“If I were a painter, I should paint only colours: this field seems to me freed of both the Law (no Imitation, no Analogy) and Nature (for after all, do not all the colours in Nature come from the painters?).” (Barthes)
The principle that art defines the way we see the world has been well established, the maker and viewer are equipped with cultural knowledge: “Our senses have an age of development which does not come from the immediate surroundings, but from a moment in civilisation”. (Matisse)
The process of making has, over time, led to colour being the only real direction for my painting. Working with drawing and colour, at once apart and yet inextricably linked (what are two lines without the defining space in between?), the edges of colour define the parameter of the image and by inherent irregularity involve the external environment in the experiential manifestation; the outer edges are no longer formatted.
For pictorial operation colour needs colour. The interaction of the quality of colour is both the image and the structure. The structure of colour is its literalness, it is no longer contained in the painting or the apparent shapes within, rather it operates on the outside of the image working against and with, drawing, surface and depth.
But, then there are new criteria evolving through process. The use of chromatic grey and areas of colour that directly support others to maximise the potency betray a practice starting as analytic. But through realisation, my painting is essentially to do with the innate instinctive energy of colour.
It often feels that the work has developed on its own accord into an area of self manifestation. It is true that there is a suspension of belief in the making and an unconscious state linked to instinctive drive . Painting is an ordered chaos, the result of the paradox of conscious intention and unconscious act.
The energy of colour in the larger paintings must be different from that in the small works. The increased area allow for a depth and permeation of colour through the painting as well as across the surface. Despite the illusion of organisation, colour has led the way and continues to do so, overriding shape and redefining the pictorial space on its own terms. In pursuing light (sensation) even the conscious decisions to upstage the conventional fade as the painting reaches a state of fusion , something I describe as totality. At this point, when the painting is at a stage of resolution, the process has to be left because familiarity enters the arena.
Above all, colour must be felt. It is something instinctive. “Colour has its own meaning”. (Kelly)
