Sat, 25 Feb 2006
Outwardly, inwardly
A whole month has passed since I last wrote. I've been working in three different directions which, on reflection, is not helping. It's just been too darn cold to be out in the shed knocking up curved panels so I've set that aside until the spring. Instead, I'm exploring the idea of semi-transparent, skin-like paintings which could be stretched, hung, suspended in a middle space. I must face facts: I'm obsessed with the hidden history of surfaces, so this has instigated a need to look through, beyond - produce something more obviously layered, more illusory depth, a sense of transience, passing through. The first image here (a detail) evokes the striations of ploughed fields and the the muddy imprints of traffic. The downside is that I am using stretched plastic which slows the surface drying. At some point they will be released from the backing, after which I can stretch, bend, curve, etc.

The others (currently eight which relate) appear to have evolved into heavily eroded and patinated surfaces which resemble an abstracted reality - believable and yet faux. These are the details I would see - in the rot of a wooden fence, a derelict outbuilding, a discarded object. Having now photographed them, they have ceased to be images of paintings, but further investigations of surfaces - photography through process providing a documentary realism. I also took some close-up polaroids, all of which came out slightly blurred with a blue hue, having a faintly " Whistler"-esque quality of light. I will scan them soon and see what results...

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