Merlin James

A fellow artist gave me this painters name - interesting article.

http://www.jca-online.com/hyde_james.html

Block Construction paintings -pictures of making

Block Construction Paintings

WHAT

A series of eight, reduced to six, block construction paintings (found pine-wood off cuts).

They are all oil on pine and board.

HOW

They were cut up, then stuck back together rearranged, with oil paint applied in different ways.

Some pieces of board were attached as some 'ground' or 'backing' to each block.

The cutting was done arbitrarily using manual and machined methods. A feel for the size of each piece with the possibility of being joined or combined to make a unit or block construction.

I decided the quality of the backing board surface was good enough to be seen (with the assumption that each piece would be wall mounted).

So after a number of stages of painting, including projected drawn elements where a positive and negative shape/space were painted black then white or vice-versa. The blocks were cut up again, pieces were swopped about and the 8 blocks then became 6.

WHY

I have tried to think about the process of deciding the reconfiguration, and how this works, at present it is how the eye responds to the looking.

They could be maquettes. But I see them as paintings.

PICTURES

I will post the photos charting the history of the making next on this blog.

Oil and wax on mdf untitled / update April painting

Work in progress: April 2 Painting

AB EX

Again nearly finished.

I have been thinking about Abstract Expressionist painting and so my approach compared with the April painting was to be much looser, building up broader areas of paint. Idea being try and paint in a style to find your own style - (It is more challenging than I thought, could've been more rigorous) but allows a greater sense of exploring space together with exploiting colour relationships.

I love those iconic De Kooning titles: Montauk highway, Suburb in Havana etc

REMEMBERING

Such as the journey up the M6 into Cumbria as a student, with the grey/rainbow skies swathed out aside of the car window. Also remembering an ab-ex painting in Cumbria College of a&d refrectory, (could have been by an artist called Nick Bullion in the year above, circa 1996) had an impact on me at the time , but only just recently remembered while doing this work. What happened to the art when the decor changes and the corporate college vision changes? - In the skip a la Michael Landy.

COMPLETION

I have found it very useful over the past month to have a number of different works on the go, with differing starting points, scale etc to work on as each plays off one another, confirming or rejecting working practices.

Working title: April Painting

NEARLY FINISHED

I have nearly finished this painting now on the final straight.

I have strived to keep this painting going or 'alive' for as long as possible. I have use oil and it is quite built up with layers. Compositionally it was (is) quite a challenge.

You can see how this painting looked at my posts from last year and how it has come on. (olive green ground)

MASKINGTAPE

The technique which dominates this work is the use of masking tape.

It works for me like you would use marks of pencil lines to map or measure out a drawing, say from a life study. When you tear the tape it gives a feathered edge which I try to utilize as an edge to paint against. The tape acts as a great block and I have used it in many ways in this painting.

The tricky part was to refrain from introducing more colour/light dark tone when the process slows down and you need to take a risk. Although I have used a range of colours and tones.

The original drawing projected onto the painting gets forgotten about, during the piece.

DRAWING

Towards the end I was referring to a different black and white photocopy of a random drawing I did but this has no significance to the end look of the painting. For me like looking at the picture of some instructions to make a piece of furniture from Ikea or somewhere, you kind of half know, but its there to refer to when you're stuck.

PHYSICALITY

The elements and forms seem to refer to the body and a hint at a physicality (scaffolding/skeleton =green areas and pink = the flesh) but nothing more than that at present.

I will make sure this is hanging up next friday.

Launch night 23rd April

http://www.bendintheriver.co.uk/?page_id=5

New Peter cartwright show coming up, if you can make it north !

Been busy with some smaller scale stuff, will post photos soon.

Come along for our launch night !

23rd of April 6pm Euroart studios, N15.

Unit 6 studio 29.

2nd one

The second one is a stab at something a bit more commercial.

Its called 'walk to the park and swimming'

Oil on canvas (square)

Influences here are Gorky, Klee and Miro.

This might lead somewhere.

Ive been busy- work in progress

happy easter (hope you had one)