Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 14'

'Untitled (From The New School) 14', Acrylic on Panel, 300 mm x 300 mm x 106 mm, 2021

 

In another slight detour, I've just completed another in my occasional series of small 'From The New School' paintings.  It's been a while since I visited this project, but I still consider it a live enterprise.  I continue to be employed within the secondary education system, and a degree of philosophical reflection on the function of institutionalise education remains an inevitable adjunct to the daily routine.

You can read about the rationale behind this series here - and not least, how it is rooted in the idea of repeatedly reinterpreting the same quasi-architectural motif appropriated from my friend, Andrew Smith.  That theme of appropriation is particularly apt in this case, as 'Untitled 14 (From The New School)' is also a conscious tribute to the work of Peter Halley - an artist I've been looking at a lot just lately.

Peter Halley, 'Abrupt Decisions', Acrylic & Roll-a Tex on Canvas, 
1905 mm x 1854 mm,  2011

Peter Halley, 'Revival', Acrylic & Roll-a Tex on Canvas,
1702 mm x 1397 mm, 2012

Peter Halley, '646', Acrylic & Roll-a Tex on Canvas, 2134 mm x 2642 mm, 2018

Applying Halley's trademark hard-edged abstraction style to my own (or Andrew's) recurring motif was hardly a stretch, given the formalised geometry that was a key feature all along.  Meanwhile, his ideas around information/data flows - and the ways they may categorise and imprison us all, are really too tempting to ignore where a speculative interrogation of the education system is concerned.  Embedding his own recurrent barred window motif within the 'FTNS'  edifice feels like opening boxes within boxes, in more than one respect.  We should perhaps also note that Halley is himself one of the great painterly repeaters of a core idea (up there alongside Morandi or Ryman, perhaps).  

Perhaps most important of all though, playing with a typically Halley-esque, neon-augmented  palette, and emulating his use of textured metallics, was just loads of fun.  There's nothing like doing someone else's work, to take the pressures off your own for a spell.

'This S(c)eptic Isle': Notional Pride 3

 

All Images: West Leicester, April 2021

"Four people arrested while staging demonstrations in Bristol are to receive apologies and substantial damages from Avon and Somerset police after the force admitted its declaration of a blanket ban on protest was unlawful.

"The apologies, which followed a legal challenge, are thought to be the first time a police force has admitted it misapplied coronavirus powers to ban protests. In a statement agreed with the claimants, the police said the arrests had been made on the basis of a 'misunderstanding of the legal effect of the regulations' and admitted all four 'were unlawfully arrested'." [1.]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/22/bristol-police-to-pay-damages-for-arrest-of-activists-using-covid-powers

[1.]:  Damien Gale,  'Police Admit Protest Ban Under Covid Powers Was Unlawful',  Guardian, 22 April 2021.

Completed Studies: 'Techno 001 - 004'

 

'Techno Study 001' Mixed Media on Paper, £00 mm X 300 mm, April 2021

These recently completed, paper-based studies form a kind of aside to my on-going 'Constructed City' paintings.  They were made fairy rapidly, as my latest, more ambitious, 'CC' piece unfolds at a somewhat steadier pace.

Anyone following my progress on here, will be familiar with my tendency to compartmentalise work into discrete projects, and with the convulsions I regularly perform to make distinctions between them.  I recognise that probably all means far more to me, than to many others.  However, it does serve to rationalise the multiple strands of thought running through my head, without my becoming totally overwhelmed.  Inevitably, there's never enough time (or energy) to make everything I'd like to, or to properly process the steady drip of new ideas.  A degree of conscious organisation thus feels essential to whatever workflow I do achieve - however anal it might sometimes appear.

'Techno Study 002', Mixed Media on Paper, 200 mm x 200 mm, April 2021

Consequently, whilst the visual language on display in these studies is clearly related to that of recent 'Constructed City' pieces, they do feel like a separate in a certain key respects.  Perhaps most importantly, there is no source subject here.  Each of my 'CC' pieces relates  to a specific subject source (and possible associations) - however convoluted the processes of translation and media-switching involved in their development may be.  In truth, all that process may be as important a theme, as the actual construction sites that seed them.  Nevertheless, retaining some vestige of specific subject within each one still feels very important.  In the 'Techno" studies however, there is genuinely no actual subject.  Each evolved intuitively (and relatively rapidly), as a purely formal exercise - and with little sense of exactly how they might end up.  In essence, they are improvisations on a general theme.

'Techno Study 003', Mixed Media on Paper, 300 mm x 300 mm, April 2021

As far as any external stimulus does go - the clue is in the title.  These are mostly interpretations of, or responses to Techno music.  Doubtless, there is some relation to all the complex geometry of the 'CC' work, but definitely more relevant here are the structures to be found within the roster of fairly regimented electronic music that dominated much of my current listening.  In one way or another, each of the studies reflects the particular discs that have been on heaviest rotation during its production.  My last playlist  outlines my most recent enthusiasms - many of them tending towards the more aggressive or spartan end of industrial Techno.  However, the truth is - I've been enjoying electronic music of many stripes for decades.  The influences feeding into the next batch are as just as likely to turn to early Detroit or Sheffield, or to the IDM, Dub Techno, Glitch or Minimalism that still fascinate me - as to the more punishing, so-called 'Birmingham Sound', that fed these four.

'Techno Study 004', Mixed Media on Paper, 200 mm x 200 mm, April 2021

What I am telling myself, is that the rigorous, four-square frontality of these images is an obvious response to the relentless 4-4 rhythm of much Techno.  Certainly, there are no  diagonals or curves to be seen here (unlike the 'CC's) - for now, at least.  The juxtaposition of crisp edges, meshes and intersecting lines, with more nuanced veils and fields also seems to chime pretty well with the sequenced beats, melodic pads and aural textures of the music in question.

I've no idea if these small studies will lead to anything more significant.  I do know there'll be some more, and that, if nothing else - they already provide a refreshing punctuation to the methodical labour of my other work.  It's probably also true that they serve as a useful (and fun) test-bed for application methods and potential marks, at the same time. 

 

All Together Now

 

All Images: Central Leicester, Spring 2021

A tentative easing was offered, but many were, by now, too weary to remember the way back. Irrelevant, anyway - the joy bunkers remained barricaded for the duration.  Reality once met a weak end here - slathered in product and desperation.  Randomised reflection still slid from a gleaming facade, but little in the way of illumination had ever been achieved.  The pointless search was shut down.

Little left to do then, but to observe the familiar rituals of mourning.  A half-hearted paroxysm of grief was enacted for the passing of a half-remembered consort, as gun barrels tilted into icy wind.  A convenient distraction was attempted once more, as the old order clutched on.  A very formal tragedy for the last of a generation.  'A life of service' (but we were never really in this together - were we?)

'This S(c)eptic Isle': Notional Pride 2

All Images:  West Leicester, April 2021

Robert Jenrick  @robertJenrick . Mar 18

"We're always proud to fly the Union Flag at @mhcig  It's a symbol of liberty and freedom that binds the whole country together." [1.]

[1.]:  Tweet by Robert Jenrick MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government, 18 March 2021