Completed Painting: 'Vestige 8'

'Vestige 8', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Ink, Spray Enamel, French Polish, Misc. Solvents
& Decorator's Caulk on Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2016

Here is ‘Vestige 8’.  As mentioned in my previous post, there has been time amidst the preparations for the rapidly approaching ‘A Minor Place’, exhibition, for a couple more of these ‘Vestige’ paintings, which means there are eight from which to select for the final hang.  I suspect this will be the last of these, (certainly for the foreseeable future), and it does feel like there’s a danger I could start to repeat myself just a little too comfortably with them now.  If there were to be any more in the future, it would be necessary to find new ways of mixing things up a bit within the same basic format, I suspect.

Anyway, as also mentioned, I wanted to ensure there were at least a couple of the current set which dealt with the idea of those vestigial serpents of mastic adhesive which so often testify to the loss or removal of an item of signage of some kind, when encountered on urban walls.  One of my main themes of late has been that idea that something was once said, meant, or performed within a certain environment - without any specification of what exactly.  The ‘Vestige’ pieces are one of the more abstract expressions of that.

Much is made of the significance of meta-data, these days – information about information, in essence.  This series is perhaps an attempt to provide the most tenuous clues merely to the fact that information was given at all - rather than to the content itself.  Not only is the meaning lost in these ‘Vestiges’, but the carrier reduced to a mere residual ghost too.  I’ve bandied the term ‘Lost Voices’ around a fair bit this year.  In fact, that may be ultimately the most apposite banner under which to group all of my output from late 2015 to the present.

The technically minded will spot that I’ve already refined my mastic-application skills, even since ‘Vestige 7’.  I used the same basic technique of pressing Decorator’s Caulk - having applied it from a mastic gun (as intended by the manufacturer).  This time though, I applied it onto a still-tacky coat of PVA, and pressed it beneath a board coated with plastic parcel tape.  This provided sufficient grab/release (on the right surfaces), for the entire squiggle to remain in place once the caulk had set and the board was removed.

The other rather obvious point worth highlighting is that ‘8’ is (predominantly) orange.  One of the features of last year’s ‘Map’ paintings was their generally heightened colour.  As my post ‘Mental Mapping’ work started to coalesce around the turn of the year - it became obvious that a monochrome, or very limited palette was going to predominate instead.  That has continued to be the case.  However, it also became true that, when I tried to visualise how this body of work might look in an exhibition context - what my mind’s eye actually saw was a largely monochrome collection of pieces, punctuated by occasional moments of almost arbitrary, heightened colour.

'Extracted Fragment 4', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Ink, Spray Enamel, French Polish,
Misc. Solvents & Screen-Print on Panel, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016 

'Extracted Fragment 8', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Ink, Spray Enamel, French Polish,
Misc. Solvents, Pencil, Coloured Pencil, Ballpoint Pen & Screen-Print on Panel,
30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

Thus, key components of the (also eight-part) ‘Extracted Fragments’ series of mini panels, and certain pieces in my print-orientated ‘Change Of Use’ series too, are distinguished by instances of heightened orange or Cerulean Blue.  My original intention was that ‘Vestige 8’ would be an altogether more garish, synthetic affair, but ultimately, my heavily-modulated, layered approach to its production, means it’s rather more subdued (or just grimy), than envisaged.  For all that, I’m by no means displeased with it, and already relish its status as the wild card within the pack.  It is, I hope, just impudent enough to stand distinct from its peers, whilst still belonging within the overall series.  (Any amateur psychologists can get to work now…)

Design: Chris Cowdrill

‘A Minor Place’, featuring work by myself, Andrew Smith and Shaun Morris, will take place between Saturday, 3 – Sunday, 11 September, at: Artists Workhouse, Victoria Works, Off Redditch Road, Studley, Warwickshire, B80 7AU.

Completed Painting: 'Vestige 7'

'Vestige 7', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Ink, Spray Enamel, French Polish, Pencil, Misc. Solvents &
 Decorator's Caulk on Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2016

I’d be lying if I said I actually needed any more work for the upcoming ‘A Minor Place’ exhibition, in which I’ll be exhibiting soon, alongside Andrew Smith and Shaun Morris.  There might actually be enough to fill my third of the show twice over, and the biggest issue feels like it’s around which pieces to actually hang.  Thus, I didn’t actually need to make any more ‘Vestige’ paintings in this little period of calm before the comparative storm of realising the show.  That’s not really the point though, is it?  A properly creative process shouldn’t be about merely meeting deadlines, or fulfilling commitments, even if they are self-generated.  In my view, it should never involve the thought, “that’ll do, then”, either.

