Completed Studies: 'Techno 013 - 016'

 

'Techno Study 013', Mixed Media on Paper, 300 mm x 300 mm, 2021

The series of small, relatively inconsequential 'Techno Studies', which I've been working on in recent times, is now complete.  As already discussed, these started as a slight (although aesthetically sympathetic) diversion from the somewhat more preconceived methodology of my 'Constructed City' paintings.  As such - they've served their purpose, I think.  If both phases of work share a pretty rigorous aesthetic - characterised by strict, layered geometries and a shrugging-off of my customary textual elements, there are also clear distinctions, which feel more significant (to me at least).

Primarily, this amounts to an immersion in an improvisational approach - in these studies, versus the more process-based deliberations of the 'CC' pieces.   And, whilst they were specifically (if obliquely) connected to specific city locations, and to certain associated reflections upon the nature of contemporary urban development (potentially - at least), these carry little or no such thematic baggage.  There may be a certain architectural aspect to many of the little 'Technos', but their primary raison d'etre remains a purely intuitive response to the rigorous Techno music I was listening to (almost exclusively) for a while, earlier in the year.  

The grid-based organisation of these compositions, and strict adherence to perpendicularity, may have become policy as the series evolved - but still feel like a pretty route-one response to the structures inherent with the music itself.  The nuanced and layered surfaces represent little more than a cheerful embrace of self-indulgent painterliness, and the attendant harnessing of seductive accidents.  That they may also reference the more atmospheric elements, or textural detail of much Techno, is a fortunate by-product.  The completion of the full set of sixteen is a pretty logical justification of the four-square/four-squared rationale therein, but also a reflection of my willingness to just keep going whilst doing so remained fun.

Ultimately, what may also be true - is that these really represent little more than a recourse to various comfort zones.  There's little here that I haven't tried before, to some degree or other, and the overall aesthetic and methodology refer to the twentieth century, far more than the twenty-first.  I won't beat myself up too much about that, and it could likely be justified on hauntological grounds alone - I'm sure.  However, my recent dilettante engagement with certain 'difficult' philosophical texts persuades me that more expansive lines of creative flight, and an embrace of more rhizomatic connectivities are likely to be more rewarding than recourse to old, established or 'striated' modes of thought/activity.

'Techno Study 014', Mixed Media on Paper, 300 mm x 300 mm, 2021

However, this isn't really the time to go further into such reflections.  I've merely scratched the surface of a few slightly convoluted concepts, and am already starting to process a slew of different ideas and possibilities as a consequence.  Not least amongst these are how my own work should progress in coming days.  However, it doesn't really feel like simply working this imagery up into more substantial works, purely for the sake of it, is really the road I want to take.  For now, I'm content for them to remain that aforementioned detour - and possibly one taken along an attractive, slightly quaint back-route.  I think it's probably time to seek out some different ones - or even to draw some new ones on the map altogether.

'Techno Study 015', Mixed Media on Paper, 300 mm x 300 mm, 2021

'Techno Study 016', Mixed Media on Paper, 300 mm x 300 mm, 2021

Deleuzeian Diversion 1

 

Central Derby, July 2021

"Production is not recorded in the same way it is produced.  Or rather, it is not reproduced within the apparent objective movement in the same way in which it is produced within the process of constitution.

"In fact, we have passed imperceptibly into a domain of the production of recording, whose law is not the same as that of the production of production.

"The law governing the latter was connective synthesis or coupling.  But when the productive connections pass from machines to the body without organs (as from labour to capital), it would seem that they then come under another law that expresses a distribution in relation to the nonproductive element as a 'natural or divine presupposition' (the disjunctions of capital).

"Machines attach themselves to the body without organs as so many points of disjunction, between which an entire network of new syntheses is now woven, marking the surface off into co-ordinates, like a grid." [1.]

[1.]:  Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, 'Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia', (Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem & Helen R. Lane), London/NY/Dublin, Bloomsbury, 2013 (Originally Published 1972).

'This S(c)eptic Isle': Everyday Satire

 

The Property Doom Continues: Central Leicester, July 2021

At this stage, it feels like life in the UK can pretty much satirise itself unaided.

Significant Yellow Items #2021.Y011, #2021.Y012(a) & #2021.Y012(b)

 

North Leicester, July 2021

In each instance an interruption of the normal flow is effected (terminal/diversionary).

Illumination is denied, and the signals rendered provisional (an insufficiency of faith).

Amenity becomes impediment (the obstacle course reconfigured).

The cadmium alert makes its predictable reappearance (maximum contrast).

Inclined facets feature prominently (the chamfer and the pyramid).

The ground plane is a key feature (micro-mapping of reduced topographies).

Central Leicester, March 2021

The City patches.  The City renews.  The City prioritises.

