When Heart of Darkness premièred at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studios in 2011 it met with great acclaim for its ‘music of startling beauty’ (The Observer) and ‘a magical and haunting sound-world’ (The Telegraph).

Composer Tarik O'Regan has now developed Suite from Heart of Darkness for orchestra and narrator. Tom Phillips, the original librettist, has worked closely from Joseph Conrad's novella to create the text.

There are still a few tickets available for the London première of Suite from Heart of Darkness at Cadogan Hall on Tuesday 23rd April at 7.30pm. The concert is part of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's Resident Season, will be conducted by Nicholas Collon and narrated by Sam West.

To see a filmed interview with Tarik O'Regan talking about the work and his collaboration with Tom Phillips follow this link, where you can also purchase tickets.

The first-ever major show in the UK devoted to the portraiture of Édouard Manet, currently at the Royal Academy of Arts, now makes it to the big screen as a movie in HD.

Manet: Portraying Life opens at selected cinemas worldwide on 11th April. Hosted by Tim Marlow, the film includes exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the show's preparation, interwoven with a superbly crafted biography of Manet, 19th-century Paris, and the literary, political and artistic figures of the day, brought to life by a panel of expert guests who include Tom Phillips.

Few artists can claim to have committed to a work in progress for 47 years. As A Humument nears its half century an exhibition, Life’s Work, at MASS MoCA features an in depth study of Tom Phillips’ ever evolving treated novel and partners the Humument display with another longstanding altered book project by Johnny Carrera.

Life’s Work which opens on March 23rd 2013, is the most comprehensive exhibition of A Humument ever mounted and offers a rare opportunity to examine the work in its entirety.

For those of you not able to make it to North Adams please visit the newly revised Humument gallery for an online version of the exhibit.

Life’s Work continues at MASS MoCA until November 2013

The BBC, in partnership with The Public Catalogue Foundation, recently launched Your Paintings – an excellent resource which aims to give a permanent online home to all the painted works owned by the nation.

As one of the artists whose works make up the collection, Tom has a dedicated page on which you can watch a slideshow of 48 of his paintings in public ownership, including works not currently shown on this site : or you can follow the 'browse all paintings' link to find individual pictures.

If you hanker after standing in contemplation of any of the actual canvases, you will find details of the various galleries, museums and colleges up and down the land to which you should direct your steps. If you prefer to admire them from the comfort of your own home, in some instances the holding institutions (e.g. National Portrait Gallery) may allow you to order a high-resolution print online – a service Your Paintings hopes to extend to all its pictures in due course.

In The Days That Remain, recycled palette collage, 2013

I have already made in blogs above (5.2.13 & 21.1.11) what might be thought the sufficient confession of a serial recycler: yet I must ask the jury to take into consideration one further and extreme instance.

Cutting up the palette mixings for The Remains of the Day and its sequel In The Days That Remain (seen here in its finished state) created its own waste in the form of trimmings; the edges and corners scalpelled off in the process. These become imprisoned in the drying pools of the resin I use in applying the fragments to their panels.

When fully dry these puddled mixtures of resin and paint can themselves be lifted from the saucers that hold them and may in their turn be applied to another surface.

Lurking unloved in a corner of the studio I found the ideal partner in the form of an unfinished painting, a failed drip/stripe work of the seventies. Each day’s waste now finds its way onto this now recycled canvas, one kind of aleatory accident making an almost musical counterpoint to the other; a staccato texture above the lyrical progression. So far (see below) it seems to be working. When it is done I shall perhaps be able to rest my case.

The state of play in my studio and those pseudo studios in Talfourd Road that occasionally masquerade as bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms is, as usual, complicated. The unifying feature I begin to realise is some form of recycling. Ever since I picked up a Victorian novel  (in 1966) and borrowed a postcard of Burnham On Sea (from Nancy Davies in 1968) to paint from, everything I do has seemed to involve the transmutation of source material or, as in the case of mud and hair etc., of material sources.

I write this in the kitchen which, apart from making coffee or the odd microwaved meal, is used for postcard storage and sorting and the preparation of books.  With the exception of two or three completed at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, every page of both versions of A Humument has been done in a kitchen. Around me in shoeboxes and albums is my collection of 50,000 or so vintage photo postcards of people. Slowly these are decanted into the little volumes for the Bodleian. The next categories to appear are Walls and Sport and, with Alice, I am starting to sort out the selection for Dogs (or rather, people with dogs).

In the eighties I started (and for some reason abandoned) the project of making a diary of a composite day, minute by minute by minute for 24 hours, the minutes coming from different days in different years. Perhaps urged on by my admiration for Christian Marclay’s film masterpiece The Clock, I have taken up the task again. By now the minutes can be over fifty years apart. Currently the earliest entry is for 1957 and the most recent comes of course from 2013. This book is not, like Ivan Denisovitch, A Day in the Life of but rather A Life in the Day of Myself. Of the 1440 possible entries I have finished about two thirds, gleaned both from that first attempt and from other diaries and pindownable moments from various notes. Each page features ten minutes, one of which should provoke an illustration of some mentioned work or place or person.

In another room my central activity for the past months is a painting carrying on from The Remains of the Day (see blog January 2011) shown here in painful progress. It is very near completion under a title which reminds me (as if I needed reminding) of the ever nearer approach of time's winged chariot; In the Days that Remain. More of this when it is finished with that necessary coat of varnish that will hold the whole precarious thing together.

Head for Flowers, at 82 Kingland Road, London E2 8DP  on Saturday 12th January 2013 between 2-4pm for the private view of "Square to Circle and Back" a  exhibition of prints featuring the above work by Tom Phillips. The exhibition continues until February 9th, and opening hours are Tuesday- Saturday 10am to 6pm.

Highlights of 2012 are reflected in a new selection of prints on offer at the Shop including Tom Phillips's design for the XXX Olympiad Silver Kilo Coin and Sixteeen Appearances of the Union Jack, chosen for the Royal Academy Diamond Jubilee portfolio. Also available is one of the very first Humument prints,  made at Kelpra Studios in 1970 and only recently discovered in our archive.

We have revised the Editions section of the site  to include links to prints available from CCA Galleries and we have also enhanced the Music Scores section of the site to include playable sound recordings.

For the month of December Tom Phillips will be the featured book artist at the wonderful bookartbookshop, 17 Pitfield Street, Hoxton, London N1 6HB.

Join him there for a preview on Friday 30th November between 5.30 - 7pm
information, opening hours and directions here