'"I'm Not In Love": Selected Collected Redactions, Paintings By Andrew Smith', At Malvern Library, September 2023 [trans_late/trans_scribe/con_verse/ex_tract]

 

All Images: Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions' Paintings, Malvern Library Gallery,
September 2023

[Reconfigured/Translated Audio Transcript of Exhibition Conversation Extract]:

[It’s The First Shot]: 

I'm starting to show now. It depends on where it is and how strong someone's accent is, yeah? - and if I have a base… or what I'm doing at home. Now, friends - I have a laptop because I don't have TV - so I'm at home watching YouTube on my laptop connected to my stereo. Timmy's little speakers on the laptop are dead, so I plug them into my amp, yeah? - and it runs and runs…

 

[I’m Halfway There]: 

However, because of the good results, I have less control over the bass and treble of the system. You know, it's an old-school hi-fi system… but I have the option to decide how to set it up near and far - this pathetic microphone here, or the speaker… then of course there are all these uncontrollable things - the dialect or accent of the person in the video - the quality of the YouTube video… and the sound and controls on the laptop itself. 

[I End Up With Some Kind Of Subtitle]:

'"I'm Not In Love": Selected Collected Redactions, Paintings By Andrew Smith', continues at: Malvern Library Gallery, Graham Road, Malvern, WR14 2HU, until 28 September 2023

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

Completed Painting: 'Untitled 13 (Constructed City)'

 

'Untitled 13 (Constructed City)', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape, French Polish,
Aerosol Paint & Ballpoint Pen on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2021

I'm not generally in the habit of obliterating finished paintings.  That's certainly not to claim everything is deemed 100% successful (far from it).  However, I'll normally take a piece through as many iterations as seem necessary to resolve it - often setting something aside for a while pending subsequent revisions, or completely abandoning those pieces that just won't work out.  But occasionally, something gets 'released' in a state I subsequently decide I just can't live with.  So it has proved to be with 'Untitled 6 (Constructed City)' - a painting that hung on my wall (somewhat reproachfully) for around three months, but is now effectively deleted.  I wanted to believe I was satisfied with it, but ultimately had to recognise it just wouldn't do.  Actually, I suspect the desire to call something 'finished' simply overtook my better judgement over something that didn't really work.

'Untitled 5 (Constructed City)': No Longer Extant

As a result, I recently decided to revise the painting.  However, my tinkering still failed to deliver the resolution I was seeking.  Instead, a completely new painting on the same panel became the only viable course of action - the result being 'Untitled13' (Constructed City)'.  I'll admit I toyed with the idea of titling this one '6.1' , but as there really is nothing of the original image left, the idea of a new 'remix' doesn't really apply.  Instead, this new image is so obviously the sibling of '11' and '12', that it seems preferable to capitalise on the sense of forward motion, and to simply let '6'  slide as a gap in the sequence.  Which is the least healthy impulse, I wonder - a neurotic desire to tie-up every loose end, or this constant need to show my working?

Of course (current technology being what it is), our footprints are no longer fully erased.  Having once entered the public arena (however obscurely), '6' can continue to haunt this body of work as a digital memory - and to possibly provoke the occasional self indulgent meditation on the tension between the virtual and the 'real'.  I won't pretend I don't enjoy these attempts to apply a kind of digitally-informed sensibility to something as archaic and material as the tradition of painting.

Completed Painting: 'Untitled 12 (Constructed City)'

 

'Untitled 12 (Constructed City)', Acrylics, Screen Print, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape,
Spray Paint, French Polish & Pencil on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2021

Here's my twelfth 'Untitled (Constructed City)' painting.  The deep involvement with all things yellow continues, whilst the greater layered complexity and overlapping meshes of '11', is pushed further still.  Whilst this is largely the result of a more improvisational approach, the digitally pre-determined (and serially recycled) motifs of earlier iterations, still float across the surface.

To my mind, much of the satisfying tension in these images stems from these nominally foreground elements being derived from shards of negative space in the source construction site images.  This feels magnified as the illusion of pictorial space deepens behind them.

Completed Painting: 'Untitled 11 (Constructed City)'

 

'Untitled 11 (Constructed City)', Acrylics, Screen Print, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape,
French Polish, Ink, Spray Paint  & Pencil on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2021

Here's the eleventh 'Constructed City' painting, and the first to be completed in 2021.  Like a lot of other things on here just recently, it's self consciously yellow - with chromatic reference to the saturated and hi-vis primaries often seen on the construction sites that inspire these pieces.

The photographically and digitally-derived motifs floating across the surface are a little sparser this time, whilst the collaged layers of information behind them are far denser and more nuanced than previously.  The balancing of those two tendencies feels like something of a step forward - as does the greater intrusion of overlapping meshes that provide a systematic form of compositional scaffolding.

In keeping with my current habit of having several in progress at once - there's another one, following close behind.  It looks like that will be significantly yellow too.  We'll see...

Completed Painting: 'Untitled 10 (Constructed City)'

 

'Untitled 10 (Constructed City)', Acrylics & French Polish on Panel, 
300 mm x 300 mm, 2020

Here's the second of the small study-paintings, referred to in my previous post.  As I mentioned there, the numbering of these most recent 'Constructed City' paintings is a little out of kilter.  However, it's enough to know that 'Untitled 8, 9 & 10' were all produced pretty much concurrently - with '9' and '10' being initially envisaged as experimental studies - before becoming fully realised little paintings (and ultimately - Christmas presents), in their own right.

There's not much else to relate, really.  You can get the most coherent sense of development of the shared imagery, by back-tracking through my two previous posts, and viewing them in the order: '9', '10', '8'.  That way, you can see how the progressive injection of heightened colour and layered complexity operated upon a simple, largely monochrome prototype.

One last point of possible interest, is that the diagonally inclined geometric motif at the heart of all three of these paintings, was itself recycled, in enlarged form, from the earlier 'Untitled 5' & '6'.  Its translation across multiple platforms (photograph - digital manipulation - painting), and subsequent use, and re-use, are particularly characteristic of my working methods, in recent years.  My fascination with such processes continues unabated, and I suspect they will prevail in my work - for the foreseeable future, at least.

Completed Painting: 'Untitled 9 (Constructed City'

 

'Untitled 9 (Constructed City)', Acrylics & Coloured Pencil on Panel,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2020

It's no accident this little painting bears a striking resemblance to 'Untitled 8'.  It essentially functions as a study  for that, larger painting - along with one other very similar small companion piece.  Indeed, I wasn't necessarily certain this would make it as a finished painting at all, when I started work on it. 

My numbering system becomes somewhat arbitrary here, for whilst all three paintings emerged pretty much concurrently, the two smaller studies were technically completed first.  Nevertheless, they do feel like subsidiaries, and certainly acted as a test-bed for the various techniques and overall approach they all share.  Once certain questions had been answered, and '8' was well under way, it seemed only natural to bring the two studies quickly to some kind of resolution too, as pieces in their own right.

During that process, and given their modest scale, it also occurred to me that the two 'studies' might make suitable Christmas presents for two close friends.  Thus, they were rapidly completed, wrapped, and delivered, as '8' was being completed.  So now it only remains for me to reveal '10'...