Completed Painting: 'Vestige 6'

Here’s ‘Vestige 6’, the latest in my on-going series of closely-related paintings under that banner.

'Vestige 6', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Emulsion, Adhesive Tape, Spray Enamel, French Polish, Pencil,
Coloured Pencil, Ballpoint Pen On Panel. 60 cm X 60 cm, 2016

On first impressions, this one may appear quite similar in overall tonality and contrast to its immediate predecessor.  However, it also highlights the mistaken belief that one can, (or should), repeat a successful formula, ‘just like that’, as far as painting goes.

'Vestige 5', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Emulsion, Ink, Spray Enamel,  French
Polish, Pencil & Ballpoint Pen On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2016

I embarked on this one with the intention of redeploying some of the things I found enjoyable in the general approach of ‘Vestige 5’, whilst applying them to the motif of a framed but open internal space - rather than an implied rectangular ‘window’.  Of course, I should have known better.  If these paintings succeed at all, it is because each one finds some kind of organic accommodation with the accretion of accidents and random marks that play out within their static compositional format.  In fact, the only meaningful given should be that fixed idea of the rectangle within the square, (the ‘always the same’ bit).  Any attempt to nail down the more painterly, chance-dependent elements (the ‘always different’ part) can only undermine the basic premise of the work.

That probably explains why this one fought back a bit, until I realised the error of my ways and just allowed it to unfold in its own manner.  Part of this was the acceptance that ‘6’ was never going to achieve quite the same (relatively) fresh crispness of ‘5’, and that it just wanted to betray a slightly grubbier, more ‘fatigued’ aspect.  Ultimately, I can live with that; sometimes it’s just the way things go, and is itself an understandable consequence of the greater degree of dogged struggle involved in its gestation [1.].  I now realise it also results from a couple of technical issues.

One is the use of that much finer filter of dots fading in and out of focus across the picture.  Repeat dot patterns are a staple of many of my current paintings, (literally a repeat pattern, in fact), but this is the first time I’ve used them at this scale in a finished painting-sized piece.  They came and went as the painting evolved, but once I’d decided I definitely wanted them there, it was inevitable their relative density would influence profoundly the tonality of any ground they floated across.

The other contributor to a certain grimy patina is a different‘all over’ motif - namely the grid that intrudes over much of the composition.  Being partly drawn in with water-soluble coloured pencils, there was always going to be an element of colour tinting involved as they were re-wetted.  In fact, this is idea of ‘Monochrome - but not really’ - of tinted tonality, as it were, is just another satisfying aspect of these deliberately paradoxical paintings, (to me, at least).

I thought about the whole idea of intentionality while looking at some recent paintings by a local artist, during a local Open Studio event, the other day.  There doesn’t seem much point naming him here, - he’s an ambitious, young painter, with an increasing profile, (locally, at least), and I’d rather not draw attention to any shortcoming before more fully discussing the appealing things also at play in his work.  Suffice it to say, I was struck by how, for all the freshness and immediate, Pop impact of his work, there was also a disquieting tendency to simply paint to a successful formula or seductive style.  It meant there was a certain glib superficiality undermining much of the other good stuff going on.  Perhaps this an increasing danger for younger artists, shaped to a much higher degree by the imperatives of public profile, marketability, and a quantifiable ‘career’, than older drifters of my vintage/temperament.  Could it also be characteristic of a generation for whom the flat, flickering screen has always been the primary portal of instant gratification?  Alternatively, who is to say that ‘the struggle’ isn’t just another tired artistic affectation, anyway? [2.].

I really don’t know, - but either way, I was pleased to see one painting in his show that bore more marks of having been resolved out of at least a few quandaries, corrections and changes of mind.  It suggested he was perhaps diving further beneath the surface of an easily acquired style, to incorporate more nuance, and to engage with some of what still makes paint-wrangling a distinct and special activity.

Of course, those observations might just be stimulated by my own recent difficulties with ‘Vestige 6’.  At this stage, it’s far too early to judge this painting’s degree of success or otherwise, within the overall series.  In fact, I suspect that will be nigh impossible for any of them until I can put a load up together on a wall, stand well back, and let them take their chances out there in the world.  However, it does make me reflect that, often, you learn more from the difficult ones.

[1.]:  If nothing else, this does seem to keep faith with the layers of grime, urban grunge, and general entropy that inflect so many of my own back street reveries.

[2.]:  Certainly, it’s one that has stifled me often enough in the past.  In fact, a large part of me envies those artists more suited to painting with immediacy ‘on the surface’, with vivid, confident statements.  Somewhat predictably, my own periodic forays into a more Pop sensibility usually end up looking like something that’s been left out in the wind and rain too long.