Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 3'

'Deleuzian Cartography 3', Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

This is the third of this year's small ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ panels. It came into being in parallel with ‘DC2’ and I suppose they share a certain aesthetic - in colour range, if nothing else. The fragmented street maps and circuit diagrams are still there, although much of that content is even further subsumed into an ‘all-over’ composition this time.

For much of the piece’s development, I figured that might be the whole story, and that this one was going to represent a variety of urban hum approaching near blankness, rather than the more strident energy flows of the streets. Somehow though, this just wasn’t quite enough and a recognisable portion of Leicester’s inner gyratory system rose to the surface very late in the day. The final gesture of reaching for a pot of varnish and looping it off the handle of a brush occurred in wholly intuitive manner (late at night, and probably half asleep). It is often the case that such release creates the most fortuitous results, and in this time the drips appear to continue the ring road’s circuit organically through sheer chance. I couldn’t have made that happen if I’d tried.

Without delving to dee eply into any of the complex, abstruse philosophical concepts which may (or may not) inform this body of work, the tension between formally established territory and more intuitive flows of urban life continue to feel like a key theme. Indeed, this may just represent another interpretation of the official/unofficial interface that’s been there in my work for many years (signage vs graffiti, crisp edges vs random mark-making, social democracy vs uninformed reactionary politics, etc.).

Another point worth noting is the suggestion of some pixellated, glitch-type artefact at bottom left of this image. There was actually more of this in ‘DC1’, and it does feel like another category of motif that may continue to recur in this body of work. For now, let’s simply regard it as a hint towards the digital lens through which we often chart the terrain. I’ll leave it at that for now, but the potential of Google Maps/Earth, OpenStreetMap, etc. to further mediate our understanding of geography is definitely folded into these pieces, and something to discuss at greater length another time

Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 2'

'Deleuzian Cartography 2', Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel, 300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

Here is the second of my small ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ panels, a small clutch of which have recently emerged in the wake of my summer sketchbook experiments. As ever, the quantity/rate of production may feel a little less than desired, but the reality is that progress been consistent, and I think I’m reasonably content with the general direction they have taken so far. I think I should give up worrying about stuff like that once and for all, and just accept that I’ve always been a fairly slow, methodical worker, with many of the usual mundane limits on available time and energy in addition. Furthermore, each one of these often takes longer to resolve than could ever be predicted and - let’s face it, just churning-out a series of predictable ‘product’ shouldn’t really be the aim either.

In fact, the real ‘issue’ to be faced now is probably more to do with scale (i.e. the space side of the space/time interface). Any imagery deriving from maps must, by its very nature, imply a degree of open-endedness or extension. Ultimately, there is only one map after all (and it is spherical and without definitive boundaries). The end of one chart is just the beginning of the next. Even my own modest and localised voyages of discovery around the city reveal a seemingly limitless range of possibilities (what happens if I take this route instead of that? what happens around that slightly less familiar corner? How far can I really follow this river beyond the city’s nominal edge? etc.).

This would all suggest that one simple ambition should be to move away from what has become (often for simple practical reasons – or is it timidity?) my default ‘small’ panel size. I’m not necessarily talking Mark Bradford scale here, but the annexing of a little more territory is indicated, nonetheless. If limits on working/storage/living space all imply some conflict with that ambition, a sensible solution might be to consider the extension of imager over several conjoining sections. Thinking about it – that would be in keeping with the cartographical nature of this work too (see above).

Anyway, that’s all in a possible future. As far as this little panel goes, there is clearly some attempt to further dissolve the street plan into an abstracted soup of possible routes and directions generally. There’s also clear reference to the idea of the city being a vast circuit of energies and informational flows - as much as it is an arena for physical journeys. Overlaying (and threaded through) all this, more fluid traceries and Deleuzian rhizomes attempt to arc across, or take mental/emotional flight from, the territorial geometries of the map. That’s my excuse for a bit of Pollock-style drippage, and I’m sticking to it!

Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 1'

 

'Deleuzian Cartography 1', Paper Collage & Mixed Media, 300 mm x 300 mm, x 1 2024

This is the first small panel to emerge from all my messing about with maps over recent months. As mentioned in my previous post, this imagery emerges from a period of sketchbook experimentation, in which recurring motifs and working methods were allowed to evolve in a fairly organic manner without too many constraints. For all that may feel like a new phase of activity, I now realise that this kind of thing superficially resembles some of the street plan-derived work I made a few years ago.

