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| Dan Perfect, 'Generator', Oil & Acrylic On Linen, 2012 |
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| Dan Perfect |
- Dan Perfect’s
paintings are essentially environmental.
Each contains a variety of internal space within its dense thicket of
gestural marks, implied calligraphy and half-resolved hieroglyphs. Were these illusions of traversable, physical
terrain, it would doubtless be a tough scramble. In fact, they are primarily
landscapes of the mind, - accumulations of thoughts, impressions, memories and
associations.
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| Dan Perfect, 'Arcologies', Oil & Acrylic On Linen, 2012 |
- Often here we are
lost without a map and unable to see the wood for the trees, but occasionally, Perfect leads us to the edge of the forest.
- This allusion to
physical environment is reinforced by the obvious kinship with aspects of the twentieth century British abstract landscape tradition.
It’s impossible to avoid memories of Peter Lanyon, whose multi-viewpoint
plotting of a painterly topography seems an antecedent to some of Perfect’s own mark
making.
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| Peter Lanyon, 'High Moor', Oil On Canvas, 1962 |
- That tradition
also reveals itself whenever the painter recalibrates his palette away from the
Pop end of the spectrum to incorporate neutrals and less saturated earth
colours, (‘Arcologies’, ‘Generator’)
or where greens prevail, (‘Full Fathom
Five’, ‘Howl’).
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| Dan Perfect, 'Full Fathom Five', Oil & Acrylic On Linen, 2012 |
- Indeed, the whole
issue of colour in these paintings suggests that, for all their juxtapositions
and apparent randomness, the Artist’s underlying instinct is actually towards
some form of harmonious equilibrium. He’s
no stranger to vibrant contrasts, saturated hues and vivid pigments, but there
is a tendency to organise them into analogous overall schemes. Thus, it’s possible to speak of a green
canvas, a lilac or red/orange canvas, or, most elegant of all, an exercise in
cool and warm (almost) monochrome tones, (‘Cerberus’).
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| Dan Perfect, 'Cerberus', Oil & Acrylic On Linen, 2013 |
- However, we’d be mistaken
to see this work as wholly pastoral in mood.
Indeed, it is equally redolent of the multiple voices and pestering
stimuli of urban life, or, of the overload of images, memories and cultural references in which we all swim.
- Perhaps this
ability to suggest rural and urban contexts simultaneously is a main strength
of these paintings. It speaks of our
contemporary situation, in which communications technology, knowledge-based
industry and development sprawl all blur any real distinction between the two.
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| Dan Perfect, 'Laocoon', Oil & Acrylic On Linen, 2013 |
- Over and over, Perfect’s
seem on the verge of resolving themselves into identifiable pictograms or motifs. Not so long ago, this often happened, - with
a vocabulary of archetypes including cartoon faces, and body parts emerging
with regularity. Nowadays, his tangled
brush strokes and scribbles stop just short of transformation, - which is even
more intriguing in Gestalt terms.
- Perfect has spoken
of the memory of lost toys and the graphic style of Marvel comics as
contributing to his melting pot of influences.
Both reinforce the importance of archetypes and memory in his work, - of
recognisable fragments surfacing from a soup of apparently random mental or
sensory activity, (even if he now leaves us to dot the eyes and cross the
teeth). The comic book connection feels
like a stretch, but there is certainly an element of the carefully constructed
but highly dynamic compositions and whiplash lines of such a tradition.
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| Dan Perfect, 'Transporter', Oil & Acrylic On Linen, 2014 |
- Another obvious
reference point for all the wandering calligraphy in these paintings is the
tagged graffiti to which my own eye is perennial drawn. One may try to avoid the potential triteness
of such reference points, but it’s an inescapable contributor to the visual
texture of so many spaces we all pass through.
What never ceases to captivate me is the effect of form overcoming
function, - of communication overwhelming physical space even as its own meanings
dissolve into style. It’s the obverse of
the way that Perfect’s own marks stop just short of resolution into anything actually
readable.
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| Dan Perfect, 'Clumping', Watercolour, Ink, Gouache & Pastel On Paper, Date Unknown |
- I’m particularly
fascinated by the clear distinction between phases of activity in Perfect’s
work. Ideas-generation takes place through
free associated, almost automatic drawing.
Compositions for final paintings are meticulously developed from those statements
digitally, before being translated at full scale on the canvas. These stages are performed as discrete
activities, suggesting extended periods of time within which he is in either a
largely intuitive frame of mind or a more conscious planning mode.
- The artist
highlights the ambiguities of scale that occur within that digital arena, and
the deliberate intention with which supposedly random (small) gestures are
reconstructed on the canvas is an important feature of the final
paintings. It can be seen in the careful,
oversized description of broken brushstrokes, accidental gestures, stroke
pressures, and in the vestigial colour fringing familiar to anyone who has ever
made Magic Wand pixel selections in Photoshop.
This is something I’ve puzzled over in my own work and his openness
about modern methods and artificial constructs feels refreshing and giving of
permission.
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| Dan Perfect, 'Generator' (Detail), Oil & Acrylic On Linen, 2012 |
- Another knowing
clue to the role of the computer in this work is the illusion of glowing light
emanating from some of Perfect’s marks, and the recurrence of small translucent
discs reminiscent of a Photoshop filter.
The multi-layered ambiguity (in paint) between the possible glow of a
screen, photographic phenomena and overlapping conventions of depiction is both
sophisticated and fun, (and very much of the moment).
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| Dan Perfect, 'Laocoon' (Detail), Oil & Acrylic On Linen, 2013 |
- The title of ‘Howl’ may allude to the post-war
Beatnik vibe (being the title of Allen Ginsberg’s famous poem of the era), as
do the obvious echoes of Jackson Pollock and Abstract Expressionism in
general, ('Full Fathom Five' is a title nicked straight from Pollock). The more I look at these
paintings, the more they seem to exist simultaneously in the present, and 60
years back.
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| Jackson Pollock, 'Full Fathom Five', Oil & Misc. Detritus On Canvas, 1947 |
- Music from that
period may also be important to this painter.
In the video made to accompany the exhibition he knowingly alludes to
Free Jazz, and I can easily imagine the content of his images swirling to the
strains of Ornette Coleman or Albert Ayler.
Indeed, viewers find themselves inhabiting them, immersively, in much the same way as we
do such sounds.
'Painter, Painter: Dan Perfect, Fiona Rae', continues until 6 July 2014 at Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Lenton Road, Nottingham NG1 6EL.
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