Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School ) 17'

'Untitled (From The New School) 17', Acrylics & Adhesive Stars on Panel, 
300 mm x 300 mm x 106 mm, 2023

Here’s another recently completed ‘From The New School’ painting. The overall rationale behind this series was explained long ago and can be read elsewhere.  Suffice it to say, each one is intended to reflect some specific aspect of, or set of assumptions about, institutionalised education in visual/stylistic terms. In some cases, the focus has been relatively specific. In others, the themes are possibly a little more more generalised (or just based on my own intuitive responses to another day spent earning a crust on the school premises). Clearly, each one also acts as an opportunity to consciously try my hand at a different aesthetic trope or method of application (even if most revert to some form of hard-edged formalism by default).

 

In this case, the intention was to cheerfully embrace a form of kitsch, 1960s-style Pop naivety, possibly reminiscent of ‘Yellow Submarine’ or George Harrison’s clumsily-painted ‘Rocky’ guitar. Competing colours were juxtaposed on a whim, and masking of straight edges deliberately avoided. Brushwork showed little regard for surface refinement, and the general attitude was one of ‘if in doubt – stick something else in’ (including fluorescents, pearlescents and sparkly stars).

Harder rock sounds and Glam stomping had long since replaced lysergic nursery rhymes in the charts by the time I began my own secondary school career in the mid '70s . However, It's fair to say that some wistful memory of the psychedelic late 60’s (including a degree of vestigial utopianism) still lingered on in diluted form. That all seems a very long time ago, but even now, I  sometimes detect a whiff of incense and peppermints in some of the New-Agey ‘wellness’ agendas that have appeared in education of late, as a constrained attempt at strategic stress-relief. I’m also regularly surprised just how persistently a quaint, untutored primary-school sensibility lingers amongst many of our teenage charges - even as our harassed teachers struggle to instil the principles of colour-theory, composition and ‘The Formal Elements of Art’ in the limited time available to them.

 

Groovy (man)!

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?

'From The New School': Technology In The Classroom [trans_late/trans_scribe]

 

All Images: April 2023

[Reconfigured/Translated Audio Transcription]

1. Connectivity:

• Quickly and easily save your tablets between your device files
• Freely navigate your album with that remote control 
• You can intuitively move around the classroom 
• Platforms work seamlessly with education 
• Access your table content and active content while browsing any clipboard 
• Directly profile content via audio cable

2. Simplicity:

• Activate clipboard 
• Create access for account
• Customise your favourite menus from anywhere with your tools and settings
• Screen your device browsers and save fast

3. Security:

• Google tablet password, QR code, computer resource application, and card injection 
• Keep your private information personal by ensuring security (unless you're easily logged away)
• Updates are uploaded to your remote management with a clipboard 
• Quickly! turn off your clipboard for a while when you need to be off the ground

4. Adaptability:

• Lecture classroom teams
• Share lecture recording and audio recording of secure data with remote students
• White content from any platform for hybrid, blended learning and screen-sharing situations
• 100-watt board only works seamlessly with education platforms

5. Longevity:

• USB-C audio sending recommended
• Supply and delivery of power
• Flexible connectivity options with seven video input and output formats
• Increased visibility from anywhere in the school 
• Increased technical accuracy and palm ring variations 
• 20-point rejection with this palm touch

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.

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.

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 12'

'Untitled (From The New School) 12', Acrylics, Adhesive Tape, Ink & French Polish
On Panel, 30 cm X 30 cm X 10.6 cm, 2017

One of the advantages of my current to-and-fro creative process, is that individual works seem to emerge, almost by surprise.  Such is the case with this - the latest in my 'From The New School' series of paintings.

A lack of overall focus shouldn't really be a recipe for successfully resolved work, but it actually seems to have suited me quite well over recent months.  On reflection, '12' might not be exactly my favourite of the 'FTNS' series, to date - but it does feel reasonably well sorted out, and also pushes the ever-evolving series in yet another direction.