'Map 2', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2015

I guess that's how it goes sometimes - we set off in what we feel is a new direction, only to discover we've actually looped back round on ourselves without really knowing it. I'm going to tell/fool myself that this is hopefully less of a resort to some stifling comfort zone, and more of a re-statement of the central concerns within my work. As stated many time before - it's pretty much always about an interaction with my immediate (largely urban) surroundings, and the various ways in which it becomes codified and freighted with numerous tangled narratives. In this case, a conscious use of appropriated texts encountered at specific locations has given way (I think) to certain implied philosophical underpinnings - such as might be encountered in the work of Gilles Deleuze or Michel De Certeau, amongst others. 

There's far too much nuance there (and let's be honest - baffling complexity) to detail now. So, for the time being, I'll hang on to the hope that, rather than merely circling back to some earlier starting point, any movement achieved here is more representative of a spiral. Just as each time we pass through a certain location on the map - we may experience it in a slightly different way, so perhaps any return to possibly familiar creative territory may might contain the experiences, knowledge and insights gleaned since the last time we were there. Perhaps we can hope for a little more finesse too?

Yes - it may be another map-like yellow painting, but I've certainly torn up a load of paper, and read a lot more confusing books since the last one, so here's hoping...

Completed Untitled Studies ['Deleuzian Cartography']

 

Untitled Study ['Deleuzian Cartography'], Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Paper,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

It had been my intention to spend the summer months trying to bring my ‘The Basin’ project closer to a resolution. Primarily, this would have involved a considerable amount of writing/re-writing, alongside the selection and editing of accompanying images from the vast archive of photos taken down in Bristol over the last year or two. However, ‘The best laid plans’, etc…

 

This & Following 14 Images: Sketchbook Study ['Deleuzian Cartography'],
Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Paper, 180 mm x 180 mm, 2024

The scarcity of posts on here lately suggests that perhaps I was a bit done with generating words for a while, without realising it. For someone so habitually verbose, it is also true that sometimes I just get sick of the sound of my own voice! And so the last few months actually became focussed on purely visual work - with no connection to Bristol at all in the event. Who knows what dictates these swerves? With no external expectations or deadlines to fulfil over any of this, I guess I should be grateful for the luxury of just being able to drift wherever the creative currents carry me - even if it means some  things can remain provisional for too long (drifting, in the psychogeographic sense is itself a likely theme of these tentative images). Anyway, as ever, the main thing is that work continues in whatever form. And having invested a lot of time, effort and travel expenses, I still feel committed to my Bristol-based project(s). I’m sure ‘The Basin’ will re-emerge as a live issue before long.

 

In the meantime, here are some indications of my most recent imagery, mostly in the form of experimental sketchbook studies - along with a few slightly larger pieces on paper. As can be seen, there is a degree of experimentation going on here, utilising many of my customary collage/mixed-media strategies in the attempt to reach-out towards some kind of fluid/intuitive alt-cartography. The intention  (such as one can be identified) is to chart the tension between organised territory, and the flights, flows and memories which may may re-dissolve the lines on the map (or calendar).

 

In addition to these starting points, a small number of more resolved panels have also resolved themselves to date. I’ll save those for another post soon, in the interests of being a little more communicative.

This & Following Image: Untitled Study ['Deleuzian Cartography'], Paper Collage &
Mixed Media on Paper, 300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

Pre-App [The Branches]

All Images: Clifton, Bristol & West Leicester, August 2024

When I was very young, my dad worked for the National Provincial Bank. Colloquially, in our family at least, this was known as ‘The NP’. I had heard people on TV and the radio talk (with a deference which was probably more common back then) about people called ‘MPs’', and being too young to really make sense of the adult world - conflated the two things. I assumed they were talking about what my father did. Ironically, a bit later, the National Provincial merged (or was swallowed up by – I’m not sure which) with the Westminster Bank. That became what we came to know as The National Westminster Bank, then just National Westminster, and which - following a common enough reductive path, we still recognise as Nat West. Big fish will always consume smaller fish, and Nat West itself was eventually absorbed into the Royal Bank of Scotland group (necessitating effective nationalisation for a while after the global financial crisis of 2008). My dad was regrettably long-gone by then, would probably have been bemused by much of it,  and certainly never had any political ambitions that I’m aware of.

