Completed Painting: 'Territory [Lateral Flow]'

 

'Territory [Lateral Flow]', Acrylic on Panel, 100 cm x 100 cm, 2022

A recently-completed piece of work.  Here are some points to consider:

• The first piece of physical work after a moderate period of reflection/a reminder of the simple pleasures of 'making'.

• Certain continuities of approach prevail [conscious method/many metres of masking tape deployed].

• 'Pure' painting [physical medium/application].

• A possible portal to subject/sub_ject-ivity [realised within a non-expressionistic mode].

• A tension between [a form of] photo-realism/synthesised abstraction [formal].

• A modest [conscious] expansion in scale.

• Philosophical grounding .

• Cartography re_set.

• New ways to access source imagery [mediation = key].

• Repeated visits in space/time encapsulated [actual/virtual].

• Imagery nested/layers acknowledged/locations pin_pointed [over_lay].

• Site-specificity within the drift.

• Zone of trans_formation.

• Local[e].

• A tangent/side-step/run-off [lateral movement].

• Rhizome junctures [ghost trains/lines of flight].

• Inter_ruptions in the flow [pause for thought].

• Stratified space/vacancies en_closed.

• De/Re_territorialization.

• Change in elevation [implied]: via_duct/cause_way/the ramp.

• Death adjacent [with dignity].

• This is/was the place [time-coded].

"A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines... Every rhizome contains lines of segmentarity according to which it is stratified, territorialized, signified, attributed, etc., as well as lines of deterritorialization down which it constantly flees. There is a rupture in the rhizome whenever segmentary lines explode into a line of flight, but the line of flight is part of the rhizome." [1.]

"The map is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group or social formation. It can be drawn on a wall, conceived as a work of art, constructed as a political action or as a meditation." [2.]

"One of the basic situationist practices in the derive, a technique of rapid passage through various ambiences. Derives involve playful-constructive behaviour and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll... 

"In a derive, one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain, and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a derive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.

"But the derive includes both this letting-go, and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities." [3.]





[1.] & [2.]: Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, 'A Thousand Plateaus' (Trans. Brian Massumi), London/NYC/Dublin, Bloomsbury Academic, 1988/2004

[3.]: Guy Debord, 'Theory of the Derive', (Trans. Ken Knabb) Paris, 'Situationist International #2', 1958