Friday 4 October 2013

'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

Monday 16 September 2013

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




Sunday 15 September 2013

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

Sunday 25 August 2013

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.

Tuesday 20 August 2013

Tuesday 13 August 2013

German Landscapes Sachsen-Anhalt - Aschersleben

Here are my first recent forays into landscape painting, townscapes not quite a term I am happy with. However they are from photographs from Easter this year taking during a visit to Aschersleben in Germany, mentioned in a previous post. I am still finding my way with them and with the different approach to painting; ie the main point being the attachment to the image but not a slave to it. It is interesting for me to make sense of how I am applying brushstrokes and I intend this to be an ongoing project.
These paintings are still in progress and maybe it makes sense not to post them until they are finished but progress images can be interesting and helpful too.









Formula - a bad word - small scale studies on board

Working smaller scale in these oil studies works similar to drawing, in terms of trialling how things look and work together. Dimensions 13 x 18 cm as before.


Using charcoal drawing on small bits of paper then used as transfers into wet ground. 'Drawn' or 'drawing' elements forming the composition as fragments to be negated or utilised in the build up of each piece. Each work in process here, may tamper with some of these a bit more yet.