Skeleton frameworks added to clarify the moments below. Slowing the process, engaging tools instead of digits and tissue. Removal of limbs adds distance, a viewing space, time for contemplation. How these layers hold together, in their transparent splashes of pigment, clinging on to each other begging not to be concealed. Those latent portions adding power in their density.
Paper tests for form included, a play with composition, a distraction from the consuming line painting of tiny brush and acrylic.
The light changes the grounds, the tones appear in altered shades. The projection is the brightest this pattern will be. Its fate is not embrace the lower layers while they are suffocated together under water pigments to come.
A wasps nest, displaced. The leaves betrayed them, as they fell they were seen and destroyed. No one wants them here, they are unwelcome, and like fallen autumn leaves they are left to rot on the ground until the broom comes to clear them away.
Once a home, now a hotspot for budding photographers and tourists searching for that 'epic' photo that looks just like the other 80 taken that week.
As we walk I see edges, of stone, of doorways, frames preparing the vignette for the perfect shot. There are squares, cubes, rectangles, and grids. Oh the grids; tiles, bricks, roof linings and wall structures. Clarity among the chaos of dilapidated buildings being worn away by foot fall and flash guns.
Multiple canvases worked on at once. Process and practicality merge. The materials surrender to each surface independently; the kilter of the ground, the shade from the sun, the previous layers of tone transferring their narratives on the new encounter. My weight is present, my fingers move the pigments, my hands flush their density with water and draw the liquids away with tissue. These pieces are not about me but I am contained within them.
This pieces surrenders itself once more. Layers mesh, masking the previous tales; the events to be forgotten, sneaking through gaps like aged memories flashing by with hints of fragrance or tastes on the tongue.
We sometimes make awful work demands to be revisited. Its shame screams so loud from the edge of my desk I can't take it any longer and ply it with acrylic, locking down its torment in tonal grids of fractured patterns.
In college we had to bring a ladder to class. This ladder became a companion in various creative activities, standing on top of it reciting poetry, dropping paint from it, carrying it with us as we moved around the studio. My ladder was small, I don’t like being at height, I have an urge to step off, to jump.
The last task was to paint a portrait of our ladders. We were given a large roll of paper. I diligently set to work, painting what this ladder meant to me. The background was black and in beautiful detail I rendered a realistic portrait of this tiny ladder at the bottom of the page, 1;1 scale. I was marked down for a lack of creativity as my peers had strewn multi-coloured paint and pattern at their abstract depictions of ladders.
I think about the painting all the time, it was so personal to me, embodying my fears, the discomfort of each task on top of it. The feelings of isolation from the group of creatives pushing the boundaries. My boundaries were pushed but in very different ways that were not considered valid by those in power.
I found a ladder in the store at work. A moment took me and I had to photograph it. The store was in the photo studio so I pulled it out and placed it on the black platform.
I have a book. An ongoing project. Years now. It holds patterns. Some made from memory, some made memories, others from images, most made from its predecessors, layered and subtracted to create something new. Copulations of patterns, children of each other, incestuous.
Sometimes they are applied to painting. Leaping from the sketchbook as projections. Traced by hand, defects encouraged, manipulating the patterns origins to fit the new landscape.
To save paintings these patterns come as a support team, adding scaffolding to the layers, bridging gaps, filling and creating space, moments, opportunities. Gathering the existing layers under their structures, embracing with their geometric arms.
Added slowly, a game of infiltration. Allowing the layers to settle around their new partners.
Paint and freedoms of movement are added to other canvases. A family affair as she explores her creativity, not holding on to the imagery she diligently paints over her initial image ‘just like mummy’ as it doesn’t matter, she says, I will always paint more.
I talk to her about permanence and temporality, we discuss if things need to last forever, she thinks this is bad as it will go mouldy so it best if we don’t last for ever. But she will miss us when we are gone. A brief hug and she continues to blank out her images with grey paint ‘to help mummy’
An urge, normally ignored, materials need to be touched, their texture satisfies. Grainy powders smoothed with moisture and movement, applied to board that yields control of its taut surface under the dampness.
The process satisfies but it’s outcomes leaves the desire for more. A disappointing display, a performance that enticed and result that is lack lustre. Sometimes we make awful work. Its left like a dirty secret in the piles on studio desks, at the back of sketchbooks, placed in bins to be removed. Despicable that our hands create something unwanted.
The words added from a collect pile for colour and became an poem similar to high school attempts. The words float around, there is something here but it needs to be coached. Perhaps a new approach.
I turn to sound. Reading and repeating the words. It’s late. They are asleep. I whisper these words of betrayal. Layering them in the manner my mis-functioning mind layers and collates my thoughts and worries, meddling until some clarity appears.
Sometime we make awful work Reverse considerations Can part a moments Unpredictable history Conflicts came between Unceasing patterns And past What should Without possible attempt An aborted message be
Collect words No meaning intended Typefaces draw me in Font fable fondle my eyes I pile them Holding them, like precious stones Mountain like they form on paper A breeze scatters them and meaning is found Is meaning found? Perhaps It’s wanted so it appears.
Tidied up, grabbed at will. This is nonsense , the mind seeks meaning and random is ignored. Sentences constructed are nonsensical sense. The hand, the eye, the mind betray me and work together to build structures I don’t want.
The of fit and on biggest and all bikes bra and conflicts its i aborted moments patterns hold between speaks about drip I believe video of big few with about beauty are follow of in came doors of doors was paint the and cream do a by and re in an a the the in to.
favourites carefully need man it. like part saw new the interior and I can't juxtaposition house and public all you of blue film can is the of (very) lights come art at.
Lay them all out, as an observer, drink them in, ad taxonomies at will, basic and traceable. And still the mind finds meaning where none is intended. Such is the everyday, perhaps life has no meaning but we find it anyway, in love, in movement, in sound and in symbols.
myth can time simplified to new artists can't come by oldest out tricked carefully came, coming, watch writers need juxtaposition like out worshippers blue consideration history project man for fun when appreciation giant very taking reverse reflections tiles new curated.
