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.