in nine equal parts, shown in a random order (some surface incidents) – it takes a perfectionist to appreciate the small imperfections…
these nine ‘parts’ together comprise one of my series of small paintings called edgescapes. i found, or unearthed, four edgescape panels in a semi-completed state (luckily not consigned to the trash), and this particular painting on panel will be on show at the Harleston Gallery, Norfolk, from 18th June to 11 July 2011, along with some more of my abstract paintings… i am most honoured to be exhibiting as a ‘guest artist‘ in HWAT 2011…
both the wood & the hardboard used to construct this series of paintings on panel was scavenged from a skip. i am quite handy with a mitre saw… i once found some small pieces of wood in the middle of the road, in the street where i live… well, if the trucks wouldn’t travel so darn fast…
i bought some acrylic paints and they have lasted me years – so i am obviously quite frugal with colour… my favourite colour (absolutely) is grey because there are so many hues…
perhaps there is a trace of puritanism in my aesthetic, eschewing joy or extravagance in my process. i am mindful and serious, the less said the more done . i often work in silence, but true silence is a rare thing, even in the countryside…
solitude (i think) makes for better paintings – i call upon rembrandt and goya as some good examples…
i often utilise materials derived from my environment in my paintings – soil from the garden, ash from the fire grate, tiny seeds or powdered eggshells. i carefully prepare and store these materials in jars – i like a semblance of order in my art studio. i like working with texture simply because it engages the senses beyond looking – there are incidental memories embedded in the surface…
my paintings evolve from a process of loss & sometimes failure, since i seem to erase most of what i paint – i lose sight of the thing in order to find it again… incidental flaws can be beautiful in their own way…
i am sad about some things but hopeful about others… if i can create art when i am doubtful then then there is always the possibility of making something better…
i have never felt confident enough to go completely abstract in my process, in the manner of gerhard richter or robert ryman, although i believe that the paintings i have created are objects in themselves with their own distinct identity & reality, perhaps like human beings who assert their individuality but still desire to ‘fit in’ somehow with the rest of the world…
perhaps i am just asserting their right to be different…
i am not sure that i am really a painter in the conventional sense – i do not make pictures and any resemblance to a known reality is often a coincidence… i take photographs to help me remember, but i fear that if i look at them for too long or work directly from them there will be a kind of pseudo realism creeping in (one can always tell)…i tried this with drawing and they became very scientific…
my work is perhaps a type of visual intervention in the course of an implicit understanding or knowledge, a quiet conveyance or translation of experience, between what exists and what most sticks in the mind, connected to the immediate, known environment..
my art seems to be driven by the small reminders of life and death, that nothing remains constant, how things fracture, break down, disappear – i am aware of mortality and the transience of our life on earth…
i am happy being older (and hopefully wiser) but it bothers me that i can’t see things as sharply as i once did – perhaps this will turn out to be a good thing (for a painter)…
it still rankles with me that i didn’t get a painting accepted into a regional art exhibition. in their words they were: looking for recent works by artists who particularly engage with habitat, the environment, and both the natural and the man-made world in their process… perhaps my paintings didn’t sufficiently portray this environmental element – such a rejection is always food for thought… sensitivity creates a tough skin over time, an outer crust or patina of self-protection, and it feeds back into the painting process – we want to say less…
i have been thinking more about water and clouds and how they represent flux, fluidity, distance and a certain kind of unobtainable otherness… my world is not static, flat and contained within a square but i seem to have have made it look so… we need air to breathe and we are (i think) about 90% water, so these elements are omnipresent in our being…
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i am reminded by seeing the work of more established artists that i must have at least thirty more years of painting ahead of me to get this thing right (this is many more years than i have been painting so this is a positive thing).
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today they announced that parts of east anglia are officially in drought, that wildlife is at risk and that farmers must be more prudent in using water on their crops. today it rained just as i remembered it (and i have been putting water out for the birds).
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all images & text © jazz green 2011
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last chance to see Six Abstract Painters
Halesworth Gallery, Steeple End, Opp. St Mary’s Church, Halesworth, Suffolk, IP19 8LL
28 May to 15 June 2011
open daily, Monday-Saturday 11am to 5pm, Sundays 2pm – 5pm
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on now: Reunion Refresh @ Reunion Gallery, 5 Feb – 22 Oct 2011
next up: HWAT exhibition 2011, Harleston Gallery, 18 June to 11 July 2011
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