'Fifty' 2013
Fifty is a painting installation of 50 small scale abstractions with 8 duct taped canvas boards on show at the Undercroft, Norwich, a group show by the Lonely Arts Club and is on until 27th of September.
Details:
Space is 244 x 305cm, each painting 13 x 18cm acrylic charcoal and oil on canvas board and 20 x 25cm duct tape on wrapped canvas board, 2013.
2.9.14
Description
For Fifty,
the group of 50 paintings comprises of groups of paintings made in smaller
series. This was according to deployment of colour and technique. The intention
was to think about painting decisions encountered through making previous
larger scale paintings. Working smaller scale gave me a chance to work quickly
and intuitively and without the delay of indecision. I did have some things
figured out before I began the groups of works but did not aim to get bogged down
or stuck through the process, sticking to a kind of faux confidence
Drawing
I was keen
to see how drawing or drawn elements could be assimulated into the process. Working
with the charcoal line in wet oil through transferring drawings onto the
surface from scraps of paper, gave me an indeterminate element in the
compositions. So the given quality of the line; crisp or muddied, acted as reference
points. I am interested in how an idea of geometric precision can try to hold
up in the act of painting. By the heat of the gesture, trying to hold its own,
through manipulation of how the paint is applied; negated or counterpointed.
Installation
The show at
the Undercroft was the right opportunity to present the work as a whole. Being
able to view the paintings with and against each other in a configuration, came
after the intention to begin the paintings. Being able to view the paintings
together as if it was one big painting was something I thought about. It became
a game-playing of arrangement, the organising of composition, so a continued
thought process from the making. The constraints being the dimensions of each
painting, on the designated space in the gallery.
Duct tape
on cellaphaned wrapped canvas board
For the
installation there are 8 ‘paintings’, although they are in fact still shop
wrapped. I wanted something with more visual immediacy to see how their quality
could work against the nuanced subtleness of the paintings. For the show my
first thought was to paint on the canvas boards, but this raised too many
questions. Not that I should shy away from this, but the graphic quality is
more obviously different and the process of tearing and sticking offers
alternative suggestions than could be achieved with paint.
To find out
what I do with paint and perhaps ask why do I do certain things.. To see how we
make relationships with things through looking.
