Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 16'

All Images: 'Untitled (From The New School) 16', Card, Texture Paste, Sand, Concrete Effect Paint,
Acrylics, Ink Spray Enamel & Digital Print on Panel, 300 mm x 300 mm x 106 mm, 2023

It's quite a while since I made one of these 'From The New School' paintings, but I still regard the series, and indeed - the overall project to which they relate, as being active. It's certainly one of my more extended endeavours at this stage. However, I remain dependant on employment in the education sector for my daily bread, and so still find myself ruminating on different aspects of that world on a regular basis. The overall rational behind the series can be found elsewhere, so I'll simply direct anyone requiring the back-story here.

Fairly obviously, this particular iteration of an oft-repeated (and originally appropriated) motif relates to the crisis over defective/hazardous concrete construction techniques in British schools, which gained news traction over this summer. Appropriately enough, the media used in this one are the most substantial and textural of the whole series. Collage and mixed-media techniques do  feature in many of it's predecessors - to be sure, but this one is essentially a painted relief as much as it is anything else. 

Having reached No.16 in the run, I'm starting to wonder about the possibility of drawing a line under things at 20. It ought to be possible to come up with four more versions without becoming totally repetitious - I'd have thought. At that point, maybe I could even make some attempt to go properly public with them. It could be genuinely instructive to see the entire series together in one place, after all this time - I suspect. 

An achievable aspiration for 2024, perhaps?