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| 'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel. 60 cm X 60 cm, 2013 |
I’m not sure
which is more dispiriting really, - the fact that the six-week academic summer
break is over, or the sense that I didn’t really make sufficient constructive use
of it this year. I seem to have been
plagued with various distracting minor ailments and a general lack of energy
but, thankfully, things did improve towards the end. I feel doubly guilty, as it’s a luxury that many
working folk can’t enjoy and a long, unbroken period of (theoretically)
creative time that many other amateur artists would envy.
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'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 2', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel. 60 cm X 60 cm, 2013
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One big plus is
that I did complete the set of three related paintings I’ve had in hand for far
too many weeks. Another is that, whilst
lacking some motivation generally, at no point did I lose belief in the
essential ideas I was engaged with. I’m
not sure if the paintings are completely successful, but they do hint at some
possible ways forward. I’m already
thinking about my next move(s) and that can only be good.
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'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 3', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel. 60 cm X 60 cm, 2013
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‘Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 1’, ‘2’, &
‘3’ are closely related in both composition and themes. I’ve already written about the source subject
and basic premise behind them so won’t repeat myself about all that now. Anyone perplexed by the inclusion of certain
vulgar motifs would do well to read my previous post on the subject.
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| Burley's Flyover, Leicester, 2013 |
What they do represent
is a more organic approach to developing an idea than before. Previously, I’ve tended to produce paintings
from highly finished sketchbook studies, having already solved most of the
formal problems up front. This time, the
paintings (in tandem with on-going small studies), represent more of
development process themselves. My
previous multi-panel projects have been planned as a single statement in several
pieces designed to hang together. These
three act rather as experimental variations on a theme that could easily hang
separately.
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| Burley's Flyover, Leicester, 2013 |
At 60 cm X 60 cm
the panels are three fifths of the scale I’ve often painted at. If I mistakenly thought this would help me to
work faster, it really just proved that working on a smaller, more congested
scale can have quite the opposite effect.
If they do point towards a more definitive resolution of their themes
(as I suspect is the case), it would definitely be larger. Certainly, the original subject does suggest
a greater sense of environment through scale.
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'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 1' (Detail), Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 2013
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The real
challenge of these paintings was my continuing attempt to incorporate passages
of representational imagery as distinct layers of meaning into compositions
based on text characters and abstract elements.
This began with my previous ‘Belgrave Gate Project’ Painting (‘Belgrave Gate: Yours 1’), and will, I think, continue to distinguish future attempts
under the same banner. How to
achieve this is probably the biggest conundrum I face at the moment. Certainly, each ‘Cave Wall’ plays with a different mode of depiction in their
illusionistic background passages. The
one that pleases me least is the first, with its rather leaden attempt at
‘straight’ realism. Further exploration
of different, (possibly photographically derived), modes of depiction seems to be required.
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| 'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 2' (Detail), Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 2013 |
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Another feature
worth noting is a moderate heightening of colour palette as the three panels
progressed. It’s necessary to look past
the vivid top layers of ‘Paleolithic’ motifs to really appreciate this but it reinforces
my conviction that the synthesis of impressions felt in a given situation is
best achieved by abandoning excessive realism and certainly, local colour. Wherever they may sit within the triangle of
abstraction, representation and conceptualism, it’s important to me that my
paintings should remain highly artificial constructs.
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| 'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 3' (Detail), Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 2013 |
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Despite this, I’m
undecided how well that almost arbitrary top layer of artificial motifs really
works in pictorial terms. On reflection,
I now realise that it’s partially influenced by Gerhard Richter’s strategy of smearing
paint directly onto photographs, or images painted in a completely different
manner, to create a tension between alternative visual ‘realities’. I remain fascinated by that idea but also
suspect I may have replaced his spontaneity of gesture (in both senses), with
excessive deliberation and an attempt to keep too many plates spinning at
once. The incorporation of this floating layer and the text elements subsumed into the
formal layer below, (plus the illusionistic passages), may just mean that far
too much is going on. Perhaps an
either/or approach would make more sense here.
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| Gerhard Richter, 'Ohne Titel (9 Nov 1999)', Oil On Photograph, 1999 |
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Gerhard Richter, 'Ohne Titel (9 Nov 1999)', Oil On Photograph, 1989
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So, plenty to
think about but then these paintings were always intended as something of a test
bed. They are successful in that respect
if no other.
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