Perforated 1

It's interesting how...

New Basford, Nottingham, February 2009

...the same things keep cropping up...

Digbeth, Birmingham, August, 2013

Belgrave Gate Project 6: Completed Paintings - 'Cave Wall 1, 2 & 3'

'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel. 60 cm X 60 cm, 2013

I’m not sure which is more dispiriting really, - the fact that the six-week academic summer break is over, or the sense that I didn’t really make sufficient constructive use of it this year.  I seem to have been plagued with various distracting minor ailments and a general lack of energy but, thankfully, things did improve towards the end.  I feel doubly guilty, as it’s a luxury that many working folk can’t enjoy and a long, unbroken period of (theoretically) creative time that many other amateur artists would envy.

'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 2', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel. 60 cm X 60 cm, 2013

One big plus is that I did complete the set of three related paintings I’ve had in hand for far too many weeks.  Another is that, whilst lacking some motivation generally, at no point did I lose belief in the essential ideas I was engaged with.  I’m not sure if the paintings are completely successful, but they do hint at some possible ways forward.  I’m already thinking about my next move(s) and that can only be good.

'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 3', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel. 60 cm X 60 cm, 2013

‘Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 1’, ‘2’, & ‘3’ are closely related in both composition and themes.  I’ve already written about the source subject and basic premise behind them so won’t repeat myself about all that now.  Anyone perplexed by the inclusion of certain vulgar motifs would do well to read my previous post on the subject.

Burley's Flyover, Leicester, 2013

What they do represent is a more organic approach to developing an idea than before.  Previously, I’ve tended to produce paintings from highly finished sketchbook studies, having already solved most of the formal problems up front.  This time, the paintings (in tandem with on-going small studies), represent more of development process themselves.  My previous multi-panel projects have been planned as a single statement in several pieces designed to hang together.  These three act rather as experimental variations on a theme that could easily hang separately.

Burley's Flyover, Leicester, 2013

At 60 cm X 60 cm the panels are three fifths of the scale I’ve often painted at.  If I mistakenly thought this would help me to work faster, it really just proved that working on a smaller, more congested scale can have quite the opposite effect.  If they do point towards a more definitive resolution of their themes (as I suspect is the case), it would definitely be larger.  Certainly, the original subject does suggest a greater sense of environment through scale.

'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 1' (Detail), Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 2013

The real challenge of these paintings was my continuing attempt to incorporate passages of representational imagery as distinct layers of meaning into compositions based on text characters and abstract elements.  This began with my previous ‘Belgrave Gate Project’ Painting (‘Belgrave Gate: Yours 1’), and will, I think, continue to distinguish future attempts under the same banner.  How to achieve this is probably the biggest conundrum I face at the moment.  Certainly, each ‘Cave Wall’ plays with a different mode of depiction in their illusionistic background passages.  The one that pleases me least is the first, with its rather leaden attempt at ‘straight’ realism.  Further exploration of different, (possibly photographically derived), modes of depiction seems to be required.

'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 2' (Detail), Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 2013

Another feature worth noting is a moderate heightening of colour palette as the three panels progressed.  It’s necessary to look past the vivid top layers of ‘Paleolithic’ motifs to really appreciate this but it reinforces my conviction that the synthesis of impressions felt in a given situation is best achieved by abandoning excessive realism and certainly, local colour.  Wherever they may sit within the triangle of abstraction, representation and conceptualism, it’s important to me that my paintings should remain highly artificial constructs.

'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 3' (Detail), Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 2013

Despite this, I’m undecided how well that almost arbitrary top layer of artificial motifs really works in pictorial terms.  On reflection, I now realise that it’s partially influenced by Gerhard Richter’s strategy of smearing paint directly onto photographs, or images painted in a completely different manner, to create a tension between alternative visual ‘realities’.  I remain fascinated by that idea but also suspect I may have replaced his spontaneity of gesture (in both senses), with excessive deliberation and an attempt to keep too many plates spinning at once.  The incorporation of this floating layer and the text elements subsumed into the formal layer below, (plus the illusionistic passages), may just mean that far too much is going on.  Perhaps an either/or approach would make more sense here.

Gerhard Richter, 'Ohne Titel (9 Nov 1999)', Oil On Photograph, 1999

Gerhard Richter, 'Ohne Titel (9 Nov 1999)', Oil On Photograph, 1989

So, plenty to think about but then these paintings were always intended as something of a test bed.  They are successful in that respect if no other.

Written City 10: Wise Words

Tru Dat.

Fortified

Birmingham, August 2013

This is my last full post about the cycle ride I made along Birmingham’s canals recently with my friend David Weight.  As already mentioned, most of the photographs I collected that day fell into a number of clear themes.  Those shown here all relate to the issue of security, something that seems to be of ever increasing concern in our society these days.