In a very real way, I guess I am a product of that world of provincial, branch-based banking. My mother had also started her working life at the National Provincial, and my parents met at her workplace, in the busy fishing port that was her hometown. Her memories of that time included being regularly delegated to administer a satellite operation at the docks, handling large amounts of currency as cash deals were struck over freshly landed catches, and returning with boxes of complementary haddock to share amongst her co-workers. That particular trade is now massively diminished of course, and what remains was long industrialised beyond any such folk-memory. In the intervening years, the old docks became a fascinating, near-derelict zone of lost time, still vaguely ‘perfumed’ by the countless generations of North Sea fish that once passed through it. In some respects, the abandoned, boarded-up buildings that lingered there prefigured the ever-multiplying ranks of vacant bank premises, themselves now awaiting erasure or new occupancy on every high street.

Back in the day, career progression in domestic banking often involved relocating to a new branch with each new promotion. Consequently, we settled in a new (to us - it's actually pretty ancient) town when I was around 5 years old. However, my dad was lucky enough to take one or two more steps up without another move, and so that’s where I did all my real growing-up. Originally, his new branch was in a spectacular timber-framed building built in the mid-sixteenth century. I remember visiting his workplace and being very impressed by the crazy angles of heavy oak beams, and by the fact that the floor seemed to undulate beneath the feet as one crossed the room. I doubt there was a true right-angle in the whole edifice, and it’s possible the mundane world of local banking acquired an unwarranted historical glamour in my mind through being located there. 

The business later transferred to new, purpose-built premises nearby – occupying a bland Modernist insertion into a much older side street. I remember my father recounting the various teething-problems that arose as the new facilities bedded-in, not least the tendency for the alarm system to be triggered with the least provocation. As a key-holder, he was often the first to be called by the police if that occurred out of hours (as was generally the case), and I accompanied him on more than one of these exciting callouts. What seems really astounding now is that, rather than waiting in the car, I would go into the premises with my dad, another of his colleagues, and at least two coppers – all unable to know exactly who or what might be waiting inside. I even remember peering into the strongroom as the incredibly thick steel hatch was opened to ensure no one was hiding inside (much like something from a TV or film thriller). Of course, memory will inevitably romanticise the past, and perhaps everyone else knew it was just another inconvenient false alarm all along - despite having to observe the formalities. Nevertheless, it still seems incredible such things might have happened when the demands of Safeguarding and Health & Safety inescapably came to underpin every aspect of my own day-job.

Nowadays, as local bank branches rapidly disappear, we are naturally brought to the realisation that money was only ever really symbolic anyway. The gradual move away from physicality (bags of coins, the smell of rapidly thumbed notes, the iron clang of the night safe, etc.) began a long time ago but has accelerated exponentially as many aspects of our everyday lives migrate to the digital realm. Back in the 1970s, when ‘cash cards’ first appeared (long before they became the multi-functional debit cards many now increasingly find quaint), bank employees were amongst the first to trial their efficacy. I remember making a special family trip to the sole cashpoint machine in town, to try out my Dad’s new card. We watched as printed instructions spun round on a fabric belt (!), then waited in trepidation - hardly daring to believe the requested notes would actually be spat out. Nowadays - it seems, bricked-up or otherwise barricaded apertures are all that remains of many such terminals - even if some remain to indulge such folk as still value the reassurance of a few notes in the wallet.

As with my previous post, I should emphasise this really isn’t intended as an exercise in self-indulgent nostalgia or in bemoaning the inevitable (and generally mesmerising) processes of change. In fact, it’s always interesting to chart just how many technologies or trades may come and go within the span of one human life (a number that can only rise exponentially, I assume). As the app and the algorithm replace the cash desk and the card slot, I am mostly prompted to reflect on the ways that frictionless virtual narratives and information streams (and the transactions they enfold) are just as intrinsic to the life of the city as the physical features that constitute its fabric. That the clues to all this become ingrained within that very fabric is just a bonus for those, like me, who never tire of investigating our surroundings and seeking the signs.