The fact is, there are a couple of other pictorial issues I always wanted to address within the ‘Always The Same – Always Different’ model of the ‘Vestiges’ series.  With a few days of blessed School Summer break remaining, and the exhibition arrangements progressing, it felt only natural I should address them.  My hunch is that completing numbers ‘7’ and ‘8’ should allow me to assess the series properly, and whether it really achieved what I hoped it would.  Only then, will I decide if it’s time to draw some kind of line under the project.

Anyway, here’s ‘Vestige 7’ in it’s completed state, (‘8’ is still in progress, but hopefully nearing completion).  At first glance, it may break relatively little new ground.  It majors on the same ‘revealed rectangle’ motif within a square format, of all the others, and is just another take on the near-monochrome palette of the overall series, (predominantly dark again, here).  The recurring fragments of text (or at least, of individual characters), are there too, albeit pretty well buried, this time.  The real progression is in that partial squiggle within the central rectangle.

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

'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

The origin of these pieces was in the revealed ghost-spaces, or residual frames that one regularly encounters in the urban environment - and which represent the loss, or removal of some piece of signage or posted information.  They are, a form of palimpsest symbolising the notion of lost voices or forgotten meanings, as well as the passage of time and the accompanying entropic processes acting on the material of the city.  When I started to pursue that idea, I identified three main categories of the motif.  The first two are, the simple clean or differently coloured patch, and the open frame of grimy adhesive tape residue.  ‘7’ represents the third category – namely, the flattened squiggle of failed mastic adhesive.  I see these squashed serpents and blotted blobs wherever I go.  They do of course, represent relatively recent advances in adhesives chemistry, being, literally, ‘a quick fix’ - if you like.

North Leicester, May 2014

Gravelly Hill, Birmingham, July 2016

Without the time to undertake an extensive process of R&D, I toyed with a couple of possible methods of achieving my squiggle, before simply resorting to the obvious solution of Decorator’s Caulk, squirted through a mastic gun and squashed under a sheet of plastic (not exactly rocket science, is it?).  In the event, this was partially successful, with much of the upper portion failing to release properly, but a sufficiently extensive lower portion remaining to tell the story.  I’m employing a refinement of this method for ‘8’, in the hope that a little more mastic survives next time.  However, in reality, I like the somewhat hit and miss nature of all this, and the fact I was left with what I was left with.  The injection of an element of proper random accident feels very appropriate.  If nothing else, it allows me to add yet another ingredient to the ever lengthening list of media used in these pieces.  It may be time to just start labeling everything ‘Mixed Media’, I suspect.

Design: Chris Cowdrill

'A Minor Place' will take place between Saturday, 3 - Sunday 11 September at: Artists Workhouse, Studley, Warwickshire, B80 7AU.

Completed Photographic Series: 'Wiped Windows'

This post deals with my recently completed photographic series, entitled ‘Wiped Windows’.

'Wiped Window 1', 2016

In another couple of weeks Andrew Smith, Shaun Morris and I will be in the thick of hanging our ‘A Minor Place’ exhibition at Artists Workhouse in Studley, Warwickshire.  There are a variety of organisational tasks to undertake between now and then, and I now realise one of my biggest will be selecting which pieces will appear in the actual show.  But it’s not a bad problem to have, really.  As someone whose neuroses have often centred on having enough work of sufficient quality completed in time to meet any deadline, it’s pleasing to find I probably have more than enough recently completed pieces to fill a third of the available space in Studley.

'Wiped Window 2', 2016

'Wiped Window 3', 2016

'Wiped Window 4', 2016

It seems to justify my aspirations, at the start of 2016, to work steadily and calmly on several parallel strands of related work, without fixating on the arbitrary exhibition deadline.  The hope was that at least some of it would justify public exposure once that actually arrived.  It seems to have paid off generally, and whilst there are always things you might do differently in retrospect - I’m not too despondent about either the quality of or the intentions behind the stack of framed pieces currently boxed-up in my front room.  Exactly what will make the final cut is currently up for grabs (and, to be honest, may be partially decided ‘on the day’, but there’s nothing there I feel too embarrassed about.

