Completed Painting: 'Untitled 6 (Constructed City)'

 

'Untitled 6 (Constructed City)', Acrylics & Screen Print on Panel, 60 cm x 60 cm, 2020

Working on several pieces simultaneously once more, seems to be paying off, just now.  Here's 'Untitled 6 Constructed City', pretty much hot on the heels of '5', whilst my focus has already shifted to '7' and '8'.  Apologies - working like this leaves no time to spend on thinking up more imaginative titles.

Much of what I outlined in relation to '5' carries over into this one, but with one very obvious difference.  There I was getting all preoccupied with the relationship between digitally abstracted imagery, and its translation into some form of 'pure' painting - and with how that implied some shift away from physically collaged elements, when they promptly reappeared as the top layer of this one.  For once, I'm not going to waste too much time agonising over the whys and wherefores of that.  Yes - it's generally useful to set parameters for any piece (or group of related pieces) -  but rules are also made for breaking.  The collaged, screen printed sections seen here, definitely add something that was lacking before they appeared, and that's good enough to be going on with.      

 

One thing they did achieve, was a better tonal range overall, and I'd be lying if I claimed gluing on sections of printed paper wasn't a quicker way to get there than re-masking and over-painting even some of the underlying silver areas.  There's only so much masking tape in the world, after all.  More important, perhaps - is the greater degree of visual complexity that emerged, along with the implication of another layer of distinct reality.  I even like the slight awkwardness of the resulting augmented composition.   

Perhaps an on-going dialogue between the distilled simplicity I discussed in relation to '5', and the greater complexity exhibited here, will become a feature of this run of paintings - who knows?  But - as touched upon above, perhaps the best thing to do is to stop predicting outcomes, or inventing  regulations for the sake of it - and to simply get on with making the work in whichever manner seems most appropriate at the time.