the lichen-ness continues, though not that much further on in the process…
lichenscape I (a working title) has suffered some surface erosion, in the manner of the real elements – i am not scared. many years ago a tutor at art college said that that one had to push the image-making to the point of almost losing it, right to the critical edge as it were, and then resurrect it – it would then embody some of the passion, tenacity and spirit of its making. this method of working is not for every artist; it is risk-laden and sometimes stressful, but ultimately liberating. for myself, the secret history of the surface, the discreet (or discrete) signs of erasure or slow accumulation of layered matter over time is at the core of what i do. it also denies the sterile nature of cool, perfectly-rendered abstract paintings. i have a rough plan, a road map, an agenda even, but i will take the necessary diversions to fully explore the territory of my own making.
just what is it that makes artists such as twombly, kiefer and hodgkin so different, so appealing? (to quote richard hamilton’s work entirely out of context) – answer – they lay bare the messy truthfulness of the painting process. i was reminded too of the two works of sequeiros and reigl in the tate modern – there is some evidence of denudation or guano here, not entirely out of place within the environmental context of lichens…
a very close-up detail of eroded surface textures…
my interest in surfaces continues even within the documentary process – i discover more found paintings. of course these are just reframings but they exhibit the same concerns and qualities that i seek within my abstract photography.
a few years ago i applied for a grant to support a found paintings project. i wanted to re-present my small paintings as found, or ‘reframed’ in the conceptual sense as large abstract photographs – which, i thought at the time, would question the authenticity of the photograph (its source) and the creation (or reproduction) of a painting. in short, i would create the paintings, but would disseminate the photographed, found surfaces as the final artwork, images that i had re-authorised through my own photography…
i made a brief reference to this idea in this blog post from february 2006 and earlier in december 2005 i wrote a little about my feelings on the rejection letter. yes, they politely declined my request for funding my research & development. it was, on reflection, probably a fair decision. the idea was just that, one in perennial incubation, it was not clearly mapped out how i would do it and why – but, now there are the means to create large prints and canvases on demand, which makes the idea still a possibility, albeit a costly one; it’s always a matter of time and money (of which i have little)…
and so, progressing on to lichenscape II…
which i contemplated and scrutinised quite closely today… here are a couple of close-up images of the surface textures…
i hadn’t, during the process of painting, referred directly to my photographs for compositional elements, but looking at them now i can see that i am edging closer to an impression of a colony of lichens…
but i wasn’t sure about the scale, the number, the shapes, the placement – it just looked a little busy, too cluttered… so, with a little jiggery-pokery i quickly manipulated the photograph to edit out a few elements of the painting… such a simple idea… here is the result…
then a quick play with a little digital effecting… a simple inversion and i uncovered some fungal mould spores, or is it bacteria, some rogue pathogenic cells, a deadly virus..? who knows what it is, but i’m not scared…
this reminds me of the dissolved, blind landscape photographs and the digital image transfers that i experimented with a while back – needless to say, those particular ideas are in cryonic suspension while the lichens take hold…
