Completed Painting. 'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 4'

'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 4', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel. 60 cm X 60 cm, 2014

Here’s a newly completed painting, ‘Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 4’. Beyond announcing it’s arrival, I don’t really want to discuss it great length, particularly as much of the relevant background information required at this stage, can be found here, and here.

Suffice it to say, this is my latest attempt to resolve some of the issues inherent in a particular source image related to my ongoing ‘Belgrave Gate Project’.  I’m moderately happy with it as it stands, and I think it does take a small step forward.  I’m also cheered by the fact that it came together pretty briskly, despite being quite intensively worked upon.  Nevertheless, we’re still not really there yet, so the next in the series is already under way.

Two technical details worth noting here are the introduction of a little judicious sanding into my general process, and my decision to flat-off the completed panel with a coat of matt varnish, (recent paintings have tended towards a glossier, slightly jammy finish).

Both these moves were influenced by my visits to exhibitions by Simon Averill and StewartGeddes’ over recent weeks.  I’d sanded paint layers in the past and, when I saw it used to great effect by Stewart, was reminded how it provides an excellent way to finesse that distressed, nuanced feel I’m often striving for, and of getting separate pictorial elements ‘to sit down’ and integrate themselves with an overall image a bit more too.  I’ll confess that, having seen how both artists’ make beautiful matt surfaces integral to their paintings, I started to crave a little more refinement in my own current work, even at the risk of subduing the colours slightly.

I realise such details might seem superficially fetishistic in the grand scheme of a painting, but it’s funny how they can cause a significant buzzing in the bonnet.  Averill and Geddes are both experienced painters who, I hope, would recognise my co-opting of such techniques as merely the kind of (complimentary) creative theft that most artists indulge in regularly.