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| Both Images: Central Nottingham, May 2019 |
It seems I've been resurrecting a few slightly neglected series on here, lately. The images in this is post could easily fit into one of several familiar categories, including 'Yellow Things', 'Grey Things', 'Scaffolding', or 'Urban Geometry'. All of those themes have recurred, in one form or another, at different times, over the last few years. Ultimately though, it feels like the two images, captured only meters apart, in Nottingham, a few weeks back - best illustrate the idea of 'Colour' and 'Not Colour', played out in similarly abstracted subjects (albeit on two very different scales).
I often tell myself not to be so predictable in my habitual selection of geometrically formal, picture-plane orientated, minimalist, quasi-abstract imagery - but then I walk past something like this, and off comes the lens cap, as if by involuntary reflex. I guess the eye loves what the eye loves...
Anyway, he function of neutral 'Not Colours' in contextualising actual colours, is something all painters, in particular, must come to terms with, sooner or later. And it seems just as important a feature of the urban landscape - where drab masonry or utilitarian surface coatings often rub cheeks with saturated, synthetic (and often self-coloured) materials. Certainly, both of these examples seem to typify the kind of artificial, industrial colours that interest me far more than traditional artist's pigments, these days. And, of course - I'm always a sucker for Cadmium Yellow and Battleship Grey.
I often reflect how, in recent times, I've spent hundreds of hours staring at the bits of cities most people just pass by - and how I've sourced far more of my materials in the aisles of B&Q, than in any art materials supplier.
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