Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 6'

'Untitled (From The New School) 6', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel,
30 cm X 30 cm X 106 mm, 2017

As I continue to juggle several discrete bodies of work, it feels like my main creative attention is increasingly falling on the nascent ‘ThisSkeptic/Sceptic Isle’ project, featured in a recent post.  But, of course, it would be far too straightforward to just maintain consistent focus this year - and so the small ‘From The New School’ panels continue simultaneously in the parallel.  Apologies if it’s hard to keep up with all this flip-flopping - I appreciate such compartmentalising may be far more interesting to me than to the casual spectator.  Sometimes, I even wonder if my need to ring-fence separate bodies of work doesn’t signify some kind of mild psychosis – or an unnecessarily over-developed search for order, at least.

In reality, alternating between these two projects may prove relatively achievable in coming weeks, not least as these little panels, at least, seem relatively quick to execute.  The strategy of working on them in my place of employment, in fleeting lunch breaks, or for an hour at the end of the working day, is proving a successful means of time management,  Having long since sorted out the basic compositional format, and by employing a deliberately synthetic and self-conscious mode of painting - it’s possible to make each painterly decision zone-by-zone in a pretty methodical fashion.  That’s an approach chosen initially for conceptual reasons, but one which also allows for a fortuitous ‘mask a bit – paint a bit – go home for tea (and repeat)’ routine.

Anyway, here’s the latest ‘Untitled (From The New School)’ Panel (No. 6).  Ironically, given the above observations, there was slightly more technical struggle than usual with this one – largely involving the treatment of the central ‘window’ zone.  Ultimately, that methodical approach proved a boon again though – allowing me to just keep masking and reworking until I arrived at some form of satisfactory conclusion.

My original plan was for this image to be somewhat more elaborate, but having paused for breath after getting things to this level - I realised ‘enough is enough’.  I looked, and looked again - before deciding its relative simplicity and sense of distillation are strengths rather than weaknesses, within the overall series to date.  It just reinforces the old artist’s truism about knowing when to stop.

Beyond that, my only other meaningful observation would relate to the visible textual elements.  Careful study will reveal they all derive from a single document, and that it makes specific reference to the thematic underpinnings of the project as a whole.  I now realise it marks the first time I’ve used collaged and repurposed text in quite such a pointed manner.