible. Belief is not a digested 'system' that lies dormant once learnt, but something that grows and shifts with the person.
The Antipodes & I /
I made my first trip to Australia in 1982, and I went again in 1984, and 1985. These journeys have had deep and still continuing effects on my attitudes to art, landscape, and indeed nature itself. They have also changed my life in more personal ways. In one sense, at least, these Australian lectures chronicle my antipodean transformations.
Read MoreBest Supporting Actor nomination /
An honor to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor at Twister Alley Film Festival
Requiem for Philip Seymour Hoffman /
Two years ago today, I was sat at a cafe on Sunset Blvd reading a script, when one of the greatest actors in history walks in, he wore a checkered shirt, was unshaved and probably hadn't showered that morning. I went to the bathroom to work up the courage to tell him how much his work had affected me and my life, when I got back he was gone. Two weeks later he died of an overdose. I was so heartbroken I had not expressed myself to one of my heroes when I had the chance, I sat down and wrote this poem for Philip Seymour Hoffman
Read MoreAuerbach’s Kerygma by Peter Fuller /
In honor of the Frank Auerbach's major retrospective currently on at the TATE in London, which runs until March 2016, I'm publishing here some of my father's articles on Auerbach. During the 80s Peter referenced Auerbach as one of the best British of the 20th Century. It was because Auerbach looked out at the world, transformed it with his imagination into a beautiful experience unique only to him and gave us a window to that experience on the canvas "The Aesthetic Dimension".
Read MoreDESTINATION /
With 2016 knocking on the door, I've been considering the nature of Destiny. I've realized coming to LA and being so invested in the communities out here which has pushed me and forced me to grow beyond what I ever expected. Now stepping back and taking much of this past year to work on my own passion projects in between auditioning for studio projects, (which is not a passtime I intend to slow, as I've had to reassure my colleagues), however forging my own vision which is becoming stronger and stronger with the passing days.
Read MoreEpic in the Metropolis & Peacable Fruit /
Out of the Metropolis a vine grows through the cracks in the pavement of Los Angeles. Matt Wedel has described his sculptures as "pieces of history", they are like mythic moments that Gilgamesh could have encountered in his ancient epic. Or Don Quixote, riding steed and lance to pass, rescue or skewer. From out of this clustering of plastic comes the rock, moss, myth and legend of a Matt Wedel. His latest exhibition "Peaceable Fruit" is like coming home.
Read MoreRoad To The Well first official trailer /
The first official trailer for ROAD TO THE WELL is up and it's heart thumping!
Ojai Diaries: Heading Home /
On our last day before heading back we watched Wildlike, directed by Frank Hall Green. Not surprisingly has toured 150 Festivals and picked up 45 Best Film wins along the way. Ella Purnell delivers a performance which is so pure, instinctual and raw Americana, despite being a Brit. The connection between her and Bruce Greenwood's character and their chemistry on screen no doubt inspired the emotional strength of the last scene. The film is beautifully shot, capturing the spirit of the Alaskan wilderness.
Read MoreOjai Diaries: Day Two Of The Fest /
We went to the screening Q&A for "Mother & Brother" this morning. Watching the film again there is a certain objectivity which is forming about it. Vulnerability is the real strength of the piece is its weakness, its unashamed bare bummed weakness, which exposes the fragility of life. Dustin has been cautious about expressing too much of an interpretation. I understand why, he wants to create the image and allow others the interpretation. There is something beautifully ambiguous about the meaning of this film. What was in the note that made what happens ok between the two?
"Your strength as an artist does not have to come from your best qualities or gifts. An artist can rise from a deficiency within himself or herself." - Celaya, Art And Mindfulness
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Ojai Diaries: Day One of the Fest /
Waking up this morning looking our window I feel the open green hills opening facets of myself I have to keep locked in the city. I think of the sculptor Matt Wedel who has an exhibition coming up at LA Louver which I was lucky enough to see a private view before the opening. His way of life in accordance with nature, his children and the physical world.
Read MoreOjai Diaries: The Spirit of Film /
After seeing Matthew Barney's "River Of Fundament" we're driving up to Ojai Film Festival to support my short "Mother & Brother" which is showing in the "Nuclear Families" block.
Barney's 5 hour avant-guard operatic cinema experience was inspiring.
Reincarnating from the bubbling mucus mud of the powerful ratcheting pulsating explosions at the core of the crust of the earth.
