'Sick 1' In Detail: 'S'

I’m often told to avoid lengthy posts so I’ll discuss the individual panels comprising the composite piece ‘Sick 1’, (shown in my previous post), over a series of shorter ones.  Here’s the first. 

'Sick 1', 2012, Acrylics & Paper Collage on 4 Panels, 
60 cm X 300 cm (Overall), 60 cm X 60 cm (Each Panel)

It was my intention that each element would be distinct from the others both in terms of treatment and text style but sympathetic to the whole.  They were derived from different sections of distressed urban surface and developed through a process of photographic research and sketchbook studies.  They differ from my other recent work by representing specific surfaces more accurately, (recalling trompe l’oeil effects I used in a previous life as a scenic artist).  I selected surfaces and text characters that might reflect different aspects of the possible ‘sickness’ of society but, as discussed previously, remain ambiguous about exactly what that might mean.

'Sick 1 (S)', 2012, Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel, 60cm X 60cm

‘Sick 1 (S)’ evolved from an idea I’ve had for a while about the red crosses once daubed on the doors of quarantined houses at times of plague.  It fit this project as an obvious allusion to historical epidemics and to the descent into societal crisis that accompanied them.  The idea of a great plague still haunts the contemporary imagination as fears of AIDS or global Flu pandemics of course.

'Asylum 1'

I wanted to juxtapose the violently daubed cross against a simple, formal background.  The economic privations of recent years have seen numerous vacant buildings barricaded by steel security shutters and this suggested a suitably geometric motif.  Their functional brutality also characterises contemporary security fears and emphasises their potential to imprison as well as exclude.  Formally, it allowed me to employ a repeat pattern in depicting the regular perforations.  That was done with black-painted adhesive labels and relates to the fence mesh motif in my recent ‘Asylum 1’ painting and to pictures by Zak Prekop.  The overall surface was built up with paper collage and plaster whilst the choice of a graffiti style S character came late - mostly to balance the similar style of the final K.

Zak Prekop, 'Untitled', 2009, Oil on Linen