'Wiped Window 5', 2016

'Wiped Window 6', 2106

'Wiped Window 7', 2016

This current body of work actually breaks down into four distinct groups, - each envisaged as a discrete series with its own internal logic, but also relating to the others in terms of overall themes and concerns.  The other important point is that each series brings a different approach to media to the table, and it’s this that may go some way to explaining why quantity just hasn’t been a problem with this show.  Working with screen-prints and digitally manipulated and outputted pieces, as well as digital photography, has meant I could often produce images far more rapidly than by sticking to my more customary hybrid collage/paintings, (some of which are also represented).  Anyway, let’s concentrate on the purely photographic pieces here.

'Wiped Window 8', 2016

'Wiped Window 9', 2016

'Wiped Window 10', 2016

As the themes and ideas behind this current phase of work began to coalesce in my mind, late last year, it became evident that a general sense of absence or abandonment was a large part of it.  Much of the work deals with ideas of lost voices; missing or partially erased meanings; or of spaces haunted by indistinct memories or tenuous vestiges.  There’s always a sense of the urban environment in my mind, although the origins of much of my current imagery evolved from improvised mixed media ‘studies’ this time round.  For that reason, it felt important to augment that with at least one strand that derived from specific physical locations.  These ‘Wiped Windows’ photographs represent (literally) that intention, albeit in a fairly oblique manner.

'Wiped Window 11', 2016

'Wiped Window 12', 2016

I’m sure I’m not the first person to become captivated by the paradoxical and visual aspects of windows obliterated by swirls of white paint in vacant or transitional premises.  In fact, even as I was collecting these images, in various locations, I was amused to see that the venerable Techno outfit, Underworld had cottoned onto the same idea for the artwork of their last album, ‘Barbara, Barbara, We Face A Shining Future’.  They may have gone public first, but I’ve actually been looking and collecting these for years, and anyway, I can’t think of two nicer blokes…  Such obscured windows are, of course, a common sight in most cities - and one which never fails to evoke a sense of the interim situation, the impromptu action, the temporary fix, or the vacant turning-inward of a previously energised space.  Even if the premises they veil aren’t permanently abandoned, there’s still a distinct melancholy about the vacancy or altered priorities they symbolise.  This series might equally well have been entitled ‘Vacant Possession’.

'Wiped Window 13', 2016

'Wiped Window 14', 2016

And, of course, the other key point is that this series is just another opportunity for me to explore the idea of ‘Always The Same - Always Different’ that preoccupies me so much these days.  It delights me that so many versions of essentially, white blankness can throw up an inexhaustible range of additional clues, texts, accidents and intriguing details.  The snippets of formal graphics, and the scrawls and doodles of mischievous fingers punctuate those swirling fields - just as collaged poster or photocopy fragments do in my hand-made pieces.

'Wiped Window 15', 2016

'Wiped Window 16', 2016

Whilst considering that, we should probably recognise that, just as every painter moves fluid paint with his or her own muscle memory - so no Contractor’s gestural wipe is quite like another’s.  Those bravura swipes may echo the deliberately off-hand white brushstrokes I’ve used repeatedly in recent pieces, but I could never hope to encompass such a wide vocabulary of mark making as is revealed here.

'Wiped Window 17', 2016

'Wiped Window 18', 2016

One other vital aspect of these images is the sense in which any window acts as a membrane between two disparate worlds.  The overall impression (and utilitarian intention) may be one of blankness or of obscuring, but the glimpses (or even just the sense) of internal space behind the glass, and the fugitive suggestions of a wider, external world (or even the observer’s own ghost), are impossible to ignore.  The deliberate, partial blanking of what is normally an organ of transmission (of light, of vision, and thus – of meaning), and the consequent emphasis this places on reflection, feels key to these pieces.

'Wiped Window 19', 2016

'Wiped Window 20', 2016

Ultimately, I felt that all of the above contributed to images that could stand alone as purely visual statements, in contrast to the far more contrived combinations of photography and text (and cement) that I exhibited last year.  After considering different possibilities, I opted to simply print and frame ten of these twenty images.  My plan is to hang at least a few in our show, but it's hard to predict exactly how many until we get in there to make the make the hang work definitively.  The fallback position is that all twenty might be shown on a screen, - an idea that actually has considerable appeal.  Hmm, future Artist’s Book - anyone?

Design: Chris Cowdrill

'A Minor Place' will run from Saturday 3 - Sunday 11 September , 2016 at: Artists Workhouse, The Royal Victoria Works, Redditch Road, Studley, Warwickshire, B80 7AU.  Opening Hours: Wednesday. - Sunday, 11am - 4pm.

https://artistsworkhouse.com/category/up-and-coming/