Read MoreCaro & Fuller Saga II - The Interview /
In 1978 my father had his first interview with Anthony Caro, first published in Art Monthly and later in his book Beyond The Crisis In Art. It really does hold up as a fascinating look at both Caro as an artist and Fuller as a critic, the successes and failings of both within their respective mediums and of the limitations of those mediums. The differences between words and images or objects are revealed with all their vulnerabilities and triumphs. Caro's Modernism is put to the test and my father's Romanticism laid bare. The grey area, where they discuss a thing put out into the world and its consequences are fascinating. Should an artist be answerable for the larger questions about the society which he may well be affecting in one way or another, or are they separate because of the signification being a different response for each individual?
Read MoreThe Caro & Fuller Saga i /
In light of major Caro retrospective currently on at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, I decided to take a look at the fascinating Saga which unfolded between the sculptor and my father, the art critic Peter Fuller, which lasted throughout both their careers and found itself at the core of the cultural debates of the twentieth century, shedding light on where we find ourselves today. Below is the first article I'd like to post on the subject, this will be followed by a number of interviews and correspondences in the final weeks of the Caro retrospective.
Read MoreMother Nature /
"You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean" - Alan Watts
One of the most important things my mother ever taught me was how to love nature. Reading back on several of my father's essays she may have seen it as her duty. Not how to explain it, but how to feel it.
Read MoreRadicals On Film: The Intertwining Legacies Of John Ruskin & Peter Fuller /
Peter Fuller was like a punch in the guts to the art world from 1969 to 1990, and until his last breath he was a radical. His writings spanned art history, psychology, sociology, aesthetics, biology, and religion, all emanating from his primary fascination with the arts. His ideas were ahead of their time, punctuated throughout with a belief that cultural reformation was possible through art. In this sense he was a radical-conservatist. In his later years, he was heavily influenced by the works of John Ruskin, and in 1987 he founded this magazine, naming it after the series of books by Ruskin entitled Modern Painters. Not only did Fuller emulate the man in naming his magazine, but he named me, his only surviving son, Laurence Ruskin Fuller. My own journey has taken me to Los Angeles, where I live as an actor and filmmaker. Recently, I’ve found myself deep in research for my next project, a screenplay about my father (I like to think of it as the Raging Bull of the art world).
Read MoreNatkin & Fuller - Artist & Critic /
This last week I've been writing scenes between Peter and the artist Robert Natkin. Peter went to live with Natkin in 1976 with his first wife Colette and my Sister Sylvie when she was a baby. He was writing a book about him as well as several articles. I am struck by their interactions, their symbiotic relationship as artist and critic and the intimacy they shared over his paintings. The friendship, and my father's belief in Natkin's work lasted his whole life, which was not always the case. There was something about his work that touched him deeply.
Read MoreThe Artist and the Subject /
The potentialities of the medium of screen acting first came into my life when I saw Robert Deniro's collaboration with Martin Scorsese, in particular; Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino, at the age of 14. The discipline, intensity and devotion in exhibition throughout gave me the idea that a search for meaning in life was possible through performance in film. In method acting; ideas, expression, mind, body, voice and heart are all inextricably linked towards a praxis, poetical in nature, truthful at its core. The goal to express the essence of what it is to be human under a single observing eye, the camera. Behind the camera, the director, and behind the director an audience, but in observation is there really any separation between participants, in this way the observer is also the subject, and the subject the observer.
Read MoreWilliam Tillyer at Bernard Jacobson Gallery /
I believe that Tillyer's enticingly beautiful water-colours reunite us with that 'common culture' in a way which does not compromise our Modernity. Beautiful in themselves, true at once to nature and to materials, Tillyer's gentle washes of colour have a wider meaning. They remind us that if we divorce our highest aesthetic emotions and perceptions from the world of nature, we will be more inclined to injure and to exploit the natural world - and indeed, each other - than if we perceive ourselves as being part of it.
Read MoreMother & Brother wins "Best Dramatic Short" at Arizona International Film Festival /
I'm proud to announce that Mother & Brother has won it's first award "Best Dramatic Short" at Arizona International Film Festival. The film was a labour of love from first time director Dustin Cook. Brilliantly cast by Billy Damota & Dea Vise. And features performances by Clint Napier, Lisa Goodman and myself. Catch a clip from the film here and read about the Q&A and screening night below
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