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 15 '

 

'Untitled (From The New School) 15', Mixed Media on Panel, 300 mm x 300 mm x 106 mm, 2021

The work continues, even if progress is a little sporadic and I struggle to stay fully focused on a single body of work for any sustained duration.  If the on-going 'Techno Studies' series represents a bit of a side bar, this latest 'FTNS' painting must represent a side-bar, to a side-bar - I guess.

I'm not sure why I'm so easily distracted these days, but it's not too great a problem, as long as stuff is still getting worked on (and completed).  Strangely, I also seem to find some difficulty in evaluating the quality of the work, but, as long as there's still pleasure in its production - and I feel like I've done the best I can at the time, it's  probably not really worth mithering too deeply over whether it's any good or not.  Ultimately, just doing the work whenever time and energy allow, is all that really matters.  Perhaps assessing its quality will prove a little easier once it's sat around for a while.  

In fact, these 'FTNS' panels are a useful resort at such a time.  Their format, thematic justification, and stolen imagery were all decided long ago.  Conscious repetition is willingly embraced in this case, and the only real conundrum each time is the manner and technicalities of the execution.

Here, the chosen method is largely one of collage.  Aside from the relatively minor painted passages, most of what you see here is composed of various papers found scattered around the classroom during my working day.  It's all relatively straightforward, although there is a deliberate experimental element in the use of raw newspaper.  One can only assume it will darken and yellow further with the passage of time - even as the reported events alluded to slide further into history.  The changing philosophies and purposes intrinsic to education are an abiding theme in this series, and now the passage of time should be reflected in some way, through the actions of UV light and chemical change.

Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke: 'Displaced' At T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, 3 July 2021

 

Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions 2', Acrylic on Canvas, 142 cm x 114 cm, 2020

As our various freedoms of movement have been partially restored in recent weeks, I've already attended a few small exhibition openings in the Midlands.  The most recent of these involved a dive over to Birmingham, with my friend, Dave - to catch the first day of the joint show 'Displaced', by my sometime co-conspirators, Shaun Morris and Andrew Smith.  It was also an opportunity to visit the previously unfamiliar (to me) T-Street Gallery, and also to meet its mastermind (and curator of this exhibition) Sevven Kucuk.  I've no real idea about the epidemiological wisdom of The Government's lockdown easing measures - beyond the distinct suspicion we're far from having heard the last of all this viral malarkey.  However, I'm no different from most folks in enjoying the chance to get out and about, and to enjoy just doing stuff again.  Visiting exhibitions, catching up with friends, meeting new art world participants, and sipping the drinks we enjoyed later in the day, are all part of that.  We even managed to catch a little weekend sunshine and avoid most of the jingoistic football nonsense, along the way.  All in all, the job was a good 'un.

Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith, 'Displaced', T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, July 2021. 
With Some Old Favourites by Shaun, and Curator, Sevven Kucuk (C.) 

Shaun Morris, 'The Green Door', Oil on Canvas, 120 cm X 80 cm, 2020

The work of both Shaun and Andrew has featured here on numerous previous occasions, and in various configurations, and the current show represents a relatively small selection of both old and new work - much of which I was at least partially familiar with already.  Nevertheless, there's no substitute for seeing actual work in a room, and it's always instructive to see even well-known work in new contexts.  In this case it was also interesting to view the work of both artists through the eyes of a third party.  I think it's fair to say that Sevven's thoughtful and collaborative curation have resulted in a hang that capitalises on the strengths of both the work, and the two spaces in which it hangs.

Shaun (2nd L) & Andrew (R), with Friends

Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions 5' (L) & 'Collected Redactions 6' (R),
Both Acrylic on Canvas, 121 cm X 91 cm, 2020

Whilst both artists continue to plough their own distinct furrows, there are still enough fruitful conversations between each selection to suggest some kind of loose thematic connection.  In this case, that would point towards a shared meditation on the interraction we've all experienced with both trepidatious outdoor spaces and our own constrained interiors, in the time of Covid.  In Sevven's words: 

"We've been forced to reflect upon our relationships with areas and places we've been isolated too and enclosed in and how our methods of communications connect or disconnect." [1.]

Shaun Morris, 'No Particular Place To Go', Oil on Canvas, 50 cm X 60 cm, 2021

Shaun Morris, 'Lock Up' (Top) & 'Lock Up II' (Bottom), Both Oil on Canvas, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2019 

Shaun Morris, 'Lockdown', Oil on Canvas, 75 cm X 50 cm, 2020

In Shaun's case, this knowledge serves to re-frame the palpable melancholy (or indeed, 'displacement'), that has always suffused his nocturnal visions of Birmingham's suburbs and edgelands.  His customary stationary vehicles, architectural corners and street furniture continue to resonate under sombre urban illumination - partially abstracting themselves amidst dramatic patterns of coloured light and deep shadow.  But now they also loom out of the darkness like ghostly presences encountered during our brief, officially-sanctioned exercise sessions.  The tension between restriction and those snatched moments of lonely 'freedom', are now palpable - even in works made long before the pandemic.  Whilst reassessing the past, I was also intrigued to see that Shaun has recently revisited the subject matter of his elevated motorway pieces of a few years ago.  The modestly-scaled motorway painting he now shows ('What Happened to All the Friends We Used to Know') may be less immediately dramatic than previous efforts, but it's a real slow-burner.  Complete with its incongruous ghostly horse, it gradually reveals itself from the prevailing gloom, like something from Sickert.  The painting emphasises just how accomplished Shaun has become at depicting the effects of restricted light and colour at night.

