From top Chimney, Post Depot and Peenemunde 2015 all 24 x 18cm oil on board

'Fifty'

'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.

  

New work in progress 2014

1441 show installation, Wharf academy, Norwich

1441 Wharf Academy
Here are installation images of the 1441 exhibition at the Wharf academy, Oak Street in Norwich. Situated in a former church, now used as a music venue. The painting and mixed installation show is a 3 person collaberation with ex Slade school-ers Aaron Fickling and Nick Spiers. My paintings include old and new pieces selected for the show. ( Images were taken before Aaron and Nicks' installation.)
On from until 1.4.14 - 14.4.141 2-7pm

Zweimal Two man show - Aaron Fickling Nick Powell

Www.npowellpainting.tumblr.com

'Corrugation' Norwich Fringe Festival, Undercroft

Installation shots hanging 'Corrugation'

 large square format painting measuring 270 x 265 cm.  Medium is gesso, household paint, acrylic, oil stick and collage elements. 

Collage piece made from discarded cardboard panels. Some elements used cardboard from the Norwich Market which is situated outside the gallery venue at the Undercroft. Also pics of Aaron Fickling with his new sculpture work. The piece was supported at the back with pine battening and extended at the top so the piece made contact with the ceiling.

Norwich Fringe Festival 2013 'Zweimal' Nick Powell

Norwich Fringe Festival, Norwich 5 -19th October

Exhibiting in two concurrent shows:

• Undercroft, Norwich 5 -19th of October one painting 'Corrugation'

• 'Zweimal' Joint show with Aaron Fickling, Stew Gallery, Fishergate, Norwich, 7 - 13th,  12 - 5pm

reliant on pieces coming together

I knew I had to start to get a feel of the pieces I had cut and play around with them on the cb ground. I see it being mounted onto the cb ground. Thinking about painting on this before I mount my final composition onto it. Lots of little threads of ideas as I chopped and changed and tried a number of arrangements. I just tried to see how a compostion could shape up, I am pretty happy with the pics bottom so have a configuration I can work and then fine tune/minor adjustments. We'll see what happens

collage analysis

S e p t e m b e r  2 0 1 3

Norwich Fringe Festival

 October 5 - 19th

Undercroft 

Proposed exhibition space, under Memorial Gardens in Central Norwich. Slight floor gradient. Very loud echoes in the space. Formerly storage space for market traders whose stalls are outside. The issue is there is no drilling of holes, so thinking how I show work here. Will be a group show alongside: Aaron Fickling Claire Cannell, Samia Malik, Sandra Rowney 

Also will be showing some work at STEW

Some Work in progress shots below of a Collage piece for the Norwich Fringe Festival; thats if I get to finish it in time and if it is any good. I have other works I could show in reserve but going to pursue this, after seeing the above space. I obtained some lovely large carboard pieces from the back of a warehouse (including a fridge container). I am mindful of a piece of work I did in 1996 as an undergraduate, working large scale collage with household paints but the brief was a transcription project and I was referrring to Titians' 'Diana and Actaen'. (brown painting posted last month here) With this project I have set myself I am working with a nine foot piece of cardboard that acts as a canvas and the white painted sheets are to be cut up and reassembled. From drawing books I have been interested in repetitive marks/lines and interested in how the surface changes when one sequence differs to the previous one, thus creating an interesting visual effect. Particularly here with the cardboard grain which you cannot escape and shows up accroding to how the brush is loaded and moved along its way. The charcoal drawing on the flaps will act as stabilisers or 'positioners', scaffolding the white painted panels that I cut out and go on to arrange the composition. I would like to use oil on this work but household dries quicker, which in turn limits my use of colour, which is not a bad thing actually. I went on to cut up the panels and figured out how much space I had when a trial run of laying them out on the cb ground. I also working some childrens crayons here and there too in a way to lift areas. Then went on to apply Pink household and a walnut varnish using the drip splash technique, but I took out the charcoal flaps. After the pink was applied I rearranged some and applied the brown varnish, I am interested in mixing up procedures but trying not to get too far ahead of myself; I want things to look like they are connected and joined together but somehow they don't. I am referring to drawings based on 'mutant handwriting', curves shapes straights and lines suggesting space but then not. As if Genetically modified x and s and 8 etc lines; as if the alphabet has seen the future and is referencing a letter sound. Quite determined drawings being mindful of where the line goes relating to where it has come from going back on itself and around and so on. Anyway am keen to see how I can put this work together lots of PVA needed. I am trying to develop a way of working that examines and explores the collage approach, why does this work and that doesn't when I stick it there ? Formal considerations - the incidental breaks it up and works against the repeating pattern - The consideration of transportation, so am i going to div the work up in 2 or 3.

Paint can on diving board

Fragment

2 Abstract studies - Oil on canvas and board

Trying to finish unresolved work in studio, these two have been posted before here as WIP.
The painting above is Acrylic and oil on canvas. The shocking magenta swipes had me cursing and swearing but brings out nuances in the other areas of the picture plane, so I think I have finished with it. I am interested in what the untidyness of the paint is doing, the flayed gobules from the loaded brushstroke deposit behind.

With this acrylic and oil on board I felt danger of getting bogged down in inconsequential fiddling so aimed to park it somewhere whilst retaining the uneven incidental stuff going on. Thinking of titles for both paintings on this post now.

Untitled Aug 2013