Digbeth, Birmingham, August 2013

The first of these subjects was the ramshackle barricaded window close to where we parked.  It seems a perfect reflection of the Digbeth district in its tenacious defence of an impoverished property using crude but effective means.  It's exactly the kind of matter of fact solution one arrives at in an edgy neighbourhood with limited resources and no interest in style. Of course, it’s typically such qualities that captivate my eye far more than anything done with more finesse or refinement. Through the juxtaposition of geometric timbers and sinuous barbed wire, it achieves a kind of inept beauty that I recognised immediately.

Birmingham, August 2013

Fortified fences, high walls and barbed or razor wire entanglements were much in evidence thoughout our ride from Digbeth to Gravelly Hill Interchange.  This is hardly a surprise given that secluded canal paths are of as much use to the nocturnal criminal as they are to the urban explorer seeking alternative routes through a city.  Nevertheless, it’s illuminating to recognize just how casually we accept the routine defensive postures adopted to guard a paranoid society against itself.  This is something I alluded to in my ‘Sick’quartet of paintings completed early last year.  Those particular panels were produced partially in response to the summer riots of 2011 and included explicit references to steel security screens, arson and criminal damage.

'Sick 1 (S)', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2012

'Sick 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 300 cm X 60 cm (Overall), 2012

'Sick 1 (K)', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2012

I wont pretend this is all purely characteristic of contemporary society.  Defensive fortifications, and indeed criminal activity, aren't exactly new phenomena, after all.  Likewise, the wicked, scribbled silhouette of barbed wire against the sky is hardly an original photographic motif but it was impossible to resist the visual appeal of various examples we passed on our ride.

Birmingham, August 2013

In the event, the most dramatic example of security was the heavily fortified industrial building we encountered in the later stretches of the Birmingham & Fazeley cut.  Its dense, corroded mesh and barbed wire caging created a sinister, almost post apocalyptic effect and some terrific silhouettes.  I braked so abruptly when I discovered it that Dave nearly careered into my rear wheel.  Sometimes you just recognise one as soon as you see it.

Birmingham, August 2013

Written City 9: Nosy Parker

Safe & Secure Parking:  Digbeth, Birmingham, August 2013

Sorting through the photos from the Birmingham cycle ride discussed in my last post, I realised that a couple more specific themes had emerged on the day.  The first focused on car park parking signage, a few images of which I’ve included here.  As subjects go, it sounds pretty mundane, I realise, but anyone using a motor vehicle in cities nowadays knows that parking the blinkin’ thing is a significant part of the whole deal.  In that context, those familiar ‘P’ symbols become something many of us engage with on a frequent basis.

50p?:  Digbeth, Birmingham, August 2013

As I’ve immersed myself deeper in different aspects of the urban experience, I’ve started to think increasingly about the ways we move around cities.  On a superficial level, this involves comparing the relative merits of certain modes of transport, (walking/cycling/cars/trains, etc.), for the urban explorer.  On a deeper level is how these different technologies of movement influence our actual perception of the territories we traverse.  That’s of natural interest to the artist and, hopefully, something I’ll discuss further in the future.

Mixed Messages:  Digbeth, Birmingham, August 2013

Larger still is the whole issue of how layers of infrastructure control the entire pattern of our lives.  Movement and transport are clearly a major element here but it’s much wider than that, encompassing communications, utility supply, provision of services and products, public policy, and much else besides.  There’s far more here than I can incorporate into my current work, (or this post), but it all goes into the mental store of themes for possible future work.  For now, I’m scratching the surface through the representations of road systems evident in my current ‘Belgrave Gate Project’ paintings (whose genesis belongs in my own motorised commutes), and photographic explorations of ‘Spaghetti Junction’ and of waterways, roads and railways in Birmingham and Newark.

'Belgrave Gate: Yours 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 100 cm X 100 cm, 2013

Elevated By-Pass:  Newark, Nottinghamshire, 2013

Gravelly Hill, Birmingham, August 2013

One of the practical bonuses of the recent trip to Brum was the ease of parking in the Digbeth area where our expedition began.  As a transitional area with pockets of relative dereliction, Digbeth’s streets contain various yards and vacant lots that have been transformed into ad hoc car parking.  In an obvious way, this in itself signifies how much cars still dominate city life.  With little investment in resurfacing and, at best, sporadic security provision, these private parking empires seem free to try to cut each other’s throats through competitively low charges.  Having paid £2.00 for 24 hours we discovered later that we were near the top end of the market!

Almost Wilfully Inept:  Digbeth, Birmingham August, 2013

As is demonstrated here, many seem to feature a fairly random approach to signage, providing ever more grist to my visual mill.  Of course, the tension between the supposed freedom of independent car travel and its practical accommodation goes on.  Cheap parking is not free parking and clearly, there’s still a need for ‘No Parking’ signs around Digbeth too.  I’ve included a couple of charming homemade examples of those to complete the picture.

Far More Effective As Graphic Communication But Still Pleasingly Ham-Fisted:
Digbeth, Birmingham, August 2012