Shaun Morris, 'What Happened To All The Friends We Used To Know', 
Oil on Canvas, 50 cm X 60 cm, 2021

As usual, Andrew's recent output is a rather more oblique and open to multiple potential interpretations.  It's a feature of his work I've always relished - even if he has occasionally joked that he reads my blog posts to find out himself what his work is actually about!  As ever, he now presents work in multiple media, with notable diversions into experimental writing and video.  However, his main contribution to the show is split between painted-over photographs, and somewhat larger, nominally abstract paintings.  The former are, by his own account, grabbed (direct from the screen) from the popular T.V. property show, 'Homes Under The Hammer'.  Knowing Andrew, as I do, there'll be at least some satirical intent there, but in the context of this exhibition, the main effect evoked is one of unsettling enclosure within alienating domestic spaces.  How many people have found their familiar surroundings transformed into psychically overloaded terrain under lockdown conditions - I wonder?  How many were unable to relocate within their preferred time-frame?  How many more found themselves frittering their enforced imprisonment whilst staring blankly at facile T.V. shows?

Andrew Smith, 'Cubist On The Water (Homes Under The Hammer'. Acrylic on Digital Print,
58 cm X 43 cm, 2021

Andrew Smith, 'Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appalling
(Homes Under The Hammer)', Acrylic On Digital Print, 58 cm X 43 cm, 2020

Andrew Smith, 'Landscape With Empty Light Subject (Homes Under The Hammer)',
Acrylic on Digital Print, 58 cm X 43 cm, 2021

Andrew Smith, '...(The Caretaker Edited)', Video, 2020

If the paintings seem a little more straightforwardly formalist at first viewing - they soon prove to be no less layered and mediated in their unfolding.  Their interlocking, flattened shapes and compositional arrangements are assembled from multiple digitally filtered and superimposed photos of scarred and stained exterior walls.  If (like Shaun) Andrew has found himself  focussing on quotidian details in a time of reduced horizons, he's also wasted little time in distilling them into yet-more unfamiliar environments via the expedient of heavy digital intervention.  What really hold these pieces in slightly wonky balance are the occasional (very) vestigial clues to an original subject, and also the the push-pull of small painterly accidents, versus possibly arbitrary decisions made at the keyboard.  Should the colour schemes suggest some degree of more elegant respite in trying times - Andrew himself reminds us they are often the chance result of the mechanical translation from photograph, to digital file, to painted canvas.  Again, we're prompted to question how much of the everyday experience we once took for granted, has been driven yet deeper into the digital domain - or reflected back to us on mis-calibrated screens, in the last eighteen months.  Will that do, Andrew?

T-Street Gallery Windows, Birmingham, July 2021

To conclude, mention should be made of T-Street Gallery itself.  It occupies a modest, but perfectly serviceable space as the adjunct to a long-standing shared studio complex, at the interface between the leisure/cultural hotspots around Broad Street, and the more down-at-heel environs of Ladywood.  In recent decades, many striving artists in search of studio or exhibition space will have become connoisseurs of run-down, post-industrial premises.  Nevertheless, T-Street occupies what must be one of the more dilapidated examples of the breed.  Luckily, I myself find it hard to trust anyone who can't appreciate a proper bit of urban grunge.  The fabric of the building includes numerous fascinating infrastructural clues to its previous incarnations, amongst crumbling masonry  and cracked panes.  Nevertheless, I couldn't help noticing that the somewhat questionable integrity of the roof has been carefully shored-up, immediately above the gallery space, and it's testament to the energy and determination of Sevven Kucuk, that she's been able to carve out such a venture, almost single-handed.  She's also achieved it in the face of pretty limited resources, it would seem.  If our relatively brief conversation is a reliable indication - her motivations seem spot-on, and if any form of grass-roots Art scene is to survive in this country, it will doubtless be through the efforts of such folk.

Vertiginous Post-Industrial Ambience, T-Street Gallery, July 2021

'Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke: 'Displaced', continues at T-Street Gallery, Top Floor, 55 Great Tyndal Street, Birmingham B16 8DR, Until 18 July 2021.

 

[1.]:  Sevven Kucuk, Exhibition Guide Notes, 'Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke, 'Displaced', T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, July 2021.