This post features the early stages of the larger paintings of 2021. The painting above was started in late 2020 and rested in the studio until the following summer when further concluding paint was applied. The other larger canvases were made and started in May working through until September. I wanted once again to work on large paintings (above 1.25 metre approximately), the first large painting for six years. In doing this some of the process features of current work like gesture and physical mark can be explored to a fuller extent as the arm can move through a full arc and the record of such physicality reflected in the painted application.
Following along with this painting I began a new canvas (centred below). Thematically, thinking behind these paintings were the experience of pre-Covid travel, particularly in this case, Indonesia. There is no descriptive element in these works, more a reflection on the absorption of place, difference and space. Space in the sense of altered horizons and meanings. Illusion, if any, develops out of the process only and with no other preconceived idea, plan or concept. This is because when painting I go into a place where thought is arrested.
On gesture from previous blog post Oil Paintings part 1:
The kind of gesture I am concerned with is fluid spontaneous and fleeting. The movement is instinctive and unconscious; whilst making ones thinking is deliberately abstracted so that intention is absent and response is unguided in a cerebral way. The state is somewhere else. Getting to this point or place takes a little time and concentration, not just within a day but over the time of making, a week or two. It is definitely the studio thing; concentration to the point of transcendence, if that does not sound too pompous! But, to focus on the specific. What of gesture? It is a recording of the mind in motion. Certainly more to do with movement, process and journey rather than end point or product. It is possibly something akin to Zuihitsu, the Japanese method of writing that translates loosely as 'following the brush'. Another correlation with Zuihitsu is the element of fragmentation. Areas of colour are brought together as if by accident, parts are relating through juxtaposition rather than by design. As ever, the image is made only by a process that has no defined outcome. The element of gesture applies to many artists, Saura and de Kooning for example. However, with Saura and de Kooning there is a figurative cohesion; the gesture is part of the construction of a subject (a figure). My stance however is that the mark itself is the both the subject and the image.
I have increased the fluidity of the paint using mediums like linseed oil, pure turpentine, shellsol, Jacksons gloss medium and glaze medium. Toxic fumes forced abandonment of the studio for several days until I sourced a protective breathing mask that I now wear every time applying paint. In such a large studio space the issue of ventilation would perhaps not be a problem but it is, probably because of the close proximity to materials when painting. Latex gloves are worn for oil and acrylic painting.
Two new canvases were stretched from paintings made in the 1990s. I could not recall the dimension of these but the old paintings were removed and rolled. I am working through all my old large canvas stretchers and recycling these to make new work. It is such a good way to work. As usual 9oz cotton duck is stretched with three coats of rabbit skin glue and a thin oil based undercoat for all my oil paintings.
Painting remains almost exclusively floor based. This is largely practical enabling the application of paint from brush to begin before the brush touches the canvas and indeed in many cases the brush does not touch the canvas. In these next two canvases, large areas of colour are applied to activate the pictorial environment and begin the process of making the painting. Like territories of colour, applied flat on the floor; areas of colour that interact. That interaction initiates responses through colour, paint, and brush.
Reflective statement on #returntoconsciousness
Recent work over the past 18 months has been studio based and reflective of the international placements of the preceding 24 months. Taking as a point of reference, Jean Dubuffet’s notion of non-place (1), my practice has evolved through a parallel questioning of objectivity with a methodology using multiple 2D media exploring memory and experience of place. With diffused imagery there is an interrogation of reality, with dense clustering of line, shape and colour, intersecting graffiti like gestures and marks. Rhythm and repetition, spontaneity and design are all features of current drawings and paintings, an exploration of alternative reality.
(1) Barbican Art Gallery. Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty current main exhibition May 2021
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