Completed Painting: 'Asylum 1'

There is a danger that, in the midst of an apparently successful run of work, you may become repetitive or complacent.  Without vigilance, the excitement of an initial breakthrough can quickly settle into a familiar comfort zone of predictable moves resulting in diminishing returns.

'Asylum 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel, 100 cm X 100 cm, 2011

Having completed the ‘Safe From Harm 1’ triptych over the summer, I began work on another one metre square panel, conscious that I needed it to contain a slightly different challenge this time round.  I had been recently looking at the work of Zak Prekop and had become intrigued by his essentially ‘all-over’ model of painting with its various strategies for getting from one side of a canvas to the other using purely abstract, formal devices.  It’s not so usual to see this kind of formalist abstraction nowadays and it cheers me that Prekop engages with the Twentieth Century Modernist drama of pure shapes interacting with the picture plane whilst producing work that looks completely contemporary.  Once upon a time it might have become my own agenda but, as my own work has developed, it has filled up with content and ideas from  beyond the confines of a framing edge.  However, the fact cannot be ignored that the various layers of emotional, conceptual and textual meaning in my paintings are still largely organised through the formal visual language of edges meeting, areas extending across a plane, shapes overlapping and paint declaring its physicality on flat surfaces.

Zak Prekop, 'Incomplete Division (Red)', 2010

Of particular interest to me when developing the composition of ‘Asylum 1’ was Prekop’s habitual use of repeating patterns or networks of marks across an entire picture plane to unify fields of looser paint or torn paper.  Even where these floated networks fade in and out there is a sense of ‘all-overness’ about them.  I had already decided on the title and primary theme of ‘Asylum’ and came to realise that a diamond fence pattern would provide valuable thematic clues whilst serving as just such a unifying field.  The latter role became increasingly important in a composition that was becoming busier and potentially more chaotic than the preceding ones.  On the actual panel the motif was applied as a collaged paper cut-out that was masked and painted over and, whilst not totally happy with the paint application, I do think it largely serves the purpose as intended.

Zak Precop, 'Untitled (Blue)', 2010

Asylum 1 has a composition that was eventually resolved by adding more and more elements.  There is usually a process of distillation at some stage where certain things get discarded and the whole composition is boiled down to a kind of unity.  This time, stuff just kept piling into the preparatory study before I was really satisfied.  The red tag graffito, (again, derived from an original doodle by my colleague work Dianne), was already quite elaborate in the study but just kept extending further across the actual painting as it neared completion.  The elements of black, white and yellow text also became more complex at a fairly late stage both formally and in terms of their implied meaning.

This visual complexity could be seen as a reflection of the multiple themes that run through the painting.  At the time of its gestation the novelty of a recently formed Tory-Liberal coalition was a major preoccupation of the news and comment media.  As well as providing a useful compositional element, the small black X in the upper-right section could be interpreted as a voter’s mark in reference to this.  No matter how history records current events, my rather facile reaction was that ‘the lunatics have taken over the asylum’.  In actual fact, the recent political change felt more like one set of lunatics handing over to another as the asylum slowly subsided into a swamp and the population searched vainly for care in the community.  It had been my intention to attempt a palette based on the three primary colours as a purely technical challenge.  Besides the optical impact of their direct juxtaposition, it occurred to me that, regarded emblematically, they represent the three main political factions in Britain.

Immigration was another frequent topic of public debate at the time and one that seems to come under greater scrutiny from the political Right.  It led me to muse on the distinctions between and definition of terms like ‘economic migrant’ and ‘asylum seeker’.   Someone’s sense of security, opportunity, affluence and freedom in a given location are, I guess, dependant on what they have experienced elsewhere.  The impression that your own country is going to Hell in a handcart can be thrown into question by reports of others eager to be allowed in.  Could it be that one person’s madhouse or prison is another person’s place of safety?  And do those who relocate to make a new life come to revise their own definition of ‘Asylum’ after a while?  Of course, there are also those who, however misguidedly, would assert that it is the competing needs and cultural values of those incomers that can make a once, (relatively), secure society seem less stable.  The wire fence motif is a definite pointer to all of this.  Such fences can protect, detain, imprison, quarantine, restrict and segregate in equal measure depending on the context and viewpoint.  And it is in their very nature to allow a clear view of that which is denied.

The subsidiary text elements had been relatively random and disconnected in the study for this painting.  In the light of these meditations they came to represent fragments of lyrics from the patriotic anthem ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ - itself associated with the British Tory party.  It is ironic that, despite the jingoism and imperialism traditionally associated with the song, a ‘Land of Hope’ that functions as a ‘Mother of the Free’ might be exactly what many new arrivals are seeking.  In reality it may be a moot point whether hope, glory and freedom are still seen as key features of British society.  

It is not my intention to present any one particular agenda through these paintings.  Rather, they seek to present, (quite obliquely), resonant words or phrases in the hope of stimulating internal debate and a consideration of multiple possible interpretations.  The paintings may contain numerous questions but relatively few answers - if any.