JR² Studio

In early Jan this year, JR² took a trip to Berlin. They had been told by family and friends that this was the place for them. So, they packed their bags, got the passports, and left. When they arrived there was this excitement of being somewhere so indulged in the street art culture which they love. Everywhere you’d look there was art, whether it was on the tiled subway walls or builders equipment. It was everywhere. And coming from somewhere like York it was unimaginable to think this is their norm.  This sparked something between the duo, they just knew that Berlin was where they needed to be, and when they returned from the trip they were almost immediately back in the studio making work. Anyways, keep ya eyes peeled for a zine, 3 Days IN Berlin. Coming to a store near you.

The dead fly  A short story by JR ²   The dead fly was established in 2019 when the pair shared a very small studio space. It seemed that although the room was big enough for the amount of students occupying the space - some students took it upon themselves to override other peoples areas. Some would say JR's space was only big enough for a fly. The dead fly was on the wall for some time, but was it really dead? After relocating into a different studio to begin their 3rd year, the fly decided it was time to leave the pair and let them start their journey into the big world on their own. It was a tough ride to begin with, deadline after deadline, presentations, assessments, critiques, almost no time to actually be in the studio and create work never mind have a social life. Until one day it clicked, JR ²   knew they did not need the comfort of falling back onto the University when things got shit. They knew all they needed was a studio, some materials an...

It's Practice as Research Week at JR 's Uni. What does that even mean? It means JR ² get up at about 10.39 am, they get dressed in some fresh as f*** garms, drop one another a 'you ready?' text and meet outside a well known national supermarket AKA The Co-op. Bit steep in there for a pepsi max and an energy drink so they take a swift left turn down the Groves and go to the one and only Londis to get a nice healthy breakfast; a share bag of the finest cheese puffs and an orange flavoured sports drink (sometimes tropical but only if times are hard).  Anyway, sign up to sessions equivalent to the amount of hours you would be at Uni in a usual week, so around 9 hours, awful. To JR ² that means a cheeky 20 minute session in the metal work shop and the rest of the time sat in the studio blasting absolute tunes, throwing shapes and once in a while making an absolute masterpiece. So, there you have it, Practice as Research week in the style of JR ². Noughts and Crosses...

do you like to draw in pencil? ̶L̶I̶M̶B̶O̶ do you prefer ketchup or mustard? JR² always ask the most important question. In fact, not only are JR² deeply knowledgeable, they are very funny. In fact, if being artists doesn’t work (highly unlikely), they are going to be comedians or musicians, yano whatever they fancy. Anyway, ‘BOOgie MAN’ had dried so they went mad, oil paints, posca pens, even pencil, there was nothing stopping them. However, unlike many of their pieces before this was going to be one they’d have to stop and come back to. It did lose its way for a while. But in JR² style, the duo came back to it the next day, doing more of the stuff that worked, less of what didn’t. Oh, to answer the questions, no they don’t really like to work in pencil. And they definitely prefer ketchup.

This weird, small cupboard/drawers was found by ‘R’, it had been left for a few days and they just KNEW it was meant to be theirs. The duo grabbed it one evening, and the next day it was on its way to the studio in ‘R’ s speedy car. Before they started any work, they had to get some tunes going, this time they played The Clash. Knowing they couldn’t work straight onto the awful dark brown wood surface, they reached for the white paint. Giving the drawers a coat of paint, some may say it wasn't very even, and before it had dried, they scraped straight onto the side ‘BOOgie MAN’. Job well done, they left to get some food as per, knowing that the next day this piece wouldn’t look anything like it does now.

A dog has four legs unless it lost one. One day the duo brought everything they had from their studio space into another larger space, they thought this would be mint and everything would look just as sick as it did in the studio. Wrong. The work was drowned out, small and awkward. It was then that the pair decided to start stacking everything up on top of each other, using ratchet straps and balance they created an exhibition called ‘dadis paswod’. The work began to take shape and to corner it off they used black tape across the floor, and the black tape always needs a bit of posca pen. If you wanted to know the work above consisted of two early pieces, ‘dedicated to god’s dumb animals’ which is holding up ‘A̶C̶I̶D̶’, strapped together with a bright orange ratchet strap. The funny thing about this piece was that they just couldn’t understand how it didn’t fall over, it looked as though it would. But it didn’t, just slightly leaning forward, they decided to put some plaste...

‘R’ had been away for the weekend, ‘J’ had been working. The duo was buzzing to get back to the studio the following week though, mainly because ‘R’ was getting some work done at home. This meant loads of surfaces and objects to work onto. A few trips to uni and back, dropping off doors and drawers, including this shed door, it was time for new work. When they approach a new object there is never a proper plan, sometimes they’ll draw two marks and be done. Other times it’s something they’ll come back to for a few weeks. This wasn’t one of those times. With a big brush they made these quick, immediate marks, and then to clarify it was a shed door, they wrote it down. 2 minutes later it was done and probably a current favourite of theirs.  Anyway, if anyone is getting rid of any shed doors, HMU.

So, on the same night that Hesse pt. 1, 2 and 3 were made, the duo also created a few other pieces. Among these were  A̶C̶I̶D̶. The cabinet was part of ‘R’ s furniture, but after a clear out it became JR². The pair left the cabinet outside, thinking they’d go back later that day and start working on it. But as JR² are always going 100mph, they forgot where they’d left it. After a while they remembered, then the work began. First, paint it white, let it dry (kind of, too buzzing to start). Then go mad, write/paint whatever, stupid stuff, funny stuff, spell stuff wrong. They’d hate to be bothered. And that’s it. Little did the duo know this wouldn’t be  A̶C̶I̶D̶  final form, anyway that’s for another post. ²ɹſ

The same evening as pt. 1 and pt. 3 were made, they also created Hesse dead pt. 2. This came after struggling to find new surfaces, so they got an old painting, flipped it round, painted it white and off the pair went. The work is created through conversation (on the piece), JR ² laugh and write stupid stuff that only each other will get. So yeah, an hangman/woman game, a shout out to SID and a cross later we have pt. 2. No questions cause were not here.