Studio Practice: #returntoconsciousness: Acrylic Paintings on Paper 2021

55 x 75 cm acrylic on paper April May 2021

The first series of acrylic paintings on paper triggered a new response to colour through the use of mediums. Liquitex and Golden semi gloss and gloss mediums and Windsor and Newton mediums and varnish were all employed to increase the viscosity of paint. I wanted as much pouring and splash as possible, so using sign painting brushes that have long hair length that hold more paint and enable a flick on movement; thus paint application become totally free from the contact hand/brush/support method. The space between brush and support is now relevant, perhaps crucial in the construction of the image. Of course, as is evident in the work, there is still much direct contact with brush to draw and mark but the complementary move to gestural application increases dynamic and moreover, the intention is free flowing brush directed action.

four details of the above painting

55 x 75 cm acrylic on paper April May 2021

I like using flat varnish application brushes that I source from Cornellison and Brodie and Middleton (incidentally the latter is where all my raw canvas comes from). These brushes give an angled arch that increases and decreases in line with the movement unlike a round brush that would be more consistent in the entirety. For me, this means an increased dynamic and meaning to each gesture; the arch has, for example, a narrow start curving to a rounder form in the centre and round to a narrower end. It means a kind of form is described; something larger or wider in one part than another.

three details of the above painting

55 x 75 cm acrylic on paper April May 2021

three details of the above painting

55 x 75 cm acrylic on paper April May 2021

These photographs highlight the exploration into the lustre and sheen that is obtainable with the mediums and varnishes; the surface of colour. In addition the paint application is multi coloured in one stroke. In other words a violet and deep red paint (in the painting above) are placed together on the palette and the brush picks up both making for a striped stroke.

two details of the above painting

55 x 75 cm acrylic on paper April May 2021

three details of the above painting

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.