Completed Painting: 'Consumed 1'

Whilst it’s hardly an original observation, the creative process is a funny old business…

'Consumed 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 100 cm X 100 cm, 2014

This is a new 'painting', - produced relatively quickly, (for me), over the Easter break.  I’m still learning what I do and don’t like about it, but it’s very welcome anyway.  However, whilst I always intended to devote as much of the two-week school holiday as possible to painting, it’s not at all the piece I originally expected to make.

After completing ‘Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 4’ a few weeks ago, it felt like some momentum was being injected back into that idea and I was keen to push on with it.  I discussed how easy it is to get bogged down in strategies for progressing one’s artwork, around the same time, and had reconciled myself to the ‘Cave Wall’ series of paintings being something that may only resolve itself through prolonged wrangling.  I envisaged pursuing some of the ways forward suggested by ‘4’, by getting stuck into another during my two weeks of freedom.  Instead, this came winging out a clear, blue sky, with zero preparation and minimal forethought.  I’m still not absolutely sure what it’s called but, for now, I’m calling it ‘Consumed 1’.

'Untitled', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Board, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2010

'Untitled', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Board, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2010

Actually, it’s a little disingenuous to claim the work has no real back-story.  In 2010, I produced a series of four, predominantly monochrome, painted collages that are essentially the antecedents of pretty much everything I’ve produced since.  As is usually the case with such starting points, they’re a bit tentative and somewhat unresolved, but I shouldn’t overlook their significance in the grand scheme.  They’ve remained pretty much ignored for a while now but, occasionally since, I’ve found myself wondering “what if they were bigger and just, well, - better?”

'Untitled', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Board, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2010

'Untitled', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Board, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2010

The new painting is, I think, a fairly impulsive attempt to answer that question.  It shares a similar, largely monochrome-plus-a-little-colour palette with the earlier pieces, and the same agenda of burying its scrambled textual characters within a fragmented, all-over and self-developing composition.  Like them, it also makes reference to the tattered advertising posters and degenerating signage that repeatedly influence my work.  However, it also adds something of the greater refinement of technique, nuanced layering, and dot-pattern motifs, of a piece like ‘Shut 1’.  On a technical level, it makes extensive use of sanding between layers, which, apart from the suggestion of erosion it brings, is also, I find, a useful way to amalgamate any new element into the whole as a work progresses.  Most obviously, 'Consumed 1' belongs with my more abstract output, (although the inclusion of decipherable text components always raises the question of what ‘abstract’ actually means in this context).

One other point worth noting is that, like those early exploratory pieces, ‘Consumed 1’ is hardly a painting at all.  Paint is certainly involved, but the final appearance mostly derives from collaged paper, including plenty of the reclaimed poster material I habitually collect.  I always think of painting as my core activity but this just proves that I’m far from being a media purist.  Actually, I’m quite happy with that situation, (whatever it takes, when all’s said and done).

If the piece represents a slight return to a familiar territory, it does at least fulfill my intention to make this year about creative consolidation.  The boost gained from starting and completing it, fairly intuitively and in just a few days, doesn’t hurt either.