Whilst geometric formality within a standard format is the cornerstone of these paintings, this is one of the looser, grungier members of the family, and is wholly constructed from roughly-painted 'gumstrip' adhesive tape

'Flagging 7', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape, Ink, Spray Enamel & French Polish
On Paper, 45 cm X 60 cm

The seeds of that particular approach lie in 'Flagging 7', from 2017, which is part of another series under the 'This S(c)eptic Isle' banner.  As with that flag-based image, there is, I think - a sense of something lashed together, or even bandaged.  If each of these 'FTNS' panels is intended to invite a new idea about, or interpretation of institutionalised education - I'll leave the viewer to decide what that might in turn imply.

The work on this particular piece was mostly done during lunch breaks, and after hours, 'on the premises', and at least one colleague claims to see the suggestion of a crucifix in it.  She's not religious (to my knowledge), and I'm certainly not - but it does lead me to question whether it's actually possible to employ any kind of cruciform motif, without someone freighting it with unintentional symbolism.

It's not the first time that's happened to me; which in turn makes me wonder if it might not itself trigger another body of investigative imagery, one day...

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 11'

'Untitled (From The New School) 11', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Mixed Media,
30 cm X 30 cm X 10.6 cm, 2019 

January dribbles on in its customary drab manner, and finds me still whittling away at various existing projects in a not especially dynamic manner.  For all that, recent weeks have already seen the arrival of four new instalments in my 'Untitled (From The New School)' series of paintings, with relatively little struggle.  Here is the fifth, most recent member of this new cohort (and the first completed piece of 2019), 'Untitled (From The New School) 11'.
  

To be honest, working on these ideally suits my current situation.  I've been tempted, of late, to reassess the work/art/life balance of my current existence, slightly - whilst also dealing with the fatiguing distraction of my knackered old knees, as they seemingly enter a new phase of painful dysfunctionality.  At such a time, it's useful to be able to dip back into a series like this -  in which the underlying rationale, and even the standardised format were long ago decided.  It's really just a case of intuitively selecting yet another means of depiction/application, and settling into the pleasure of simply getting it done.  

Pretty much everything about this series is self consciously referential of something else pre-existing.  Indeed, as previously explained, its very origin lies in a blatant piece of appropriation, and often, the stylistic variations revealed with each new version feel like deliberately donning a new suit of borrowed clothes.  However, anyone familiar with my own oeuvre may spot that, in this case - I'm mostly borrowing from myself.  The ragged, mixed-media Expressionism (and emblematic palette) of '11' , is clearly lifted from my own 'Flagging' series, exhibited in Nottingham, last year.

Of course, those pieces were part of the completely separate 'This S(c)eptic Isle' project, and were perhaps the least sophisticated manifestation of its implied (and pretty topical) societal angst.  The question here would thus be, what is to be achieved by applying their tropes to a different body of work - one concerned with the nature and functions of formal Education?

Whatever else the viewer might find for themselves, I guess it's impossible not to recognise that the life of a school, and the educational values it may purport to represent, are inescapably subject to wider socio-political contexts.  At certain times, this might appear to operate on the elevated plane of competing philosophical or ideological orthodoxies; at others it may just be a case of crisis management in a period of chaos and decay.  

Might then, the impetuous treatment and implied entropy of '11' reflect the apparent  psychotic fragmentation of a society, in which, seemingly - the centre may no longer hold?  Is the educational edifice here depicted struggling to prevail, and maintain some illusion of a coherent future, amidst all that uncertainty?  Alternatively, might the ill-informed 'democratic' decisions of 'the people' themselves be the result of a seriously compromised, non-analytical education system?  Can the pretence of utilitarianism, and assumptions regarding the status quo - reflected in the educational priorities of recent decades, remain relevant within a system no longer able to supply workable solutions for large portions of the populace?  Or, did I just fancy doing a messy one this time?  I'll leave it for you to decide.